Game Theory: What is a Minecraft Emerald WORTH?

Cut the farmers some slack, it’s hard to pick carrots without hands.

am i the only one feeling like there was a missed joke opportunity about gems being measured in carrats (carrots)?

Elon Musk: goes bankrupt
“How did it happen”
Elon Musk: bought a bell from a villager

I just thought of a few things, you have to consider that those prices are specialized for those specific jobs, that's why some rotten flesh will even get you an emerald in the first place, because its coming from the cleric, in order for it to be truly accurate you'd have to find a trade that almost all villagers have. and now that I think about it the emerald is very close to real world gold, its shiny, its rare, its dense, and its not that useful anywhere else.

*steals villagers crops and sells it back to him*
Me: Stupid villagers
Villager: Hmm (I just made him do 6,5 hours of labor for a green rock)

Matpat: Paper is like what? 2 cents?
Artists: I wish Matpat, I wish.

"Angry mobs aren't knocking on your door every night"
2020: allow me to introduce myself

“You can’t eat them.” Abigail from Stardew Valley would like to challenge that

Honestly I always thought that villagers mined all the emeralds everywhere and that's why their so few of em in caves and why villagers have a ton of em and will basicly give em out for free

Steve: can I get the stew?
Villager: this little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years.

Matpat: *drops sticks on table in jewlery store* , I WANT AN EMERALD NECLACE PLZ
Clerk: umm, sir. Please pay actual USA currency.
Matpat: mmmm, no. 32 sticks is worth an emerald.

My theory (more guess)s that, due to the wide range in prices, the villagers have a culture where it's normal, if not expected, to haggle prices of items.

everyone: ‘emeralds are worthless’
me, saving them up for mending books: ...

“I wonder what the currency is like in the future”
Me: *laughs in toilet paper*

Steve: *Most powerful being*
Wooden door: I cant stop you, but he can.
W O O D E N F E N C E

"these things are called 'precious gem stones' for a reason."
Except, like with diamonds and gold in this game, it seems to be almost freaking everywhere, and with the ancient builders that may have mined them previously, may have actually been devalued.

MatPat at 11:54: Everything is done by hand.
Mumbo Jumbo and Iskall: Allow us to introduce ourselves.

Emeralds in vanilla Minecraft: _weak_
Emeralds in modded Minecraft: *STRONK*

1:50 the baseline price also matters if the villager has been resurrected from a zombie which gives permanent discounts or if the villager has survived through a won pillaged raid which gives temporary discounts. The discount is only as high as the chief bounty is on your head before entering a village. The villager resurrection stacks which means you can let a zombie on hard kill a villager like five times, resurrect them, and now you have 1 emerald per trade. This too stacks with raids

The fact that we don’t know emeralds are actually valuable in Minecraft also relates to many ancient civilizations. You’d trade 2 sheep for 5 bread loaves. In fact, in Ancient Egypt, silver and gold pieces, probably about the size of a quarter or nickel, were used as currency. A nickel made of gold would be worth a fair amount. Not I giant amount but a fair amount today, back then though, it wasn’t.

4:40 “The villager isn’t just paying an emerald for the carrots, he’s paying you an emerald for the carrots plus the labor costs it took to pull them out of the ground”
Yes... labor that I totally did... It’s not like it was your enslaved friends and family doing all the harvesting only to have me steal the crops before they could share them amongst each other. What kind of sick monster would do that?

Everyone: Emeralds are worthless
Me, having a villager trading system for enchanted books:

The emeralds are definitely cut. Their cut is called "emerald" cut. They come out of the ground cut already in the game, but look up gem cuts and you'll see. You could also argue it's the "octagon" cut, but it's more elongated vertically so it looks more like an emerald cut, which I assume they were going for, considering it's an emerald.

I remember when that diamond armour episode came out. To this day whenever I or someone else says, "but I digress," or any similar phrase involving, "digress," I always say, "and I sidequest!" I never knew the guy. I'd only ever just seen his videos but it's still sad that he's dead. Rest in peace Ronnie.

Sonic: THIS EMERALD CAN SAVE THE WORLD!!
villager: how about a piece of bread...

11:54
Matt: “Everything in Minecraft is done by hand”
Mumbo with his auto farms: “Allow me to introduce myself”

At the same time tho, you only need like 3 pieces of paper to write an infinite amount of pages on a book, so emeralds can count as an infinite amount of money

I love how it went from "How much is a Minecraft Emerald Worth?" to the basics of economy being explained.

7:35 Can we just talk about how he straight up mined an emerald with a stone pickaxe probably to tick us off

Mat Pat: frustrated at someone who’s “having trouble” playing a video game, “you know ur good at”
Screen: shows mark on fnaf
SHOTS FIRED MY FRIENDS

"They farm way slower than you do" my ultra high end villiger powered carrot farm tells me a different story LUL

Steve: spends literal gemstones on a world atlas
Cartagropher: you have to draw it yourself

Why doesn't KRplus ask us about satisfaction AFTER we get done watching the video?

1st half of this video: How much does an emerald cost?
2nd half of this video: The tragic lives of villagers

"In Minecraft, everything Is done by hand"
*Laughs In Redstone*

7:50, Steph asks if Mat has seen Ollie, but then where did he get the arm and the leg? His limbs are attached to his body and same goes for steph :|

You could also make the argument that emeralds in their world were so abundant and common that it could be used as a common currency.
Lobsters back in the early 1700s were super plentiful and considered prison food. People thought it was the poor mans food. But now that the lobsters are rare, they become super expensive.

"Mommy, can we have rabbit stew tonight?"
"Nah sweetie, just give me a year or two"

11:51
Excuse me, we’re called bakers! 😂

7:42
An arm a leg and a child
For that you could learn the secrets of alchemy and make your own emeralds
In Full metal alchemist the Elric brothers try to revivr their mother but one of them loses and arm and a leg and the younger brother loses his whole body but they get knowledge from an alchemy god and learn how to do alchemy without transmutation circles
In case someone didn't get it.
Correct any inaccuracies it has been 1 year and a half since my last rewatch

I like to imagine that extreme emerald mining caused the supply to be so large that it devalued the currency, so now it’s a common item that people use like a coin.

13:17 just realised that”s my profile picture..
Edit: how did I get 1K likes in a single check. Also the last time I checked I had 1K now I have 1.1K.. this comment is... OUTTA THIS WORLD!! :D *pun intended*
Anyway thanks guys

This video has taught me more than my economy class has.

14:21 i love the magikarp popping up when he said useless

“It was frustrating- just like watching someone struggling through a game you’re very good at.” *shows markiplier struggling in fnaf*

Matpat: Villagers can’t defend themselves
Nurm: *Sad Villager noises*

13:00 "Angry mobs aren't trying to attack you every night...I hope."
2023: Hold my beers.

Matpat: Everything by hand.
Mumbo Jumbo: What did you sayyyyyy.

When a villager pay you a rock for 6.5 hours of labor
Villager: Stonk

Villagers talking about Steve:
He protecc
He attacc
but most importantly
he sell us sticc bacc

10:13 so let me get this straight, if this was the actual pricing, I have about 100s of millions of dollars just laying around in a chest I have

11:54 "But in minecraft everything is done by hand"
*Laughs in automatic farms*

10:50 “Am I just wrong about this theory? Well no” nice job matpatting yourself on the back there.

Baby villiger: I dont wanna eat rabbit stew!!!
Villager: Jonathon, this took me 8 hours for these 2 bowls of stew so eat it

In economics, giving something value because it has use, beauty, etc… is call intrinsic/extrinsic value. Dollars and other modern currencies called “fiat” currency (Fiat being Latin for “let it be done”) has no such value itself, the only thing giving it value is because it is considered legal tender in its currency zone. In fact, fiat is defined by having no value (as in you can’t eat it or ride it.) Maybe the emerald is the fiat currency of villagers, its price changing from village to village.

14:43 kinda random but i used to walk that same bridge every day to get to high school

The real item worth a lot of money here is the lava that can be used like real life crude oil. And we have a whole dimension filled with it.

Me: **was just watching film theory**
Me: ok I think that’s enough for now, I should move onto-
**Game theory notification**
Me: **_looking around room suspiciously_**

Alternate Title: MatPat explaining how capitalism works while getting insane with Villagers' working hours and wages.

I really enjoyed this video! I liked how it took a nuanced approach that that really does explain the apparent value disparity between items traded by villagers for emeralds. It made me think about it in a way I haven’t thought about it before. It also made me think about rotten flesh. I think paying one emerald for rotten flesh is basically the equivalent of being a Minecraft bounty Hunter. Think about it! The enemy that poses the greatest threat to villagers(aside from players) is the zombie. The difference is, some players don’t hurt villagers, but zombies indiscriminately kill them all and turn them into the undead. The villager is likely willing to pay you a day’s wages for 24 pieces of rotten flesh not because they value the rotten flesh, but because the assumption is that you killed zombies in the surrounding area, thus making it vastly safer for the villagers. It’s actually really brilliant game design when you think about it like that.

Steph: Hey, where’s Ollie?
Mat pat: **Clueless seeming whistling**

16 Minute Video: Came our 4 minutes ago
Commenters: GREAT VIDEO

9:10 The fact that he said that and now we can actually play as Minecraft Steve in smash brothers ultimate is crazy

You didn't mention another problem which currency in Minecraft has - no additional means of payment. In the USA, as you said, you can pay either by dollars or cents, which allows us to measure a commodity's value more adequately. Since there is no such thing as a cent, there is a problem with the adequate measurement of a commodity's value. This problem, in real life, was present mostly in the medieval ages and renaissance and was dealt with by adding secondary currency to pay, or by dividing real coins into pieces. Since it isn't an option in Minecraft, this is hard to tell what's the value of the commodity in the game, because there isn't a currency of less value than a singular emerald.

One simple answer: Inflation
Have you noticed how emeralds became even rarer than diamonds? Yes, you heard it right.
Those Villagers have mined so much emeralds, so much that there are barely any left in this world.
Since they had so many emeralds in hand, emeralds eventually became worthless to them. Try and trade with a villager for 1 day, or 1 week, or 1 month; the villager can keep restocking but they can never run out of emeralds.
Since Villagers can't build anything fancy or shiny with those emeralds, they don't even bother crafting emerald blocks anymore. All those emeralds lying in their storage are basically useless.

MatPat: _does economical study on Minecraft villagers_
Internet: *_You have earned our respect._*

The idea of money in a simplified system like this is in fact to use something pretty but useless for trade. Gold was a currency because it had prestige but nothing else. Perhaps emeralds are prestige in Minecraft.

the funny thing is that if you infect and cure a villager they just sell you diamond armor for 1 emerald, so perhaps you can tell what the price of an emerald using that method

Matpat: you can't eat emeralds
Me: *Is that a challenge*

Calculating the price for an Emerald is as equivalent as calculating Reddit Karma. They're both all over the place

I have an idea for a theory.
What is Blixer/Fresh/The Boss (you also said it was your cat) from JSaB?
A fossil in the new chapter is one of blixer's arms, so are blixers like dinosaurs?

Matpat : Everything in Minecraft is done with hand. Every redstone engineer ever : You sure about that?

Me: So how much is a Minecraft emerald?
Mat Pat: Yes

Me: finds 11 emeralds that took days to find
Villager: The best I can do is 2 dirt blocks

This math reminds me of the duck tails vault. Different measurement all plausible all mind melting. Love it.

I did the math and going based off of gold blocks, Each gold ingot costs approximately $141,298,970.37. Going off of the cleric trade of 3 gold ingots per emerald, one emerald is worth approximately $423,896,910.90 without buffs or debuffs.
This is assuming the gold is pure 24K , if the gold is super low quality, ill use 9K gold as an example, 3 gold ingots or 1 emerald is worth about $158,961,341.59

Matpat: 7:42
Steph: "Have you seen Ollie?"
Gamora: what did it cost?
Matpat: Idk, You Tell Me

Mat: "An arm, a leg, and your firstborn child"
*You don't seem to be missing any limbs... Who. Who have you taking limbs from Mat? Well?!*

Fun fact: in a world with no extreme hills and villagers emeralds are infinite times more rare than normal, this also applies to super flat world with no villagers

what are the player that means of an emerald is trading with villagers or making A full emerald Beacon

SPOILER: One Emerald is approximately one Emerald.

Cashier: That'll be $3.50.
Me: *lifts a melon sized emerald and drops it on the counter while grunting heavily* Keep the change.

no, the real most interesting part of recent Minecraft was when mojang turned netherrack from a cubic meter of dried blood from an infected scab that you pulled on your leg to the not-that-bad looking thing it is now.

I find it funny how after all this in 15 minutes and five seconds, he didn’t ever actually accomplish anything. He didn’t really find out the value of a emerald in Minecraft.

"In Minecraft, everything is done by hand."
*Laughs in Redstone*

The player selling the villager's carrots back to them: This is where the fun begins
The villager getting the carrots without labor: In case you haven't noticed, you've fallen right into my trap

14:20 “It’s unnecessary.”
*shows magikarp*
You killed me with that one.

Would be cool to see some Terraria theories. Even with well known lore there are a lot of things that can be theorized

Next do a theory on what went wrong in the wandering trader's brain to make him think his trades are good

13:47
Villager:*Slips under the door*
*SNEAK 100*

I gotta say, this is a very interesting episode. I have wondered, if I came to a pawn shop with a real minecraft emerald, what is it worth?

I love how mat and steff named there child from a skateboard trick

“ It’s currency I can eat!” 😆😂🤣😆

The rest of the world on Feb 1st: "FOOOOOOTBAAAAAAALL!!!!!!"
Matpat: I wonder what the conversion rate is from emeralds to carrots.

Fun fact: the thing wrong with this theory is that mat pat compares the cost of stuff in their world to the cost of stuff in ours. Paper for example is made by in bulk by machines here, but in Minecraft it seems to be more handmade, increasing the value

Things I learned today about the US: A bread costs 3$ (in Romania it's just 0,33$) and Mega Image is called Food Lion in the US (apparently Romania is the only country where Food Lion is called Mega Image)

Stephanie: where's Ollie?
MatPat: I was a businessman, doing business

Pulled out 1 carrot every 18 minutes without getting fired? We all have that one colleague, right?

i love that the subtitles at 7:58 is "MatPat is thinking about every decision in his entire life...and whistling"

Matpat : everything is done by hand
Me : looking at redstones