Guest: Andrew Wagner, Author of Economics of Online Gaming and Founder of Wagner Road Capital CoHost: Lewis Ward, Research Director @ IDC 🎙 Episode Summary What happens when a high schooler treats an MMORPG like a business case study? Andrew Wagner joins Player Driven to share how his time playing Eternal Lands turned into a crash course in economics, strategy, and systems thinking. From building a ruthless guild to influencing the game's developer roadmap, Andrew didn't just play — he disrupted. We talk about market incentives, reputation management, and the blurry line between capitalism and corruption, both in games and in the real world. If you're building economies, managing communities, or just love a good player-driven story, this one's for you. 🧠 Highlights with Timestamps 2:34 — Learning economics through RuneScape-style gameplay Andrew shares how Eternal Lands introduced him to core economic principles like supply and demand, specialization, and market incentives — all before he took a single college class. 7:59 — Embracing the villain role to change the game Instead of rebuilding his guild's reputation, Andrew leaned into their "bad guy" image, creating a strategy that ignored perception and focused purely on market disruption. 14:16 — How gaming shaped his real-world investment career From managing a guild to managing portfolios, Andrew explains how the lessons from in-game economies now guide how he evaluates companies and competition in the financial world. 30:10 — Building an in-game advisory board of real experts With rocket engineers and bankers in his guild, Andrew leveraged real-world insights to refine his strategy — proving that the best guilds function like startups. 49:50 — When players capture the dev team Andrew recounts how a former guild member joined the dev team and created a secret mine just for them, triggering a real example of regulatory capture inside the game. * Check out Andrews Book: https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Online-Gaming-Introduction-Economic-ebook/dp/B084Z77PSW * Andrews Website: https://www.wagnerroadcm.com/ * Andrews Substack: https://wagnerroadcm.substack.com/ * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atwagner/ 🎧 CTA If you've ever seen the real world reflected in your favorite game, this episode will stick with you. Subscribe to Player Driven and share your favorite lesson learned from gaming.