Total Purses in the SIM

[George Knatz]

but again, you are not buying money for game points, you are buying money for REAL money, youve created money in the game you didnt have by purchasing it at the simstore with real cash.. that ADDS money to the overall money in the game

If you were purchasing SIM cash from the game itself with GPs then yes you would be creating money.

But if you are buying it from another player you are not creating extra money. There is no other way to say this.

[Tammy Stawicki]

but again, you are not buying money for game points, you are buying money for REAL money, youve created money in the game you didnt have by purchasing it at the simstore with real cash.. that ADDS money to the overall money in the game

If you were purchasing SIM cash from the game itself with GPs then yes you would be creating money.

But if you are buying it from another player you are not creating extra money. There is no other way to say this.

I don't know a clearer way than George has used to make it clear that the exchange is not putting any additional sim money into the game but I did want to point out that what it does do is put additional real life money into the game. As people have to buy game points in the first place to sell on the exchange. Which allows us to have nice fancy servers so instead of sitting around waiting for results forever and trying to refresh because you know it will just slow things down but also wanting refresh because you want to see the results we get things pretty much instantaneously.

Another thing I like about the exchange is that it is presumably primarily taking sim money from those that can afford to lose sim money. To me the issue with to much money in the game isn't the overall amount of money but rather the inequalities where you have players with 10s of millions of dollars (myself included) that can buy horses at prices completely disconnected with reality and any hope to get a nice return on investment and other players struggling to make ends meet. The exchange gives richer players something to spend that money on and help redistribute it to those more desperate for cash.

I am sure this was also the logic of the purse cuts (and why they make more sense than an increased day rate that is going to hurt all players regardless of initial wealth). Stakes races were cut so you are affecting players winning the stakes races. And while certainly there is some angst throughout because as mentioned in another thread we don't deal well with change where the most angst is coming from is mixers where the purses were already considerably smaller so there wasn't as much excess wealth and where stallions are just hitting that $350k limit rather than blowing by it like in throughbreds. The latter being more angst producing as we are already kind of in a stallion crisis (though admittedly I think that isn't just an issue of horses not making enough, even the stallions that make enough can't seem to compete with the small number of game created stallions out there and the combination of a very small number of clearly dominant stallions, limits, and the high demand on quarter horses due to crossbreeding is a perfect storm for angst, drama and problems).

I stand by my wealth tax. Just $0.02 on every $1 over $10 million lets say. I personally would have to pay over $200,000 and you know what it would really affect my stable not at all but might overtime get my bankroll back to a more realistic number or get me to a point where I couldn't buy a nice paint for 10x the price I would ever help to earn off it.

[Kent Saunders]

No issue at all with a wealth tax. As long as there is a minimum threshold so Newer/poorer players are not affected

[Art K Stables]

I just want to say I have no issue with real money and game points, I’m saying the economy of the game is not just driven by the purses, and I think I wasn’t completely clear on that of course buying money for gp doesn’t add money at that point, it was added when I purchased the gp, and I’m really not overly concerned about whatever measures are taken, I’ve seen another game where the game economy is so messed up that the purse money became meaningless , don’t want that to happen and the steward had done quite well to keep on top of it

[Glenn Escobar]

Ok just to be clear, the Exchange is a player-funded endeavor, in whole or in part, meaning the cash in it (that you can exchange for GPs or vice versa) was actually procured from the above table of XYZ Billions.

SIM Cash purchased via the Exchange is not purchased out of thin air. It is anonymous, so Player A doesn’t know it’s Player B that she is purchasing from, but she’s purchasing from a player, not from the SIM itself. Then of course the SIM has a 5% transaction fee but that is assessed to the seller in the transaction, if I’m not mistaken.

Now the one exception to all of this is that you can purchase game points from the SIM directly and then via sponsored races, covert them directly into cash purses. THAT method does “create” SIM cash, but then of course you have to run horses to earn said cash, etc.

It’s precisely because GPs only convert into SIM Cash at the will of the players that Created Tracks were an awesome idea, because then the SIM can direct collect about $215 real dollars from whoever creates the track, or from whoever they purchased the GPs from.

[The Admin]

It may be relevant to mention that the exchange actually takes some SIM money out of the SIM. "A 5% exchange fee will be added to the Sim Money that you offer. If you offer to pay $1,000, it will actually cost you $1,050."
This thread has mentioned some of the ways money is created out of thin air, including purses. Another way is new players are given money to start. The daily double and pick 4 and pick 6 bets create money but also take money. When someone wins, the SIM takes a percent of the pot, but if the pot isn't big enough, it throws in money to provide a minimum win amount. And then, the pots are restarted with created money.
Ways that money leaves the game (off the top of my head) are daily horse fees, board fees at game-owned tracks, race entry fees, vet, building farms and farm fees, insurance, buying horses from the Steward and more. Another way money leaves the SIM is when players leave the SIM but usually players that leave don't have very much money.

That is some additional information to add to your discussion if you choose. Thanks for liking the SIM!

[Dave Trainer]

To add to Tammy and others idea about Taxation. The last time I mentioned this I was told I hated rich players.

Taxation is definitely the best way to take money out of the game as it should only affect the players who have plenty of money.

It could be a sliding scale where a low %age is taken off players with more than X million, then a higher %age is taken off those with 2x million.

Another way would be to increase the entry fee for Stakes races to 2% now the prize money for 5th has been upped to 3% of the purse.

[Glenn Escobar]

It may be relevant to mention that the exchange actually takes some SIM money out of the SIM. "A 5% exchange fee will be added to the Sim Money that you offer. If you offer to pay $1,000, it will actually cost you $1,050."
This thread has mentioned some of the ways money is created out of thin air, including purses. Another way is new players are given money to start. The daily double and pick 4 and pick 6 bets create money but also take money. When someone wins, the SIM takes a percent of the pot, but if the pot isn't big enough, it throws in money to provide a minimum win amount. And then, the pots are restarted with created money.
Ways that money leaves the game (off the top of my head) are daily horse fees, board fees at game-owned tracks, race entry fees, vet, building farms and farm fees, insurance, buying horses from the Steward and more. Another way money leaves the SIM is when players leave the SIM but usually players that leave don't have very much money.

That is some additional information to add to your discussion if you choose. Thanks for liking the SIM!

Thanks Admin! I think it's fair to note all of the ways that SIM Cash comes and goes...........still am wondering, and maybe someone said this answer but I just missed it............in all this talk of cutting purses or adding cash or etc., do we know what range of cash in the hands of the players - so total cash in the game I mean - is the target amount? Or maybe there isn't one and/or it fluctuates based on player population?

Because people keep coming up with ideas (like a tax or etc) to extract cash, but I don't think we know as players, other than by way of blind guess, what the in-game cash total is really supposed to look like

[Regina Moore]

The last time I mentioned this I was told I hated rich players.

As one of the wealthiest players in the game, I have always been pro-taxation. I think the main reason for so much hostility about taxation is that few understand the "sliding scale" thing. Most seem to think to think that if you have a lot of money then the SIM is going to take it all (in taxes) to get your balance down to a level of more average players; when, in fact, somebody like me, while paying more taxes than most everyone, would still be left with more money than most everyone -- it just wouldn't be as much money, thereby resulting in overall less money in the game.

[Dave Trainer]

$111,816,519 is the amount the player with the most money in the Sim has. There are at least 4 players with over 80m.

$26,114,975 is the amount in 19th place on the top 50 list.

$12,977,746 is 48th.

Its not the answer to your question but gives you a starting point to see just how much money is at the top end.

[Dave Trainer]

The last time I mentioned this I was told I hated rich players.

As one of the wealthiest players in the game, I have always been pro-taxation. I think the main reason for so much hostility about taxation is that few understand the "sliding scale" thing. Most seem to think to think that if you have a lot of money then the SIM is going to take it all (in taxes) to get your balance down to a level of more average players; when, in fact, somebody like me, while paying more taxes than most everyone, would still be left with more money than most everyone -- it just wouldn't be as much money, thereby resulting in overall less money in the game.

Exactly Regina

[Jo Ferris]

As one of the wealthier players in the game (#48) I'm pro taxation. Let's say it's a 3% tax per year right now I'd pay $389,332, wouldn't hurt my stable at all, but would definitely draw money out of the game.

I'm anti purse cuts to certain breeds strictly because that stallion limit is hard enough to reach as is. Would love to see more graded races or at the very least a lower stallion limit for Paints and Appys as those are the 2 lowest earning breeds. I'd love to see a breakdown per breed for my inner nerd of total purses, but that probably isn't readily available.

[Rochelle Bos]

Maybe they should just cap bank accounts at 25/30/40/50/whatever million. Do you really need more money than that?

[Mr. Lord Rich]

But again the problem also with taxing the rich and not the everyone else is basically telling someone with money that because you did so well and achieved so much in this game, we are going to penalize you.

If there was an annual tax per season of a certain percentage that everyone was taxed equally of that percentage, then I could live with that. A percentage would be fair as the rich would obviously be taxed a greater amount.

But don’t call it a wealth tax. If you are going to tax the rich, you better also be taxing the poor as well.

[Danny Derby]

Maybe people with over $20M should also only get to keep 20% of their horses, with the rest being dispersed to players who need better horses.