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For example, I wish more people who are better at economics than I am could reproduce this type of work but for various virtual economies. The following was taking from an article in Walrus Magazine a while back. I can't find the original article because the link I have is no longer active, but I saved this quote:
"Things got even more interesting when Castronova learned about the "player auctions." Eq2 Platinum players would sometimes tire of the game, and decide to sell off their characters or virtual possessions at an on-line auction site such as eBay. When Castronova checked the auction sites, he saw that a Belt of the Great Turtle or a Robe of Primordial Waters might fetch forty
dollars; powerful characters would go for several hundred or more. And sometimes people would sell off 500,000-fold bags of platinum pieces for as much as $1,000.
As Castronova stared at the auction listings, he recognized with a shock what he was looking at.
It was a form of currency trading. Each item had a value in virtual "platinum pieces"; when it was
sold on eBay, someone was paying cold hard American cash for it. That meant the platinum piece was worth something in real currency. EverQuest's economy actually had real-world value.
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.
Then he performed one final analysis: The Gross National Product of eq2 gold, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be $2,266 U.S. per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia.
It was the seventy-seventh richest country in the world. And it didn't even exist.
Castronova sat back in his chair in his cra***ed home office, and the weird enormity of his findings dawned on him. Many economists define their careers by studying a country. He had discovered one." I consider Castronova's work to be ground breaking, but I am a little perplexed why he hasn't become more involved with Second Life. Are you around Professor Castronova?
The economy of Second Life doesn't need discovering. It was there front and center all along.
In the case of EverQuest, it seems like the economy emerged as a byproduct. Is that true? How is it now? Are there other virtual worlds where the virtual economy is an i***ortant aspect of the "game"? Dmitri, your ideas represent a great start, but in the end, I think to co***are virtual economies, we should start taking the economies seriously. How do you co***are real economies? Perhaps we should just try to co***ute GDP, inflation, une***loyment rate, wages, etc.
Is it farfetched to view Second Life and other virtual worlds with thriving virtual economies as "emerging markets"?
Tags: eq2 plat eq2 gold everquest 2 gold
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"Things got even more interesting when Castronova learned about the "player auctions." Eq2 Platinum players would sometimes tire of the game, and decide to sell off their characters or virtual possessions at an on-line auction site such as eBay. When Castronova checked the auction sites, he saw that a Belt of the Great Turtle or a Robe of Primordial Waters might fetch forty
dollars; powerful characters would go for several hundred or more. And sometimes people would sell off 500,000-fold bags of platinum pieces for as much as $1,000.
As Castronova stared at the auction listings, he recognized with a shock what he was looking at.
It was a form of currency trading. Each item had a value in virtual "platinum pieces"; when it was
sold on eBay, someone was paying cold hard American cash for it. That meant the platinum piece was worth something in real currency. EverQuest's economy actually had real-world value.
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.
Then he performed one final analysis: The Gross National Product of eq2 gold, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be $2,266 U.S. per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia.
It was the seventy-seventh richest country in the world. And it didn't even exist.
Castronova sat back in his chair in his cra***ed home office, and the weird enormity of his findings dawned on him. Many economists define their careers by studying a country. He had discovered one." I consider Castronova's work to be ground breaking, but I am a little perplexed why he hasn't become more involved with Second Life. Are you around Professor Castronova?
The economy of Second Life doesn't need discovering. It was there front and center all along.
In the case of EverQuest, it seems like the economy emerged as a byproduct. Is that true? How is it now? Are there other virtual worlds where the virtual economy is an i***ortant aspect of the "game"? Dmitri, your ideas represent a great start, but in the end, I think to co***are virtual economies, we should start taking the economies seriously. How do you co***are real economies? Perhaps we should just try to co***ute GDP, inflation, une***loyment rate, wages, etc.
Is it farfetched to view Second Life and other virtual worlds with thriving virtual economies as "emerging markets"?
Tags: eq2 plat eq2 gold everquest 2 gold
everquest 2 platinum everquest 2 plat eq2 platinum
