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.
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.
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?
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.
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);
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
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?
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.
Technically, this slashdot article is about the NewScientiest.com article, the previous slashdot article was about the orriginal paper the NewScientiest.com article is about.
-- The Hoss Man
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.
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.
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 ___________________________________
The 100:1 is a floating number depending on supply and demand. If means the same as GNP if the same as GDP does, then imports / exports do equate.
Consumer Spending + Investments + Gov Spending + (Exports - Imports)
Exports == The "Illegal" trading of in-game items
Imports == ($10usd * every month * Active players) + (Expansion pack price * active players)
One's time put into the game can be argued both ways, both as an import and as a "Consumer spending". I guees it is all in how you structure your definition of the economic system.
Bye!
Pleasure doesn't necessarily translate to wealth. I like to sing in the shower. My singing, though it gives me pleasure, generates no wealth in any commonly understood sense.
The only pleasure I can see attaching to the item (as opposed to that derived from the gameplay involved in acquiring it, which can't be given away or sold) is that of munchkinism, the idea that an RPG is more fun when your character has a +2 sword rather than a +1. (I don't understand it, but I'm not going to deny its existence.) This needs to be distinguished from both the pleasure derived from creating the item and the impact of the creation on the gameworld economy in any economic analysis.
Yes you get a high per capita income, that's one of the points of the article. Rich people spending their money on EQ.
But no, it's not double counting. You can analize the bigger picture and still maintain data from the smaller factors that leaded to the main conclusion.
It's like saying that in A + B = Y you are double counting A's value because it's part of the 'total' (Y).
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
I find this whole notion of selling virtual crafts very strange. Very, very strange.
After all, we could do a reductio ad absurdem whereby there is no everquest online game. Instead, it would be economically the same if Tom just pays Joe 2$ 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.