Will Virtual Economies Affect Real-World Economics?

Thanks to Game Studies for their Edward Castronova-authored article discussing the economics of massively multiplayer games, which asks the question: "Will these economies grow in importance? Second, if they do grow, how will that affect real-world economies and governments?" It's suggested that "the mere fact that Earth economies may suffer as people spend more time in cyberspace does not imply that humanity is worse off", as "the basket of produced goods is simply changing." Finally, some of the unique economic facets to virtual worlds are pointed out: "Economics, on Earth, argues that no wise government will try to control prices. In an avatar economy, however, the government can effortlessly peg many prices at any value."

Comments

Re:"Wise" Being the key word

[KDan]

It does not even have anything to do with being wise, but with being capitalistic. The submitter is very narrow-minded. Purely capitalistic economics argues against price control. Purely communist economics argues for it. There's a wide range of possibilities between the two, and certainly not all have been proved unwise (and if they have been, then all governments are unwise because no government is 100% capitalistic).

Daniel