I dont know about that statement of build it break it.
The In game economy is pretty much player run,
however MA does control the Drop rates of items.
One thing i see is a healthy Mining materials market, and that in turn makes crafted weapon markets still have high yet good mark-ups. However the Hunter market. As far as hunter loots go, there is not a healthy market there Low mark ups,
So i seriously blame not MA for losses but other players. If mark ups are good for prices the longer you can play on the same buck. And with weapon costs high (L) btw, and hunter loots low. this is where alot of losses are coming from.
Dont just blame MA for all the problems, now however there may be some issues that MA has with loots. but in a way that should make hunter loots go up in price but they have not, so it is a horrible cycle to enter into.
There is a right answeror many right answers, but many varibles to the problem. you can end up with a better answer if you put in all the varibles. when dealing with economys everything is linked. if they are not linked then it is a poor economy.
EU has a very good economy structure. but if the players cannot link the differnt markets to find how they affect one another then this is where problems can arise.
Take the furnature market. for example. this is for homes right? Well if some one owns 5 homes and does not use 4 of them, that is one home that someone else is not useing, thats 1 person not givin the option to buy furnature. thus the furnature market tanks.
Clothing market? Extreamly high mark ups. sure it takes alot of money to get a good talored clothing. but if it cost too much some people will not buy it. so the tailor would need to resell the item even higher to make up for the loss. the longer the item sits at high mark up the less money is put back to buying more materials to craft new clothing, thus affecting a hunter loot.
The moral of the story is it can be fixed. If i had the RL money to do it i would go on a buying spree and stimulate the economy. but i dont.
but it can be fixed. alot of probems can be.
As far as your movie theater statment. This is entertainment yes, but it is also a real cash economy. MA provides us with the tools, we have to find the oppertunity, you can make money in this game, but in the current market it is getting harder to do so. So fixing the economy should prove to be a lot of fun for me and hopefully a few others. and if for some reason i make money fixing the economy and have fun doing it, kudos to me.