Economics of Online Gaming

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday May 18, @08:20AM @ http://SLASHDOT.org
from the something-to-think-about dept.
PGillingwater writes "The Walrus* has a nice article about the economics of on-line gaming communities. Starting with the original 2001 paper which shows that Everquest has a GNP greater than India, Bulgaria and China, and going on to the billionaires of Ultima Online and the Mafia takeover of The Sims. "He began calculating frantically. He gathered data on 616 auctions, observing how much each item sold for in U.S. dollars. When he averaged the results, he was stunned to discover that the EverQuest platinum piece was worth about one cent U.S. — higher than the Japanese yen or the Italian lira. With that information, he could figure out how fast the EverQuest economy was growing. Since players were killing monsters or skinning bunnies every day, they were, in effect, creating wealth. Crunching more numbers, Castronova found that the average player was generating 319 platinum pieces each hour he or she was in the game — the equivalent of $3.42 (U.S.) per hour. "That's higher than the minimum wage in most countries," he marvelled.""
*http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/1929205&tid=1

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something to think about, indeed
fully non-matereal currency at last for real

 

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Wow, I wonder if someday online games will have a government and a constitution?

 

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I think it's a matter of time really
in Neocron we have cop bots which are high rank staff members and impose and ensure the law in the city of Neocron (don't steal, don't kill, don't take out weapons, etc) and ensure public security by killing NPC monsters etc. So there are laws in mmorpg's (even if not "constitutional")
Face of Mankind could turn up with a real player government...

www.neocron.com
www.faceofmankind.com

 

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