Quick poll

[Lance Macisaac]

Soooooo I guess this is turning into the economic version of "One Small Thing"

[Andrew Chillin]

Another Quick Poll:

A) We came to a consensus and the sim is in perfect harmony
B) Lol

B B B B

[Tim Matthews]

I do want to quickly emphasize that I think everyone is VASTLY overestimating how big a potential tithe would be. For a demonstration on how completely unnoticeable it would be, see this post: viewtopic.php?p=405716#p405716

Also, I know it's fun to come on this thread and do your jokes and say "break drama!!" or "when will this thread die" or whatever (so original!), but the discussion so far has actually been cordial and productive, and there's no reason for that to change. I would just request that if you are going to post, try and make it substantive. Thanks!

[Jack Ryder]

I like big purses. I wouldn't mind any kind of fee/any other name with respect to horses/money with tiered system with respect to player levels.

[Tom Lin]

Another alternative is to keep purses as they are and raise the entrance fee for the stakes races. Currently it's 1% so that means that the steward currently has to create 88% of each stakes races prize money. If the entrance fee was 5% then the steward would only be creating 40% new sim bucks. This change could be introduced gradually with a 1% annual increase to see how it goes.

You are basing those on 12 runner fields. There are many small field stakes races.

Perhaps make it 10% then

Unless you are 1st or 2nd it's a losing proposition. Yeah. That's fun.

[Ronnie Dee]

Tim said:

Words are all made up. They can be used to mean different things in different contexts.

Now I understand your arguments!

[Ronnie Dee]

Why do we keep talking about taking money out of the game? I don't see how taking money from new players benefits the game. Veterans who have put in time and effort shouldn't be penalized for being successful either. If I have 20M in the bank it enables me to sit back and relax and enjoy the game whether I'm more casual or more hardcore. Its a luxury my hard work early on affords me now. There are only so many nice shiny things available for purchase anyway because superstar horses don't go up for sale or auction except by the Steward.

The only fair way to take money of the game is to mimic a tax system. So make a tax structure based on purse size or conditions that is independent of horse earnings. Let's not skew the horse earnings and perception of greatness. If a horse wins a $1M race then their earnings should reflect 500k but the take home for the owner can be considerably less. Lets just reduce the take home pay much like a paycheck from your employer.

Maybe all G1 races are taxed 40%
G2 - 37.5%
G3 - 35%
..
..
MSW - 10%
etc.....
new player races can have no taxes or very small percentages.

There can also be a tax structure on Stud fees as well

I share your first paragraph sentiment.

I like your tax system proposal. I suspect if there was a preference poll between your tax proposal versus Tim's tax proposal, your proposal would have significantly more support.

[Tim Matthews]

Tim said:

Words are all made up. They can be used to mean different things in different contexts.

Now I understand your arguments!

Absolutely fascinated to hear your theory of language then. Or you can stay on task and actually respond to what I wrote!

Lets just reduce the take home pay much like a paycheck from your employer.

Maybe all G1 races are taxed 40%
G2 - 37.5%
G3 - 35%
..
..
MSW - 10%
etc.....
new player races can have no taxes or very small percentages.

There can also be a tax structure on Stud fees as well

I share your first paragraph sentiment.

I like your tax system proposal. I suspect if there was a preference poll between your tax proposal versus Tim's tax proposal, your proposal would have significantly more support.

Ryan's proposal, including stud fee tax (not sure why that's involved), seems more convoluted than mine. Also, it's literally another kind of purse cut. Which brings us back to the question at hand: Do we like lower purses or higher purses? At the moment it seems like people enjoy low purses. Which is totally fine!

Why do we keep talking about taking money out of the game?

Because the game administration says it's important to take money out of the game. If you took a drink for every time I've had to say that in this thread, you'd be having a great time!

[Dave Trainer]

Asking if players want higher or lower purses is like asking turkeys if they want Christmas or not. Everyone wants higher purses but that is completely different to your poll. If you had asked that it would probably be 100% in favour of higher. .That would still leave the perceived problem of too much money in the economy and how to take some out.

During the pandemic rl horseracing has cut purses so if the Sim continues to reflect rl purses they should all be cut.

[Tim Matthews]

Asking if players want higher or lower purses is like asking turkeys if they want Christmas or not. Everyone wants higher purses but that is completely different to your poll. If you had asked that it would probably be 100% in favour of higher. That would still leave the perceived problem of too much money in the economy and how to take some out.

It's actually the same question, as I showed earlier. That is the point of my argument. Here's why it's the same question:

This thread assumes that the SIM economy is too big. I am assuming this because a) The Steward has said so, repeatedly, and b) the game is taking action to reduce the size of the economy (purse cuts, raised fees, expensive add-ons, etc). This thread also assumes that we want to solve the problem, and that whichever solution we pick will eventually bring the economy down to an appropriate size.

So, the solution to the problem either will involve purse cuts, or it won't. Hence the two options:

A) Will in involve purse cuts = lower purses.
B) Will not involve purse cuts = higher purses (essentially, restoring the purses to pre-cut levels.)

The solution that doesn't involve purse cuts can involve other things, like extra fees and increased fees. Those types of fees are not my favorite solution, so I didn't include them in the poll. They tend to be annoying to people, and it has been shown in this thread why they are worse for less established players. The solution could also involve optional add-ons, but it should be clear why this cannot be the only part to the solution. None of these things are mutually exclusive, obviously. I also excluded these other options so that the focus could be only on the concept of the tithe.

Some people genuinely want there to be lower purses. That is a valid opinion to have.

And what's interesting is that I can actually make it more extreme. Many players would lose significantly more money through purse cuts than through tithes. Consider a player who runs in a certain amount of races per year, and on average the races she runs are cut by 10%. (Many races have been cut by a lot more, and some players in this thread want to add additional types of cuts.) So she loses about 10% of her purse money. Purses are also her primary source of income, and since she spends money throughout the year (TBS acutions, breeding, other normal expenses, etc), she ends up with a bankroll that is actually a little lower than her race earnings. This is a pretty common phenomenon.

Without the purse cuts, she would have roughly 10% more money. Therefore, purse cuts made her lose about 10% of her bankroll at the end the year. With the tithe, there is no bracket, at least under my proposal, that is at 10%. Therefore, she would lose significantly less money through the tithe.

So then, the question for these people would actually be different: Would you rather have lower purses and less money in your account, or higher purses and more money in your account? Recall that, based on this thread's assumptions, both options would solve the problem that is presented.

During the pandemic rl horseracing has cut purses so if the Sim continues to reflect rl purses they should all be cut.

Purses in the SIM are only loosely based on real life. In my opinion, the game should not follow everything that happens in real life. Also, if we are following real life, then the DWC, pegasus races, and a ton of TR races need to be bumped up significantly.

[Dave Trainer]

As has already been suggested it doesn't have to be one or the other. There are other options.

I get the impression you don't want a discussion, you just want higher purses and a tithe and will keep trotting out the same idea that it has to be either lower purses or a tithe to reinforce your opinion. It doesn't. There are other ways.

Give players more choices what to spend money on, as with FCS, Equiarmor etc. Have more Steward bred auctions. Cut the number of stakes races so players can still run for the high purses but in bigger fields.

Higher purses only means more money in an account if the horses actually get money from the race. A tithe affects everyone including the poor as it would be on either everything in their account or on all money earned not just from Stakes races.

[Gwayne's World]

Gwayne's World wrote 22 hours ago:
Maybe it's time to close this thread before someone slips on a banana peel and hurts themselves?

Tim replied:
Why? It's been totally civil. I'm behaving!

That's what scares me

[Tim Matthews]

As has already been suggested it doesn't have to be one or the other. There are other options.

Yes, and I addressed this in my most recent post, where I acknowledged other avenues of removing game money, and then said this: "None of these things are mutually exclusive, obviously. I also excluded these other options so that the focus could be only on the concept of the tithe."

It IS true that in solving the SIM economy size problem, either purse cuts will happen or they won't. I am making no value judgement at all there. It is a tautology. So, my jumping off point for the thread is this: Purse cuts - do we like them? Some people actually prefer lower purses, and that's fine. BUT, if we decided that we liked higher purses instead, what would make for a good solution does not involve purse cuts?

To me personally, it seems like a good solution would ideally not involve fees, would be as unintrusive and mindless as possible, but most importantly, would be effective. With a perfectly effective solution, you know exactly how much money you're taking out, and it is exactly how much you need to take out. In my view, the tithe is the most effective option available, since you can see the whole size of the economy and adjust rates accordingly.

That's why I created the poll - to pin purse cuts against this one particular proposal. It's a narrow topic by design.

This is not an official poll. This poll will decide exactly nothing in terms of how the game is run. This thread was also not intended to be a brainstorm for other fundraising ideas - hence only the two options. There are plenty of other threads for that, and I would encourage anyone with ideas to go post in them. Some of them are great ideas!

I get the impression you don't want a discussion

What makes you say this? Just because I respond bluntly does not mean it's personal or that I'm not open to discussion. I would love to have my mind changed! But if the arguments against my ideas aren't good enough, well, that's not my fault!

As I said before - it's a hypothetical. Just fleshing out some ideas. Participate or don't, it's all up to you!

A tithe affects everyone including the poor as it would be on either everything in their account or on all money earned not just from Stakes races.

Do purse cuts not affect "the poor?" In fact, in my last post, I demonstrated that in many cases, purse cuts affect the poor significantly more than a tithe would. I'll also point you back to my original proposal, which I recall you supporting: viewtopic.php?p=405716#p405716

[Ronnie Dee]

2 Questions for Tim
If your tax/tithe proposal was actually enacted:
1. How many players do you think would quit?
2. How much revenue do you estimate the Sim ownership team would lose?

[Dave Trainer]

You say purse cuts would affect the poor more than a tithe but that would depend on the parameters, Cuts only to the highest value purses wouldn't affect many of the poor players who would by definition rarely win money in them. If a tithe was a %age of all income this would affect the poorer players more than cutting high value purses.