Slashdot Mirror
EverQuest and the UN
maddugan writes "NewScientiest.com has a
piece on how EverQuest has spawned an economy with a per-captia income comparable to that of a small country. Mostly from profiteering on eBay. If it was indeed a country, it would rank 77th, just behind Russia." It'll be quite interesting to see
what happens as MMORPGs gain popularity and absorb more and more man hours.
"If it was indeed a country, it would rank 77th, just behind Russia."
Must be about time to invade France then. Seems like everyone else does it.
Virtual world grows real economy
13:30 28 January 02
Will Knight
A computer game played by thousands of enthusiasts over the Internet has spawned an economy with a per-capita income comparable to that of a small country, according to new research by a US economist.
The online fantasy game EverQuest lets players create and control characters - or avatars - within a fantasy world called Norrath. Characters gain skills and possessions that they can then trade with other players using the game's currency of "platinum pieces". However, many EverQuest players have found this process too complicated and have instead opted to sell their assets for real money though trading web sites such as eBay.
Edward Castronova, of the economics department at California State University at Fullerton, studied thousands of EverQuest transactions performed through eBay to determine the real-world economic value generated by the inhabitants of Norrath.
Castronova discovered that Norrath's gross national product per-capita is $2,266. If Norrath was a country, it would be the 77th most wealthy in the world, just behind Russia.
Valuable currency
Castronova also found that Norrath's virtual currency is more valuable in the US than the Yen. And his research shows that EverQuest players earn an average of $3.42 for every hour spent playing the game.
"It's a robust, free-market economy filled with wealthy, hardworking people," Castronova told the online news service CNet . "What you see with EverQuest is that economies happen by themselves. If you get a bunch of people together and they have things they can produce and opportunities to exchange them, you've got the makings of an economic system."
However, he notes that not all the assets are converted into real-world cash.
Future of e-commerce
Castronova says that EverQuest's economy can be studied like any normal economy, even though Norrath is a fantasy world. This is because of the social importance attached to the game by its players.
Castronova believes that virtual worlds like Norrath could eventually become more closely linked with the real world. "Virtual worlds may be the future of e-commerce, and perhaps the internet itself," he says. "Ordinary people, who seem to have become bored and frustrated by ordinary web commerce, engage energetically and enthusiastically in avatar-based online markets."
Launched in 1999 by Sony, EverQuest is one of the largest role playing games on the internet. According to Sony, the game has 400,000 users in total, with up to 60,000 inhabiting the game at any one time.
This is a lot like:1 25 9&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/213
would that be geeks?
Or maybe virgins?
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
And the disturbing thought is, if all of this commerce is going on in a virtual environment, what is the "gold standard" for the monetary unit and how stable is that economy? I'm also curious as to how an "online economy" can function in a complete abscence of necessity. Every item in EQ is essentially a luxury item, there is no food/water/shelter requirement being satisfied.
100 plat for $500! Please to buy horse or uber gear!
Heh. I've got my piece of the pie.
Didn't we just hear about this the other day?
This article references the one we already had about the Norrath Economical Report...
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/213125 9
What about the future of economics?! With the people who are obviously at the top of that field devoting their time to studies such as this, who will there be to tell us when there's a recession on??
ceci n'est pas une sig.
My stepfather-in-law has almost ruined his marriage with this. It's all he does when he isn't at work.
Don't know what can/should be done about it. The question is, who is benefiting from sucking money out of so many people's wallets?
Wow, A game has more money than a country? What a shitty world we live in these days.
Sent from your iPad.
"What you see with EverQuest is that economies happen by themselves. If you get a bunch of people together and they have things they can produce and opportunities to exchange them, you've got the makings of an economic system."
Who would've thunk it? Economies happen where people exchange things. Wow.
but the economy truly is enormous. My ex-roommate played Everquest as a JOB. He made anywhere between $500 to $1,000 per month selling EQ money and items on E-bay. The economy has dropped off somewhat after Sony officially declared selling EQ items through the real world was against their policy; if they catch you now they will ban your account.
This article is quite misleading.
Basically, he calculated the approximate real-world worth of people's items, as sold on eBay, and this figure (GNP of Norrath 77th worldwide) would be correct if everyone sold everything they own on eBay, at these prices.
Quote from the article : However, he notes that not all the assets are converted into real-world cash.
Of course they aren't! If they were, the price for each item would be significantly lower, and the real GNP would be nowhere near what he is quoting. So in reality, if Norrath was a country, the GNP would not be as high as his estimate.
Still an interesting thought though.
This is of course a story written using the data mentioned last week on Slashdot.
For those of you looking for a fun Online RPG, check out Wyvern. It's written in Python and Jython. I'm not sure if the engine code is open source, but the author funds the server himself and only asks for contributions if you can spare them. If you know Jython, you can become a wizard and write your own additions to the game (new maps, towns, monsters, items, etc.).
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
The full research paper on this can be found here
I tried to post this article last week but it seems like I did something wrong because it got rejected.
well, for all the .coms that went under, and all the megalith corporations trying to figure out how to earn money on the web, here's a clue for you.
... it just keeps going and going.
... this is how to make the net work for everyone.
1. make an awesome game.
2. charge a small tax for selling items offline/online.
3. release expansion packs/upgrades often and regularly.
funny how I never noticed it before. I've spent quite a bit of money on Blizzard and The Sims over the past year because the games are so good. And once you're hooked on the multiplayer aspect, heck
Forget "kozmo.com"
So when are we going to be able to exchange platinum pieces in bureaux de change? And has anyone got a page showing the currency against the dollar/Euro?
But the idea of these virtual economies is quite interesting. How about using them to experiment with possible economic models? Why not set up a modern-day game with different shards representing economic models and see which one works best? The US government or the EU could fund it. Players could play for free and the government could see how they'd react to e.g. different interest rates.
OK, it's a bit stupid, but it would be a cool experiment.
Sure, shelter is taken care of (Everyone carries a large tent it seems)..
But without food and water, our mana and hp regeneration goes to hell!
Plus we've had shortages! I remember when the plague god invaded the Plains of Karana! You couldn't find bread anywhere! Horrible! There were evil venture capitalists stockpiling and selling bread to poor bakers!
I've always wondered why somthing like this never happed with Pokemon. There we are talking about a BIG user base!
Is that they have not yet reasoned out a way to take a cut of that translation from EQ money to real world money. It looks like the Entropia project aims to correct that oversight, albeit in a very "diminishing returns (as in crack addiction)" manner.
Due to EQ's semi-national power and status, they have come under the scope of the Taliban. The Taliban have planned an invasion, complete with dressing all buxom she-elves in burqas, crashing 747s into Luclin, all the while shouting "Allah to Zone!"
--Chag
What I'm wondering is whether a "real world" economy and a virtual economy are strongly coupled. So, if the virtual economy collapsed, would it affect GDP of real countries? In this case, no, because the amounts we're talking about are tiny. But if the "Entropia" project mentioned towards the end of the report were to succeed in its aims, perhaps it would.
:)
Would economic trends in the real world influence the virtual one? In this case yes, to some degree; if people can't pay their subscriptions, they can't exist in the virtual world and production will fall. Consider this quote:
> It is important to stress that the external
> market for Norrathian goods is
> underground. Sony has stated that Norrathian
> items are its intellectual property
> (Sandoval, 2001). Trading these items for US
> currency is considered theft. Nonetheless,
> trade goes on.
Scary, no? Enforcing such a law would be equivalent to forcing the devaluation of the virtual currency. So, the virtual world economy would continue to function, but with its ties to the real world (partially) severed.
Does that bode well for Entropia? If the virtual items and currencies are the (intellectual) property of one individual, or corporation, or government, then can virtual economies be any use at all?
Or, to turn that on its head, can EverQuest be used as a model for the distribution of intellectual assets in the real world?
Having read that last sentence, I'm sure I've had too much coffee.
typedef ashes (*life)(ashes);
It said the average income was 2200? I got 500 for my account with a 56 and a 54, oh well.
I think the "study" was wrong. The researcher probably looked at what everyone in EQ had and not just the ones that were involved with ebay. If everyone in EQ was selling, prices would be much lower I believe.
This indicates just how wealthy we are in the United States, that our play money has real worth.
It said that the platinum piece is on par with the Yen or Ruble, about one U.S. penny.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
That story have already been posted on Thursday January 24, @08:31AM...
What's this "Sweden" you speak of?
Most of the players aren't trading/selling players and therefore aren't earning money from the game. The small percentage that IS making the money is making a LOT of money from it apparently to average out to around $2000 a year.
However, in any economy, per capita INCOME is not the only figure you have to take into consideration. You need to understand that while some people earn money from the selling of accounts, others have to purchase those accounts and unless they purchased the account with money made from trading accounts, then you don't have a closed economy.
To be considered a true economy, there must be a way for Everquest to actually GENERATE wealth. It needs to create something such that the value of the products and services it offers grows completely from within its own environment.
Players (your workers, if you will) need to accomplish something by their gameplay that increases the overall wealth of the system such that the lifestyle of the players improves. However, the best Everquest can be attributed to is the art industry. People buy and sell art, but art alone can't sustain an economy, unless you have a country that only produces art and external counties provide all other basic resources in exchange for the art.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
An interesting question would be how has the introduction of horses affected the economy.
For those that don't know, the latest upgrade (Shadows of Luclin) introduced horses to the game. You can buy a horse which lets you travel fasters. (And look cool).
The thing is, they are *very* expensive. The cheapest one is about 10000 platium for a slow horse going up to well over 100,000platinum for a fast one.
Even the cheapest one is more than the vast majority of players can afford and the expensive ones only a few people can affort at the moment.
I'd be interested to see how this affects the economy.
Obviously it's a huge money sink, which should reduce the prices of things. (If people have spent all their money, they won't pay so much when they want to buy things)
But also, it means that many people have got all the old junk they had in the bank and started selling it. So does this reduce prices as there are more for sale, and people want whatever they can get, or does it increase prices because people want the money to buy a horse and so are unwilling to part with items for a bargain price.
It's interesting. But I have no answers.
Since when was Russia a small country?
"For today's financial headlines I'll turn it over to Jack Wasco."
"Thanks Jane. Today Subatomic Industries dropped another 5 points as rumors spread of President Farnsworth's influentce in fixing character stats for his son and abuse of power by using the Department of Justice to censor internet chatrooms where fullscale flamewars abound on the matter. The Whitehouse had no comment, but the House Justice Committee and Senate Committee on International RPG's have announced they are launching full scale an investigation.
Blue Ice was up on the NASDAQ for the 3rd day in a row, after their successful rollout of AlwaysWinter, which continues to draw members away from struggling Sirius Synergetics, which has been plagued with internet lag..."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-motardo
Perhaps its because I dont play Everyquest regularly, but I really *dont get* how the EverQuest universe has a deflation rate of like 30% annually...
I mean, theoretically, as more people play and level up characters, wouldnt that increase the general money supply, thereby causing *inflation*?
Plus, from the macroeconomics courses I have taken it seems like deflationis really hard to pull off, and requires people not to be buying stuff and a *loss* of overall money as compared to overall goods/items.
Maybe deflation is possible if less and less people are playing everquest (less *active* money available, therefore prices go down) but from talking to my evercrack addicted friends it sure doesnt seem this way...
typo? or more explanation?
Call me anal retentive, but "per-captia income comparable to that of a small country"?
...
Heck - I've got a per-capita income comparable to a small country: my income devided by one.
Well, I guess it is "New Scientist", and not "New Economist", but still...
Gross income? Net income? Anything
yes, we have no bananas
If the amounts discussed were equivalent to a small countries GDP then they might mean something but a per capita number is not a relevant metric in this context...
I can't wait for this one: ChipNDales
Imagine making enough money selling cd's of porn pictures stolen from the newsgroups to fund a country.
If Russians had more disposable income, they could buy Everquest assets, then Everquest's "economy" would become greater than Russia's. No wait ...
Since Ebay stopped Everquest auctions a while ago under preasure from Sony Playerauctions.com is the main site for Everquest auctions and has been for a while.
You can usually just a search for your server name or use their catagories. Doing a search for "prexus" as an example will show all the auctions on that server.
It is interesting to note that eBay isn't even the main auction site for this stuff anymore... www.playerauctions.com came up when eBay gave in to bullying legal letters from Sony. Sony's EULA states that you can't sell their virtual items...
Would be interesting to see how much they could profit by removing this policy and selling items/platinum themselves.
----------
while (alive) { Work(); PayTaxes(); Eat(); Sleep(); }
Bool
There are three sorts of lies.
Lies...
Damn Lies...
And Statistics...
There actually was (is?) a support group somewhere about EverQuest addiction, where people post their stories about how they were addicted and how they got out of it to save their marriage.
They have also gone so far as to attempt a class action lawsuit against Verant, much like the one that was (is?) being attempted against tobacco industries. They say that Verant is profiting off of the addiction of others, and should pay the consequences.
They also threatened to protest at an EverQuest Fan Faire, and hand out flyers about how evil EQ was. They never showed up, but there was security looking for them anyway to keep them off of the premesis.
Personally, I feel that the point of a game is to get you hooked, Verant seems to have done a great job of that...Almost too great.
In a sci-fi novel I read a few years ago the author predicted that one day MMORPG:s would be free for the users (no monthly fee), instead earning cash for their makers by letting them sell the stories that the players generated by walking around, killing dragons etc as phantasy novels. But this seems to be a lot more of an interesting (and of course real) trend. Perhaps soon games will appear around a marketing idea solely based on the game house selling equipment and stuff to the users. There are apparently a market for it...
(Perhaps are there already such games? I have a vivid memory of something similar)
That would definately be cool, especially since paying $20 or so per month is at least something that makes me think twice about getting into MMORPG:ing.
"Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand..." - James Randi
[Month 1]
Sure Johnnie, we can go pick up your copy of EQ after you clean your room...
[Month 2]
Johnnie, get off the Internet...I'm trying to phone your Aunt Bertha!
[Month 3]
Dinner time! Where is that blasted kid!??!
[Month 4]
Is that a new gameboy game? I see your paper route is finally starting to pay off..Or at least it's keeping you off that computer, we should have never got that high speed access
[Month 5]
What is this XBox thingie?
[Month 6]
Your teacher called...She asked for something called "Mythril Armor +4"..Crazy teachers
[Month 7]
Ok honey, this is getting a bit nuts...but we have to get you your own mailbox
[Month 8]
A new car? Just for US!? Thank you Johnnie! Don't worry about cleaning your room for a whole month!
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Snowcrash?
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
NewScientiest.com
Sigh. Time to start that PayPal "Send CmdrTaco to Remedial English/Spelling school" fund again.
Dude? When are you going to realize that you smack your credibility regularly when you do these kinds of things? And as a major figure of Slashdot, you do that to the credibility of the whole community?
We all are human and make mistakes but a CmdrTaco posted article that doesn't have some sort of obvious English/spelling errors would be out of character.
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
Must be about time to invade France then.
Don't see the point. All they really have now is rude waiters, and there are plenty of those at the local Denny's.
From the article:
* GNP per capita = $2,266
* Population = 400,000
* Concurrent online population = 60,000
Doesn't that put the GNP at either $906.4 million or $135.96 million?
I'm not an economist, so how does this compare with OECD figures that I've seen that puts countries like Britain and France (4th and 5th largest economies in the world) with GDP just over $1,400 million? And BTW, can anybody explain what the difference is between GNP and GDP, with respect to these circumstances?
The really sick thing is that someone sat down and studied this.
:) Seriously, I thought it was 'news for nerds' not loosers.
I know it's interesting, but it's still just a game. I know that many people are making a fortune on ebay[tm, copyright, patent pending, rsvp, etc]but why further it?
So we all sit down and compare a FAKE world to the real thing. A buddhist would be appalled at not only your clouded mind, but that you blow more smoke into it.
IT IS A GAME!
Now if we were talking RA2... that would be a different story.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Jerry Pournelle mentioned it last week (thursday if I recall
Coupled with the Mandrake 8.2 (mentioned on ntcompatible.com yesterday)
Boy are you slipping
between the real and virtual. Actually, it is all virtual now. There is an interesting article in the months edition of Harpers magazine by Jean Baudrillard regarding terrorism and the society of the spectacle. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and it feels like I am dreaming. I love online worlds but sometime they contribute too much to the thought that the world is a game.
There is something very wrong with this article's argument. In a real economy, there is production and the produced items are exchanged -- money is just a means of making transactions more efficient. Economists do not deal in terms of dollars but in terms of equivalent tangable goods. In the case of EverQuest there is no production and no infrastructure. Money is simply being transfered between other economies where that money was earned by the production of real goods. Thus calculating dolars spent in transactions relating to EverQuest in order to rank it's "economy" is meaningless. You can't rank the economy b/c there is no economy.
BTW when I say "goods" I mean goods or services or anything usefull for that matter. A programer or movie actor is producing goods just like a factory worker is. The point is that something is getting done.
see topic. p.s. - get a job.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Russia is ranked at number 17 according to the world bank
Number 77 is Lithuania, and you thought newscientist knows what they are talking about.
kawai
that I could defect from the US and become a citizen of Everquest?
This seems like a good way to get around the DMCA...
:)
Let's get with it, reporters.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Any reason why selling items on eBay that are obtained by hacking the game would be illegal? What if a EverQuest coder wrote in an easter egg for certain items then sold them? Is that 'insider trading'?
they had resources that respawned daily, too? No more stripmining/deforestation/wildlife preservation, just set a comrade down at the ol' spawn site and wait.
But, at least Russia doesn't have undead. Well, ok, they have muslim separatists, but nobody's perfect.
If you take the hobbies of rich people (and folks, most people posting on this site are generally rich by world standards), you can get a high "per-capita" economy for just about anything. Like:
Economy of California
Economy of luxury goods.
Economy of oversized boats and cars
Trouble is, it's all double counting. Those people's incomes are already counted as part of the US GDP. You don't get to count them again.
As humanity progresses, new layers are added. Each new layer relies on layers below and will run at a higher level of effeciency (i.e. value creation) than thos below.
What we have in this case is an economy which is based on intellectual interactions. People work in the corporate world (service layer on processing layer on manufacturing layer on farming layer) in order to make enough energy to interact on this new plane. It is not the first attempt to build up a new layer of value creation, nor the last.
Everquest is limited by the rules governing it; it will remain on the fringes. Not enough value can be created to liberate this mechanism and let it take over the entire economy as a primary layer (on par with the processing or manufacturing or service economies). It is not flexible eough. I am sure one which is flexible enough will emerge (the web is one very large example).
The same works in ecosystems in which a predator eats grazing animals, which in turn eat vegetation, which in turn eat sunlight and bacteria-processes nutrients.
One particular predator started thinking about some things and a whole new game of layers got started. He started building farms and powered up enough value to support an entire lattice. It really accelerated once combustion engines started getting built.
The real question is: what is the next layer that will feed on the emerging intellectual economy layer?
Many might
The "research" paper this article is based on has been earning some decent discussion in EQ communities the past week or so. In the ones I participate in, some interesting discredits came to light:
1) The survey was self-selecting. Hardly a valid research tool.
2) Poorly worded survey questions. They were geared towards provoking a specific response.
3) Time. This person played the game for an immensely short amount of time. People have been playing this game for two YEARS. The researcher put in around a week.
There's more, like how his favorite city was Qeynos (definetly not a place anyone sticks around to enjoy, Qeynos is at the butt end of Norrath), but you get the point.
I find it appalling that a "reputable" source like new scientist is actually giving this guy's poor research this kind of air time.
Move all Everquest players in the world to some empty huge tract of land in Europe, increase the capacity of the servers, and make it their jobs to play. You could base a real economy off of virtual items if you kept them isolated from the rest of the world.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
No serving food, no dealing with customers, no cleaning. Just playing computer all day.
I'm sure that there are plenty of people who would rather spend 14 hours/day playing Everyquest than work 8 hours per day at McDonalds or something. And if you focused on the most profitable items, you could probably make more.
And what if the server crashes? Can you sue Sony for lost wages?
Muerte
Who modded this up?
It is redundant from just 9 posts above, you stupid ass moderators...
Why not create a game where you buy/sell stuff?
The game company could charge a "tax" on everything sold, and you could only sell online via a ingame e-bay, and pay online via a ingame paypal clone.
Make XP worth money, so you could buy XP (at small ammounts), and put in restrictions to keep the game flowing and stop player killers who have everything.
The company should be more like the Ferengi on Star Trek!
As interesting as the talk about the economy of Norrath is, I'm more intrigued by what drives that economy. As a former EQer (although never an addict, per say) and the son of an avid EQ addict, my observations are that the thing that drives the economy of EQ is one of the same things that drives the "luxury" economy of the real world: status.
From a somewhat psychological view, one could argue that one of the primary addictive qualities about EQ is that it allows the player to be represented in a grand, heroic fashion. All the guys are buff and appear strong, all the girls look like a cross between Xena and two coconuts. Riches and adventure are somewhat easy to come by, given that you spend enough time playing the game, so the opportunity to escape one's mundane and unaccomplished life is ample. Given that the rest of the game's world is populated by the avatars of living, breathing human beings, it becomes more than a simple diversion to establish oneself in the society...it becomes a major ambition, just like our normal lives.
Enter the interaction between our real world and Norrath. It is difficult for someone of average income to buy great status. Luxury cars, large homes on prime property...all these things cost tremendous amounts of money. And since most of us did not win the genetic lottery, our appearance will not gain us said status, either (hence, only a tiny portion of the population are models). With the EQ universe, the dynamic is changed. For a mere $100, large sums of game money can be purchased. For your real-world American dollars, you can purchase the most powerful, greatest status symbols of the game. You can walk through the game world boldy, showing off your prized status symbols to other players just as wealthy Americans enjoy going for a drive in their shiny Mercedes.
The ability to re-invent yourself is a major selling point for what is otherwise a chat window with a game around it. Verant, as a business, was very wise to include hard-to-find, rare items that would confer "great champion" status to their owners. It is the same behavior we see in our society, it's just more affordable for the average person.
My sigs always suck.
ha ha
-- Hexadecimal.
"If you didn't enoy her works, you are a complete moron."
Without that sentence your post would have been off topic, but worthwhile.
As it is, it's off topic and utterly stupid.
At the risk of sounding like Katz, this phenomenon is just an outgrowth of meatworld issues. For instance, one of the best tulip-bulb markets of the 90s was the mass insanity known as early edition Magic the Gathering, followed by Pokemon. A small nation's economy was generated by the sales and trading activity spawned by those games.
Witness also the huge amount of activity based on the rotisserie/player franchise sports leagues.
EQ is just the graphic MUD equivalent of all that. Keep yer pants on, this is nothing new.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
Norrath hardly seems like a laissez faire environment. Overlording GM's are constantly banning or devalueing items. Also last time I checked, you are not allowed to sell equipment on ebay or your account can be canceled.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule. -Randal, Clerks
a lot of people seem to be having problems with the basic economics stuff here.
what is being produced - loot and characters, I know it's no more tangible than software but it is still being produced
what else is being produced - money, I'm guessing about how everquest works but it seems that unlike the real world money does grow on trees or rather on monsters.
so we have a rapid influx of money why isn't there inflation? simple the loot is comming in faster.
what is gnp? simple its the total value of the loot produced each year.
how do we express this in us$? we need an exchange rate hence the intrest in stuff being sold on the web.
Basically everyone is a Master Thespian, with all the overdrama of the old SNL skit with John Lovitz. Except of course, for those rogue people who have reached the 'i-don't-really-give-a-damn-anymore' stage and terrorize the stuffed shirts and newbies alike. Just like IRL, sh_t happens.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
mmethinks this is the person who posted the previous comment, and is bitter hes not getting modpoints
kudos moderators
at least this comment had a href tag
I am not an anti-EQ nazi or anything...I like computer games, and while EQ isn't my cup of tea, I have friends who like it.
But this is out of control. 77th richest country! If people used all that wasted time, the United States (which is the principle players of EQ) we would have the combined economys of us and Russia (?!)
I think just MAYBE this whole thing has gotten out of control.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I'm not a business major, but wouldn't that 500:1 ratio steadily increase assuming if people attempted to sell?
In a game, you spend more money then you get back.
In a business, you get more back then you spend.
It's only a game if you're losing money.
Now there's a thought.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
A friend of mine makes $1200 per month buying and reselling UO characters and items on ebay, and has been doing it for over a year. Considering the amount of work involved, ie 5-10 hours of gameplay a week and maybe 40 minutes a day doing ebay auctions, it seems like a great job. Hey, with Neverwinter Nights coming out [[shortly]], perhaps a change of employment is in order . . .
Fuyu - Always Winter
For example, GDP per capita of Switzerland is ~$30,000. GDP per capita of China is less then $1000.
> Castronova says that EverQuest's economy can be studied like any normal economy, even though Norrath is a fantasy world. This is because of the social importance attached to the game by its players.
Castronova believes that virtual worlds like Norrath could eventually become more closely linked with the real world. "Virtual worlds may be the future of e-commerce, and perhaps the internet itself," he says. "Ordinary people, who seem to have become bored and frustrated by ordinary web commerce, engage energetically and enthusiastically in avatar-based online markets."
Jesus christ. I feel sick to my stomach. Can be studied like a normal economy? Hello? Can we start killing off the players when they run out of virtual water and food? Can we cut a few of their virtual legs off and then tell them they cant play the part in EQ that they want to?
I mean, does anyone actually believe this? Are we all so wealthy that we can't understand the significance of scarcity, poverty, inequality, yadda yadda in the (earth to Castronova) real world? The idea that when you can't get your next meal, you're unlikely to be fit enough to run the capitast race?
"Old man yells at systemd"
Maybe the poorer countries, such as Russia, should implement state run Virtual Worlds, and set aside a certain amount of the tradeables to sell on ebay to subsidize their other programs.
I keep thinking about it, why not? That would be a great way to gain market share of the wests minds, without having to go through the Censored News Networks.
Keep in mind that this is not insinuating that EQ is more valuable than a country, or more viable.
EQ has a virtual economy, we can agree on that.
A fraction of players buy/sell virtual items/money for real world money.
This is wta they base the per-capita income on.
The fact is, if everyone in the game started selling things IRL, the value would probably drop to zero.
It's similar, in a way, to large shareholders of companies. Like.. say, Gates.
You have a value on paper, but you can't just sell it all and get cash.
Why is there no "Whiney Scorned Karma Whore" option for moderation? The reason this got modded up and d00d's post didn't is because this individual actually knew how to make a hyperlink.
If the company who is in charge of the game actually treated virtual items as real assets, they could get into trouble. Suppose someone trips over the power cord, lets in a destructive virus, makes a programming mistake somewhere in the mudlib, or something else, which causes some virtual items (which some player owns), XPs, platinum pieces, entire characters, etc to be lost?
You know that there should be someone demanding that the virtual losses be restored, and would sue if it didn't happen. There would also be fraudsters who could demand fake losses restored, etc.
Considering the (lack of) reliability of modern computers and the people who operate them, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone's virtual assets.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The article didn't mention anything about the cost to actually play the game. Surely its not possible for the typical gamer to play the game for free, is it? Even if you crank out your $3/hr, it's costing you more to play the game (Game+ISP at least) than you're making, isn't it?
Pleasure doesn't necessarily translate to wealth. I like to sing in the shower. My singing, though it gives me pleasure, generates no wealth in any commonly understood sense.
The only pleasure I can see attaching to the item (as opposed to that derived from the gameplay involved in acquiring it, which can't be given away or sold) is that of munchkinism, the idea that an RPG is more fun when your character has a +2 sword rather than a +1. (I don't understand it, but I'm not going to deny its existence.) This needs to be distinguished from both the pleasure derived from creating the item and the impact of the creation on the gameworld economy in any economic analysis.
A lot of the comments nitpick details about the economic representation of EQ. As everyone here knows, statistics can be manipulated to show whatever you want. I think the important fact to come out of this article is just what we already know. EQ wastes a lot of time.
Remember, however, that money is an abstraction of value, traditionally the value that was built on the backs of laborers... if people are willing to pay for EQ items, then playing EQ is a valid job. It contributes to the GNP and therefore helps the economy.
The problem with economic indexes is that they really only measure the amount of money changing hands, but does that translate into quality of life? That is the assumption that many capitalists and economists make, but I submit that as we move into an increasingly abundant era, traditional economic indexes become more and more meaningless. I believe earning more money is only the best use of your time up to a modest income level ($30-$60k). After that non-GNP adding activities like spiritual/religious exploration, volunteer work, mentoring, open-source hacking, etc. will not only satisfy an individual more, but may also contribute more to society.
So, to tie up this massive ideology that I've strewn about, my point is that EQ should not be judged by the cash sales it generates, but by the amount of happiness.
Personally I feel that most computer game playing is pure escapism and thus not worth much even to the people who play it, but that's another argument for another day.
I'd often wondered why the makers of these MMORPEGS, seem obsessed with "nerfing" (removing or disabling) any techniques involving skill, in favor of mindless, repetitive actions. The above link made it clear. The research is questionable, but to this long-time player it rings true.
The State of CA has a GNP equivalent to the 7th or 8th largest economy in the world.
If the US were somehow to lose CA it would lose about 40% of GNP.
High-tech nations have higher GNP/GDP because money changes hands. If everyone fixes their own car, GNP suffers. If everyone pays $60/hr to have the car fixed, GNP grows. Imagine a home where gourmet meals are home-cooked "from scratch" every day, vs a home where everybody eats at McDonalds. The McDonalds home has a higher GDP.
dude, that was a good post. thanx for the laugh
Wow! How do I move to Norrath? Is that in europe?
Bill Gates is the eqivalent of a medium sized country too.
One interesting thing about the Norrath economy is the low GNU (Gross National Unix) of Norrath, when one looks at the number of clients in the game and the number written for UNIX (0) it is impossible to not come to the conclusion that has Norrath has the lowest GNU in the world. In further notes, Bill Gates announced plans to buy Norrath outright, renaming in MS World v1.0.
Egypt has had an economy for around 6,000 years, continous and recorded. Just because it isn't in US dollars doesn't mean it isn't an economy. But here is the thing, their currency (the Egyptian Pound) is traded openly on the FX markets.
The argument you give is just plain stupid, sorry but its true. If I sell an original painting for $5,000 this does not mean that _every_ painting is worth that much, its diminishing returns, as the original poster said.
The US is NOT the measure of whether an economy has a GNP, GNP is the GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT of that country i.e. how much it produced IN ITS OWN CURRENCY this can then be traded on the FX to produce a Dollars, Euro or Sterling rate.
But it really is muppet-tastic to think that because you sell one item at X that you can sell n items at X. The example you give demonstrates the failure to grasp simple concepts.
If the US prints 1,000,000,000,000,000 1 dollar bills a day, then they'd be worth a damned sight less a week later.
Supply - Demand, this doesn't determine GNP, it determines scarcity v market. To multiply it up means that either
a) You don't understand economics AT ALL
or
b) You've also been nominated for a Darwin award because "Lead isn't poisonous in small doses so how can a bullet hurt ?"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
in connection to project entropia? Yeesh I know Ill be modded down for this but please peeps a little credit ;) lol
The most interesting points in the original article, imo, are not about coming up with a dollar value for EQ economic activity, but about what kinds of economic structures make for interesting games. For example, the author argues that users prefer games with some kind of scarcity of goods or resources. This is consistent with a world where people care mainly about relative outcomes and, interestingly, at odds with the way the overwhelming majority of economic models work. He also believes that users prefer games with a level initial playing field, not a good omen for project entropia. Some of his other points were less compelling, like the claim that the popularity of a particular persistent world reflects users beliefs about what an ideal world would look like. Finally, as an economist, I feel compelled to point out that the real cost of EQ is not the 10$ a month fee but the "opportunity cost" of the time you spend playing: it's the value of the next best use of your time. Don't forget to include the cost of those Simpsons re-runs you're not watching while playing online games!
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
There is now a workinge emulator for this with combat etc. http://eqemu.sourceforge.net is the address.
3.42USD an hour = $5.70 canadian.
minimum wage here is $6 canadian / hour
"yahhh, im not coming to work tomoro,...just play everquest full time..."
Although I've never played Everquest, I do play more Dark Age of Camelot (very similar game) than can be considered healthy. If you head over to ebay and throw daoc (the initials) into their search engine you might be pretty surprised at what comes out. One kid sold his account for $3,150 (yes, that's US).
& item=1318221965.
Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem
There also seems to be an economy based on selling gold at about 6 gold to the dollar (average). Pretty crazy, but I guess some people just have too much money on their hands. Or have a serious problem.
Oh yeah, and I'm not even getting into people who pay upwards of ten dollars an hour to have someone else level their character for them.
When does Everquest join the UN?
How the fuck will those sweaty mexies bring me my drugs then bitch? Ever think of that?
National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation
Correct me (politely, please!) if I'm wrong, but isn't modern economic theory based on the scarcity of goods? If nothing else, the last time this story got posted, we should have realized what a load of bunk this is.
/. oxidant "Eric S Raymond" and poof! Flames.
I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure that if I went and crunched them we would see that assuming growth trends remained the same the per-capita of Norrath would soon (5-10 years) be higher than all real countries. That is, assuming their economic model doesn't implode because they're stuck with surplusses.
Wait a minute! Maybe this isn't so irrelevant to real life after all. All I have to do is, while stating the obvious, use the magic words "Gift culture" and "software paralells" in the same sentence as the magic
On second thought, I kindof prefer having a high karma than a real discussion here. Perhaps some AC will do the honors?
Do you like Japanese imports?
What drugs? I certainly wouldn't want anything concocted in some wetback's dirty-ass wash basin.
You need to include Church's, KFC and any place that sells BBQ ribs or pickled pig feet.
anyway (damn enter on submit for default)
I built a machine for my brother in law a while back.. and kinda got him into gaming. I also took him out on x-mas and bought him EQ as I told him how much fun and great the game was...
He played a LOT - and ended up making about 2K per month off the game... it supported him through college, but he was banned for life from EBAY (those bastards)...
So - yes it is time consuming - however you can farm virtual product for a living from that game if you so choose.
.
hmm lets see.. 400,000 users total. each paying around $9.95 a month for their subscription... each having already spent at least $40.00 for the game and the three or four expansion packs that have been released. not bad.. not bad at all...
Even if niggers could stop spending their welfare checks on crack and Popeye's chicken long enough to buy a computer, their monkey brains couldn't comprehend how to use them.
You know I've noticed the same after playing a heavy round of Quake III. Weird.
russia's GDP figures are wildly misleading, mostly because such a massive chunk of the economy doesn't show up on any official ledgers.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
that there is something fundamentally wrong with economics. No real value is produced, but you can still treat it as a real economy.
Well if we could only make EverQuest a Country, who wouldn't root for a team EverQuest at the Olympics?
Looks like 'ww' isn't a valid domain in *.slashdot.org world. I got redirected to MSN, from IE.
Slashdot should really add automatic linking. What the fuck is up with all these people posting text links when they can do HTML!?!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The game company could charge a "tax"... Make XP worth money, so you could buy XP...
Isn't Microsoft already charging a tax? You know, the whole "you gotta buy windows with a new PC" thing. And as for XP being worth money. I mean, I heard it's okay and all, and I guess MS is hoping it's worth money so people will buy it... Wait, I thought we were talking about EverQuest? I'm so confused...
hoser: Slashdot reader since 1987.
First, sony was getting support calls on people who wouldn't give up their stuff after taking the money.
Second, it upsets the dynamic of the game if rich people who can afford to buy this crap do so.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...
National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation
It's not money till you can 1)gamble with it 2)pay a hooker with it 3)pay off the mob with it. 77th place my ass. I bet you're not counting those hot Russian babes you can marry for 10k. (Much cheaper than an American wife in my opinion, and it's likely she'll cook too!).
Ebay has contracted with sony and it is now not possible to sell EQ stuff on ebay, sony claims rights to all of it. So they close the auction and that's the end of it.
Do you guys just not read your own site? Please cut down the duplication!
5 9&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/21312
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Last time I looked on eBay (about a yr ago, I'll admit) the exchage rate if you wanted to buy platinum pieces with US$ was about 10 cents per plat. Considering that some really high end goodies cost 10s of thousands of plats, it's a sobering thought.
I find this whole notion of selling virtual crafts very strange. Very, very strange.
After all, we could do a reductio ad absurdem whereby there is no everquest online game. Instead, it would be economically the same if Tom just pays Joe 2$ to think of a sword.
Two questions to ask, if you're interested in economics.
1st: what good is an imaginary sword?
2nd: is everquest productive, in an economic sense?
Question #1.
Someone is creating an imaginary object, and someone else is buying this imaginary object. But the imaginary object can't ever be used, except in the imaginary game. From an economic sense, is any value being created? Well, yes, because it improves the leisure of whoever buys it. It makes his game experience more fun, so he recieves a value. And from his perspective, it might be worth paying for: dollars spent for better leisure. However--
Question #2: Is everquest productive, in an economic sense?
In other words, is society as a whole wealthier or more efficient after a virtual trade takes place? My thinking is, no.
Example: Joe spends 3 hours building an imaginary sword in the game, and then sells it to Tom for 2$. Tom feels that he has gotten a fair trade, because he values the three hours saved more than the two dollars spent. And Tom now has a valuable tool in the game. But it's an imaginary game! Jake, the person who runs the game, could just have easily given Tom a sword with no effort required. Or a million swords. Why should Tom pay Joe for effort that isn't really required? So from society's perspective, it seems like the 2$ has been spent uselessly. Money has been moved around, but society as a whole isn't any wealthier or more efficient.
Now, why is buying an imaginary sword with real money pointless, from a macroeconomic perspective? After all, stories are imaginary, but we pay for books. The reason his action in buying an imaginary sword is pointless is because the resource he's paying for may be valuable, but it isn't scarce. A book, on the other hand, is scarce, in that it has only one author. And only that author can think of that exact book. But anyone can think of a generic imaginary sword without any effort or time spent. Why should someone pay for a resource that's so abundant? As an analogy, look at oxygen. Very valuable, because we couldn't live without it, but in most circumstances we wouldn't pay for it because it's abundant and cost nothing in time or effort. Similarly with an imaginary sword; anyone can think of one. The only difference is that in everquest, an abundant resource has been made artificially scarce.
Now if it seems to you in looking back over this reply that the explanation in question 2 seems to contradict that of question 1, you're not alone. It appears that this sword has a microeconomic value, but no macroeconomic value.
Which is why even after my explanation, I still think this is all really strange, and I don't quite understand it.
Anyone with more of an economics background, please leap in.
really, what if it is unavailable? The article linked isnt working for me right now, which means the /. effect is taking its toll. Instead of waiting till tommorow i can just read this guys post.
Granted he was fishing for karma, but still, sometimes ripping something off is ok.
for the last time, i didnt do it!
Any authority on counterfeitting will tell you: Money has nothing to do with any 'gold standard', and everything to do with the faith people put in it. Governments can form things like the gold standard, but its still just a matter of putting your (albeit, well-justified) faith in currency. The collapse of the Silver Standard about 80 or so years ago puts this case in point; when dealing with money, what people think is much more important then what governments do.
What I find curious about this system is that it developed so fast, so well, with so narrow a list of products, and it is neither a corporation nor a nationalist movement. Does anyone else find it interesting that a bunch of geeks on computers could form an economy more stable and successful then many nations with far greater populations and natural resources?
(Incoming free speech!!)
What does this say about the values and states of those nations, and the people that populate them?
Is this saying virtual wealth in the game is 77th? It appears to be saying that in REAL money exchanged its 77th (or would be if it were a country).
400k users I can accept, but what they're saying is that each user on average sells over 2k in real cash through ebay and other sources? This means a total wealth exchanged of over 900 billion dollars a year. If thats the case, my stock in ebay is going to go freakin crazy.
Clearly I'm not understanding this, and the article was utterly pathetic in its details and explanation.
If you couldn't trade in the states with their money (as i'm sure that the u.s. govt would want it's piece in taxes) they could use canadian money (canadian ebay), and just move from california to vancouver. :)
People could auction off their karma to those who don't want to earn it the ole fashioned way. Slashdot could take a cut of the proceeds and give it to the free software foundation. Any takers?
This isn't exactly new, i remember in the peak of UO where ebay items were rife, Its strange how these online games forge a online economy...i remember in UO where trading was one of the central money earners in the game...the old hack & slash just didn't pull the bucks.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Now what would be great would be if there were a way to buy and sell Slashdot karma. Then those of us who are too busy to make insightful, funny posts, or whore ourselves out for karma can simply buy it off others who do. Then I'd be able to buy my way in and mod up all SORTS of crazy things! hehehe!
> "If it was indeed a country, it would rank 77th, just behind Russia."
What a load. Is this supposed to be funny? Are there really people wanking off to stuff like that ? Oh my...
Your link shows quite a bit of trolling skill, however it does not qualify as troll of this category since it is not followed by, "truly an american icon"
Sure, that removes all credibility but, credibility isnt the point of these posts.
It's called Project Entropia. http://www.project-entropia.com Gonz
The ugly europeans spent a short time in Manhattan and liked it so much they bought it and stayed there. The original inhabitants probably thought, "Manhattan is definitely not a place anyone sticks around to enjoy, Manhattan is the butt end of our hunting ground. Stupid pale people."
But more ugly europeans kept arriving. Don't be surprised when the opportunists arrive to make small trade in Qeynos. They're just revving up to take over. Norrath will fall to outside systematists, who will accumulate assets and then export them back home to europe (i.e., back to the real world).
The low supply of people selling accounts serves to set an intially inflated exchage rate.
The self-fulfilling desire for traders to get those high initial prices motivates some to buy virtual crap for resale purposes, thereby maintaining those high prices.
20 years from now (or much sooner), all the accounts and virtual items will be worth exactly 0$.
Sometime between now and then, the number of players joining the game will be less than the number abandonning the game. A rapid deline in the value of the currency will result when those abandoning the game dump their accounts.
And here I thought it was weird playing a woman and avoiding the imps' advances was weird.
Or pretending to be female while she pretends to be male.
Anonymity brings up all kinds of weird behaviors.