Castronova
When reading that nearly 1/3 of Norrath’s visitors (approximately 93,000/400,000) spend more time in Norrath than they do working for pay in a typical week, I don’t know yet whether this should sicken me or intrigue me. It scares me that so many individuals spend their time in a virtual world and not in the real world yet at the same time just the fact that Norrath’s GNP exceeds several countries somehow justifies it. “From an economist’s point of view, any distinct territory with a labor force, a gross national product, and a floating exchange rate, has an economy. By this standard, the new virtual worlds are absolutely real”.
Mindark, the private Swedish company, hopes to use avatar-based shopping to build a global network monopoly in internet interface. There certainly is an opportunity here and a potential market. If players spend most of their life in the virtual world, why not make rl shopping available as well? Mindark’s strategy is to allow players using avatars to purchase real life products via a virtual world.
The business success of VWs derives from their ability to attract customers who are willing to pay an ongoing fee to visit the world. The appeal of VWs is the ability for players to begin as equals and have the opportunity to move up in ranks. An avatar’s “social capital” will increase as certain abilities are developed. “The process of developing avatar capital seems to invoke exactly the same risk and reward structures in the brain that are invoked by personal development in real life”. The lure of social status is also combined with the potential for rl profit! “It seems that for the typical Norrathian, avatars constitute a non-trivial stock of wealth”.
“In a2a commerce, avatars on the supply side must constantly shout out what they have, and avatars on the demand side must hear the offer, find the seller, and then haggle over price”. It is said to be too cumbersome. The biots serve two roles in the economy: source important items and buy goods that other avatars may not want. “In this, the merchant biots act effectively as employers, and the pattern of their buy offers set the wage for different activities”. The reason a2a markets persist is because of the scarcity of certain products. “Authorities continue to introduce new items, whose initial scarcity sustains them in the a2a market for a time”.
Dibbell
WoW players need coins “to pay for the virtual gear to fight the monsters to earn the points to reach the next level”. Li, a gold farmer, has been hired to collect these coins. For 100 gold coins, Li is paid 10 yuan/$1.25. His boss will receives $3+ when he sells those coins to an online retailer, who will sell them to the final customer for as much as $20.“ In the past, eBay was a major clearinghouse for commodities from every virtual economy known to gaming, selling virtual items for cash. “Castronova also showed that something curious has happened to the classic economic distinction between play and production: in certain corners of the world, it has melted away. Play has begun to do real work”.
Linden Research
IBM’s virtual space provided a location where employees could go to socialize with others without the inconvenience of physically getting there. Training sessions were made available for beginners. The AoT conference attracted over 200 members globally. Greeters were made available to assist visitors to certain sessions. The total savings was estimated to be over $300K. Even more importantly, workers were able to network and socialize like never before. Waking up the next day after the event, people reported not feeling as if they had attended a webcast or phone conference. It felt as if the event was real.
