The Auction - A Cop-Out?

Often used in many a design, the auction mechanism has its uses - a balanced approach to turn order, a system allowing for variance in the value of in-game resources or the core mechanism of a trading game. Lately, the auction mechanism has become the gaffer tape of game design; pulling the loose ends into a neat line. But I have to ask, is it necessary to employ an auction mechanism where something else could have done?

Auctions in their basic form are rather time-consuming game elements; players must make a choice to either raise the bid or drop out, the auction continues until only one player remains and if there is enough competition, the usual approach for the individual is to try and get something way below its estimated value - which prolongs the auction. Much better, in my opinion, to assign fixed prices to actions or commodities; and use some other method of distribution.

Sometimes an auction is the best fit; take Goa for instance, where tiles are bought by auction for the first part of every turn. The economy in Goa is a semi-closed one; cash will usually change hands between players, unless players buy their own tiles or take the taxation action (the value of the ducat increasing or decreasing respectively). A fixed price for every tile would probably result in an even distribution of cash amongst players, which just wouldn't leave any room for manoeuvre and zero inflation. The auction, once-around with the auctioneer getting the last option on the sale, works very well in stimulating both.

In some games, the auction is the game itself with everything else being incidental. The best example of this would be Modern Art; it is a game made up of a series of auctions, all of which behave differently in some way. Like Goa, money tends to be exchanged between players, with the in-game circulation (and hence the relative value) changing when players buy whatever they're selling.

In other games, however, the auction sits uncomfortably as a workaround solution for something the designer seemed unable to implement for themselves. Trust me, I'm not saying this like it's a bad thing - but it is not always the most suitable approach; especially where the result of an auction is difficult to introduce any sort of balance into.

A case in point would be the turn order auction in Age of Steam. Don't get me wrong, the game is brilliant, but when the game was reimplemented as Steam and the (Base Game) turn order auction dispensed with, I found it greatly improved. The trouble with these auctions for, say, turn order is that quite frequently another method would have worked  much more effectively. The choice of how the game will work has been passed from designer to player - and the course of the game is decided upon the auction. In Age of Steam, this means the auction winner is usually the player who could best afford to pay; and as a result he would be in an even better position to pay (provided, of course, he knows which special action he ought to be taking).

That is a lot of weight to put on a single game element, and in the case of Steam I think Martin Wallace made the right choice in dispensing with what was an unnecessarily dominant mechanism. I suppose, for me at least, that's the problem I have with the auction as a mechanism; if it isn't properly reined in then it will take over the game.

There's a really fun game from Zoch called Manila; for the most part, it's all about risk and speculation, and I have never played a game where I wasn't having a laugh. However, as a game more than an experience, it's rather below par. At the start of every round, a harbour master is chosen by auction, with the high bidder taking the role. The harbour master has the privilege of deciding which boats will leave with which cargo, thus exerting some influence on which commodities can increase in value. He also has the privilege of being the sole player capable of buying a share. Thus, the game relies heavily on whoever wins the harbour master auction; and if the same player can manage this again and again, they're highly likely to win the game. If I wasn't having so much fun playing, this flaw would be a real issue; it's a poor use of an auction mechanism, but I don't think the auction can ever be described as a quick fix in a game which would attain more balance if every player got to be harbour master at least once.

Perhaps I have nothing to moan about? I mean, I wouldn't consider the auction as overused, and there is enough variety in the auction that I cannot really complain on the grounds of monotony. In fact, when you think about it, a lot of games out there follow a model which is nothing more than an auction in disguise. The Speicherstadt is a case in point - quite a clever case in point as it happens. Players place workers next to actions in a kind of stack or queue; then the player placing first has the option of paying a price for the action based upon the number of "bids" or worker placements. Refusal lowers the price for the next player, with a single remaining worker gaining it for the minimum.

As different as it is, the worker placement in Speicherstadt is still an auction, as much as the fixed price bidding in Amun Re can be described as an auction. But if we take any economic or resource game and break down its elements, it's hard to find something that doesn't resemble an auction in some way, without actually being an auction; so it cannot be that hard to avoid using a straight auction mechanism as a solution. When all is said and done, the auction is a useful means of putting in-game value on something of indeterminate benefit; but if you're going to design a game, I would recommend you consider other options first rather than leaving it to the players to decide. That would be a cop-out.