The Economist on virtual worlds

  12 Responses to “The Economist on virtual worlds”

1. JuJutsu says:

   December 10, 2007 at 11:53 am

   Give Terra Nova time…they WILL be assimilated 😉
2. Len Bullard says:

   December 10, 2007 at 3:15 pm

   “Mr Castronova is aghast. “Monopoly is not a very fun game if I have to pay a tax every time I buy Boardwalk,” he says. South Korea actually imposed such a tax in July.”

   Here’s the fun bit. Wherever someone tries to build a ‘free’ economy, it starts out with the usual cooperators, but then the bad guys move in precisely because the good guys don’t want to ‘control’ it. A good example is the Haight in the 1960s. The Diggers were working it out but basing some of it on heisting if the tales are to be believed. The worst part was the Owsley economy which once it was large enough attracted the attention of the Boys who quickly moved in to take over.

   Now the really serious games begin. Regardless of how the utopians or dystopians look at it, if the virtual worlds and the games worlds are an exchange domain for ANYTHING that can be translated into cash, crime will move in to manage it if no one else does. That is the deep flaw in Rosedale and Castronova’s thinking. They are panglossian and it will bite them sooner or later.

   It’s like talking to Berners-Lee about the semantic web. He doesn’t get it because he doesn’t want to. The web is a long history of denying the obvious bits of human experience in preference to the virtual bits which are ONLY simulations. The real thing is always meatier.

   A “theory” of fun is fine, Raph. But unless you account for the traffic, you don’t build a playground in a war zone.
3. Len Bullard says:

   December 10, 2007 at 3:17 pm

   “Mr Castronova is aghast. “Monopoly is not a very fun game if I have to pay a tax every time I buy Boardwalk,” he says. South Korea actually imposed such a tax in July.”

   Wherever someone tries to build a ‘free’ economy, it starts out with the usual cooperators, but then the bad guys move in precisely because the good guys don’t want to ‘control’ it. A good example is the Haight in the 1960s. The Diggers were working it out but basing some of it on heisting. The Owsley economy once it was large enough attracted the attention of the Boys who moved in to take over by killing the local street dealers.

   Regardless of how the utopians or dystopians look at it, if the virtual worlds and the games worlds are an exchange domain for ANYTHING that can be translated into cash, crime will move in to manage it if no one else does. That is the deep flaw in Rosedale and Castronova’s thinking. They are panglossian and it will bite them sooner or later.

   The web is a long history of denying the obvious bits of human experience.

   A “theory” of fun is fine, Raph. But unless you account for the traffic, you don’t build a playground in a war zone.
4. Melissa Masters says:

   December 11, 2007 at 1:15 pm

   I didn’t see anything in this article that hasn’t been talked about, ad nauseum, for several years now.
5. Morgan Ramsay says:

   December 11, 2007 at 4:18 pm

   I didn’t see anything in this article that hasn’t been talked about, ad nauseum, for several years now.

   …but that’s not the point, is it? Virtual worlds. The Economist.
6. Bret says:

   December 13, 2007 at 10:54 pm

   I think the difference between a game economy and the real one is, when Blizzard asserts that they have a monopoly on force, they really mean it. When ‘crime’ starts cutting into their bottom line (and in most virtual worlds, the EULA says the service provider owns everything), it will be stopped immediately.

   An important corollary to Mr. Castranova’s thinking is, nobody wants to win at Monopoly so badly that they’ll pay $5 USD for one of those orange bills.
7. Len Bullard says:

   December 14, 2007 at 6:15 am

   Actually, they will. It depends on the side bets.

   Castronova is the ultimate ivory tower economist. Games in casino economies aren’t all about the players.
8. Bret says:

   December 14, 2007 at 7:16 am

   Are people betting on in-world events? Assuming that’s Legal, I find that fascinating. Link?
9. Michael Chui says:

   December 14, 2007 at 11:45 am

   But unless you account for the traffic, you don’t build a playground in a war zone.

   Never been to a PTA meeting?

   An important corollary to Mr. Castranova’s thinking is, nobody wants to win at Monopoly so badly that they’ll pay $5 USD for one of those orange bills.

   Well put.
10. Jim says:

    December 16, 2007 at 9:46 am

    Good to see the Economist running another article on virtual worlds.

    It’s also good to see them referencing World of Warcraft for a change… maybe there’s hope they’ll eventually realize where the real subscriber bases are instead of just basing their articles on Linden Labs press releases. (And referencing Sims Online? Where did that come from?)

    Still, I’ve got some misgivings… If the Economist is getting interested (and clued-in) does that mean the virtual frontier is well on its way to closure? Has it been explored, mined out, except for niches? World of Warcraft, for all that it’s a fun game, seems to have set peoples’ expectation of how difficult games “should be” — solo-friendliness, trivial corpse runs, hand-holding questlogs, sparklies over quest items, item upgrade curves so smooth you never have to think about them, etc.

    Is the frontier we all knew and loved already gone?
11. Len Bullard says:

    December 16, 2007 at 12:43 pm

    It’s in a minima. In early emergent systems theory yaks experts once discussed annealing and percolation. In the first model, a system reaches a set of temporary sub-optimum minima as metal does in an annealing process. A good whack to the container restarts the process. Percolation models show that a process can wind around a long time before reaching a goal state but that phase transitions can be sudden and dramatic. Virtual worlds will hit some minima because the first cycle (worlds.com, VRML, active worlds) etc., did pretty much everything. Second Life is that at a larger scale but not many really notable improvements or emergent features. Games may be in a similar funk but I can’t say as I don’t play them.

    But something will come along usually not as a planned feature but as some response to a perceived need. It will meet that need even if barely then someone will apply that to something unexpected and wham!

    Is the frontier gone?

    Has been for almost a decade. What you’ve been witnessing is scale and vastly improved art work.
12. Len Bullard says:

    December 16, 2007 at 12:51 pm

    @Bret: no links. As I said, I don’t play games. But if it follows the model of the nightclub, they will if they don’t already. Possibly there is a new role there for someone with moxie.

    My guess is the side action will emerge as some worlds become a-list worlds and instead of letting everyone in, you see virtual velvet ropes. Games may already be there but virtual worlds aren’t quite yet. The adult worlds will likely get there first as there is an incentive to form longer term closed cliques in those. For games, it would be tournament play that forms like golf Masters leagues. Then the side bets will just be there.

    People WILL pay for Park Place even if it is a rotten walk-up as long as the location is trendy and the market is upscale. Take a look at London real estate.

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