Showdown at Spiral Mountain Posted on Wednesday 20Dec06, at 11:07 pm. After a few more incidents like this, the bartenders in this area learned to recognize and accept Mumbo tokens. Our heroic Shaman is not content to stay in one place for too long, however, and when he moves to a new town in the old West he'll need to reintroduce the local barkeeps to the way he rolls. On a more serious note, I think we're approaching an interesting point as far as the value of currency in games. Spurred by pay-to-play games and microtransaction add-ons (the Oblivion horse debacle, anyone?), it seems the the modern economy is becoming more deeply intertwined with the modern video game. Of course, the most salient example of this mentality can be seen in the MMORPG, but that opens a whole new can of worms that I'd like to save for a later comic (and a later rant). Nonetheless, the MMORPG economy is influencing other, more isolated genres. How soon until you can use Wii points to buy items and upgrade stats? Does this dilute the balance of the game itself? What about in online competitive play? What about -- I'm just tossing around ideas here -- buying guns in Counter-Strike Source actually costs a little bit of money? Combined with the dynamic pricing that was recently introduced, this could add a whole new dimension to the game. Players on a budget can opt for underpowered submachine guns or a pistol, pick up someone's dropped AWP, and sell it back at the going rate for a nice little profit. It would require some tweaking and it's not necessarily a good idea, but it's the way games seem to be heading sometimes. How long until we have an exchange rate, something like "One Mumbo Token = 10 Cents"? Maybe not in the Banjo-Kazooie in the works for the 360, or even any kind of game we already know of, but it's not as unlikely as it sounds. I'd like to apologize for the lateness of today's comic. Hopefully we're back on track now.