Slashdot Mirror
Virtual Property Revisited
The response to Wednesday's column on Virtual Property was instantaneous, massive and fascinating.
I wrote in that column that in (based on a San Jose Mercury News story by Ariana Eunjung Cha) that in recent weeks, Ultima Online players have begun going onto eBay spending real $US dollars, sometimes thousands of them, to acquire video-game assets that included characters, houses, castles, gold, armor and magical potions.
This seemed especially significant: eBay, one of the most revolutionary and successful business sites on the Net, was advancing and legitimizing the idea of virtual property.
Middle-class Americans were beginning to pay substantial amounts of cash for the ownership of virtual materials.
Net economics are changing again, and this time it's eBay demonstrating how the Net and the Web are attracting millions of individuals who not only want more choice, selection and freedom in their retailing choices, but who are beginning to value digital property in very new ways.
Some gamers wrote me to jeer that this wasn't new, that gamers had been trading characters and armor for years. Others said this wouldn't change gaming, pointing out correctly that in games like Quake, there are few collected assets to sell. "Shut up," wrote Aladdin, "you don't know squat."
But there is a huge new idea here, and plenty of people grasped it. A lot of gamers had obviously been thinking about the issue long before eBay started auctioning virtual properties.
"?your comments on virtual property are right on," wrote Brandon Reinhart, a Game Programmer at Epic Games Inc. (www.epicgames.com). Reinhart said he'd spent hundreds of dollars on two accounts. "The property means a lot to me..it has value." Reinhart said gaming was bringing a number of real world issues to the virtual world, including the theft of virtual property as well as the trading and auctioning of it.
He said inexperienced players needed to be especially careful these days. "I lost 700,000 Ultimate Online gold pieces in an attempt to purchase a Tower, a structure it's no longer possible to build on UO because there's no more open land. "The lines blur even more" he wrote. "What a great time to be a game programmer!"
The idea of virtual property - elevated by the staggering success of eBay - has all kinds of implications. If cyber-property is seen as having intrinsic value, measurable worth than can be traded, valued, and sold, then get ready for even more billions of dollars to start flying around the Net and the Web.
"I like your angle here," wrote Pat Dane, "and it's right in line with a company I founded a year ago." Dane's company is CyberMovers.net, which offers Website relocation, maintenance and move-in services. In a sense, Dane may have grasped the future, even gotten a step ahead of it. Only he doesn't need big vans, boxes and burly crews.
CyberMovers "offers a Full Range of Site Management, Location, Relocation, Promotion and Maintenance Through Our "virtual" Web Master Services. CyberMovers will meet "the needs of various customer segments - from the first time personal site owner to the more advanced small business site owner who needs to "relocate" to another hosting service or ISP."
The idea of Web movers and property managers dovetails with the surprising news that eBay customers are shelling out thousands of dollars for property, potions and tools on congested Ultima Online, which increasingly looks like an overdeveloped New York City suburb.
Scott Franke wrote that the concept of virtual property offered new employment as well as economic possibilities.
"?this is something you danced around in your article," he wrote, "but I wanted to bring it to your attention on the off-chance that you hadn't considered it."
I hadn't, really. But Franke wrote that from the exorbitant prices being paid for gaming characters, it seems reasonable to assume that some people could make their living entirely by playing these games full-time and selling the property they make.
"While the actual price per hour of playing time isn't realistic at this point, it can definitely be a job people would enjoy doing. And I can assume that the people who spend this much time now would not mind quitting work to make a lower salary if they get to play as much as they want." From the gamers I know, this is a reasonable assumption.
The notion of virtual property extends into digital money as well, especially when it comes to gaming. Charles Evans, the Senior Vice-President of e-gold wrote into to agree that gaming was mainstreaming, that is, moving quickly beyond geeks and nerds and into the American middle-class. (Ultima Online is played by more than 125,000 people globally). "As a follow-up," he suggested, "you might be interested in Dark Castle (http://www.dcastle.enteract.com/), a game which requires players to purchase equipment with "plats" that can be purchased only with e-gold. Dark Castle operators, wrote Evans, have found credit cards to be both expensive and risky, so they use an e-gold payment system exclusively.
Britt, a Web architect wrote: "this is a huge idea. The concept of virtual property very much transcends computer games, although that's where it's being introduced to the middle class. In two years, we'll be going to architecture school to design Web sites for anxious families with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend. Virtual property is just around the corner."
But Scott Franke is right. Economically, it's one thing for geeks, nerds and programmers to be trading potions. It's quite another when millions of middle-class Americans - the primary consumers in the world's richest country - join in. If we are, in fact, entering an age in which virtual property is becoming valuable, and is actually moved, maintained, up-graded, managed, and re-sold, then the Net would continue its revolutionary challenge to conventional notions of economics.
Online, individuals are using technology to re-distributing wealth and property, both intellectual and material. Virtual property seems an almost inevitable extension of that notion, already in evidence through eBay, on thousands of e-trading sites, and via Mp3 players. In a different sense, open source and free software movements are distrubiting software in this way, only for free. But they still have value - that's sort of the point.
Some questions I can't answer, but would love to know more about from those of you who might help:
Is Net and Web property infinite? That is, is the Net so expansible that it could never be overcrowded and congested?
How much, if at all, will computer gaming be affected by what is sure to be the growing purchase of and trading for virtual characters by the hordes of relatively affluent middle-class gamers thundering online? Are there other gaming characteristics that may soon be applied to the real world?
Are there other employment and economic possibilities beyond gaming in the concept of virtual property - as in Pat Dane's CyberMovers? Could this notion spill over into architecture, construction, design, real estate and other kinds of bartering?
First, fix the quotes.
Second, what's the difference between buying an online character and buying a program like Quake?
Both represent work invested by someone else that you pay so you don't have to do the work yourself.
Thirdly, the net is infinitely extensionable. Ultima Online could destroy the value of EVERY item on eBay simply by adding more servers or increasing the spawn rate of various resources. Think about it. At $10/month with over 125,000 players, that's arount $18MILLION per year just in subscriptions. This doesn't count initial sales or authorized book sales. If players cannot find space to place their houses and enough players complain, the virtual geography can be DOUBLED simply by adding more servers.
You can't do that in real life.
The only people paying for the accounts are people who have too much money already.
They've suceeded at real life and they're leveraging this for their online games.
How many people here played D&D but didn't DM? How many of them bought the DMG? And the other supplements? Why would a player need to know DM info? Why would they buy the DMG?
Because if they invest some of the money they have in real life, they get benefits in the virtual world (and D&D does count as a virtual world).
Will a million virtual gold coins with a going value of say, $70000 add up to your hacking charges?
Wow, suddenly that funny money can get more real than it is already. I don't like this.
Yeah sure, Ultima could suddenly upset the value landscape by the technical action of adding more servers etc. but that's no different from the real world where technical inventions are seizmically rearranging the local geography everyday.
Anyone with a grasp of nanotech research knows that within thirty years it's likely any physical object (within broad limits) will be replicable from a cheap feedstock
I will bet you $50,000 in 1999 dollars (i.e. scaled for inflation) that in the end of 30 years, that the current and obnoxious buzzword of "nanotech" will still be nothing more than a pie in the sky fantasy. There is no panacea, get used to it.
Seems to me it's analogous to limited/finite real-world resources. An oil, mineral, or gem exploitation company keeps close track of what it has, where it can get more, and most importantly, how much of it is released for sale. I strongly doubt UO or any other provider of virtual real estate would tamper with an existing, profitable situation. If they release more real estate, I'm sure they have the economic sense not to add it on to the existing VRE, but instead to start up additional games/maps/sessions with the same situation. Provided that all games remain open to new users, the economic situation should be preserved. heck, even improved, because the discouragement factor for new users (the new virtual peasants/underlclass?) would be alleviated. There are many factors that can be tweaked here, such as allow/disallow/threshold cost to transfer characters and virtual property between sessions, perhaps crossover,standardized mapping schemes between VRE-based gaming systems, to preserve a sense of finite space (as in Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash"). The space is virtual, and infinite. but the application, the creating, the mining of it if you will, is all economics.
"there's a sucker born every minute..."
The real pros could just hustle on the scene! Sell your character, start with nothing but yr wits. And connections... And sack these fools! Then sell it all again! I'm not really a virtual playa', but if I was all into this scene, I'd just clean up, 'specially when you could find all these wannabees willing to shell out cash! They're just asking for it, trying to buy in on a community without living it.
keep it real-
case
This virtual property thing is the silliest concept I have ever heard of. Domain names excluded, the amount of virtual property grows as the systems capacities grows. Its *not* a limited resource like real world objects. For example you could flood the market with diamonds, but they would still be worth something, maybe not $1000 per carat, but still $100 or even $10 per carat.
There is a finite amount of resources and land on this earth, and they cost real money to buy. That is an immutable fact. Eventually as populations grow and prosper and there is more money to be had
the price of resources will always increase.
As far as the "replicator" idea that somebody had in a previous post, get the star trek notions out of your head and face up to the real world. That kind of technology is *way* far off (doesn't star trek take place in the 24-25th century?) and plus it will cost so much when it does that few if any will be able to afford it. Plus those that will be able to will try and probably succeed in restricting it beyond belief (gee I would like to order up a 1 gigaton quark bomb). Do you seriously think that this technology woudl come for free? Nope, you would still have to work to earn money to use the facilities. No free lunches buddy, never.
Virtual property is more of a "collector" type of issue. When people are not interested in playing UO anymore, or the company decides that its not fiscally profitable to run a UO server anymore,how much are those characters going to be worth?
One last thing, I break into your house and steal your computer, I throw the switch at the power plant, I attack you server with a EMP pulse, kiss your virtual property goodbye! I burn down your house, I shut off the power, you still have the property.
Virtual is just that, virtual, it does not exist in the real world. Get used to it and live in the real one.
Can you grow Virtual Tulip bulbs on this virtual property?
Sounds like an excellent place to speculate.
(not)
how is bying characters in uo any different than having a better computer to play quake with? so they didnt go through all the time to build up their chracter but is it really any different than these kids today that come in with their brand new p3 500's, tnt video cards, and cable modems and then start kicking the hell out of every poor modem user stuck on a 28.8 line with a p200MMX and a 4 meg non gl video card? what did they do to earn their advantages?
It's way-cool and stuff like that to banter about virtualness and all that.
However, there are tons of people on this earth who would be happy to separate you from that non-virtual body (that sack of blood-n-bones) you've been neglecting. Until all the non-virtual bullets have disappeared, it's rather foolish to dis the real world.
But go ahead.
It goes back further than domain names.
The phrase "coca-cola" has a lot of value, not connected to anything real.
There are clueless people out there willing to buy all sorts of consumer goods for inflated prices due to a brand name or trademark emblazoned on them.
Of course, the truly cool fashion accessory is a seam-ripper. I use one to remove as many extraneous brand-name labels and crap as I can off the clothes and shoes I wear. If I want quality clothing (and there supposedly is greater quality in some "brand name" consumer goods) it doesn't matter what the label says, once it's off the sales floor.
If Coca-cola, or Nike, (insert your favorite brand name here) wants me to advertise their product, they can pay me for the privledge, like billboard advertisers do.
I've been trying to come up with a method by which Beanie Baby tags can be hermetrically sealed in a case of some sort that clearly identifies the date they were removed from those little stuffed toys. The people with the earliest-removed Beanie-Baby tags would then have the most valuable collectors items. But I haven't come up with one yet.
melbert
Some games (like FRPG, which UO is sort of) are attractive due to the escapism/fantasy element. The player get to be exceptional. A hero. A true economy with only player based points of production is mutually exclusive with everyone being a hero. You end up with just another 'real' world from which people looking for entertainment will leave (join a different game or play a subgame within the virtual world). UO is like that now. Try walking around in there. Most building are unmanned. Of this suppossed 125,000 members I would be surprised if more than a couple hundred are even on at a time (In the real world roughly half the populace is 'awake' at any given time).
However, virtual assets ARE viable, I just think in fantasy gaming they are precarious investments and will tend to destroy the instance of gaming they are allowed in. A guy not-so-successful (yet) in the real world is the optimal fantasy customer, but will be averse to playing where he is just another shmoe.
As far as gaming assets go, a mech warrior type of game is a little less unstable with virtual assets, but in general virtual assets and gaming dont really mix long term (again, since gamers tend to want to 'escape', not work again).
Amazon.com has a stunning stock price because they've been dumping books on the market at a near loss in an attempt to build a hugely known brand name. There's nothing new and innovative about that. It's just what advertising and brandname marketing has been about for decades.
"Intellectual Property" should be about more than broadband bombast, and shoving your neumonics into everybody's headspace.
Professional athletes being traded for tons of cash is only one layer removed. The "game" they play is largely virtual as well. It's "real" on the football field they happen to be standing in, but the immense 'value' is only added when it's thrown up on phosphor coated screens all over the country.
melbert
What exactly is new about this cyber[tm] economy?
How about middle class Americans paying for spirituality sessions with extortionists of the Katz school of mysticism? Exchanging real world revenue for a virtual reality of supposed spiritual fulfillment is what happens on these occasions, and nothing but mockery ensues. Now, see, with the cyber[tm] phenomenon, it all gets extremely exciting. I mean, man, look at this, exchanging real life financial resources for a virtual reality, how novel, how exciting, how totally middle class to ascribe any importance whatsoever to so natural a socio-economic continuity.
Allow me point out a simple fallacy that Katz has, as usual, forgotten to notice in his unstoppable drive to revitalize his struggling career through cyber[tm] media. What these folks are paying for on eBay is not at the base a sunny place in a virtual reality. No, it is merely the right to enjoy entertainment that is no different really than any other form of escapism you can find. How is buying a strong UO character that would allow you to kick ass and enjoy yourself different from buying a batch of acid that will take you out of the physical routine for a while? It is, but it's really not.
AC
Professionals in America can get almost anything they want. A great car, a big house... Most things are pretty plentiful.
This really bothers some pepole, and they have come to value rariety as something with inate value, even if the "Rare" item has none. Rare coins, stamps, books, cars--anything that is difficult to duplicate suddenly becomes valuable.
If you want to examine this in real life, a fun trip is to go into some shops along the beach and look at what hand-made, unique items sell for even though they aren't really as "Pretty" as similar manufactured items.
Companies like Llardo and Baccarat (I doubt I spelled that right) have used artifical rarety for years, they could have made more little glass trinkets, but they would rather limit the number and make more different types...
Virtual property is no different. As long as the source of the "Object" is controlled, and the object is kept rare and has some unique quality, someone will want it. If two people want it, suddenly there is value.
Oh, just thought of another great example--Magic the gathering cards. I bet there are thousands of ways to make money off this, the surface has hardly been scratched.
Not quite, UO characters and property have a very direct application in real life. It's entertainment, part of the larger family of services. Same, actually, as purchasing minutes on a cell phone -- you are not buying them for their intrinsic value, but because possession of this virtual time provides a service that you value.
AC
Wait a minute - the emphasis is on the wrong,
negative part! I don't game online, but used to
role-play quite a bit. Gaming is hopefully
participated in for the love of it, for its own
sake. If one person pays to forego the entry-
level, it's his loss not because he didn't play
through the entry-level, but because he doesn't
feel the magic. Whether he does this because
he's into status or because he doesn't want to
"invest" time is irrelevant, next to just not
feeling the magic.
If a black belt martial artist is more gifted or
able than another black-belt, he will not be
concerned with their (Dans aside) "equal status",
if he's in it for the love of it. To him, the
belt is like a wedding ring: a reminder of what
he is committed to, a promise to himself.
Think of friends you have who have devoted
themselves to their hobbies and passions. What
are YOU into gaming for? What are YOU into life
for? Live Long and Prosper!
case
Many goods are virtual, in that possession, control and use of a particular physical object is not associated with their purchase and ownership. Viewed from an (in my mind, overly) abstract perspective, one could even say that ownership of a physical object is itself merely the possession of the intangible right to demand that the police and courts act to protect ones right to possession, control and use of such object -- that is, possession becomes property only within a societal/legal context. Of course, humans, being, first and foremost, physical beings in a physical world, it is natural that people give a certain primacy to physical objects -- as someone has put it, people are more willing to pay for things (physical objects -- e.g., furniture) than services (intangibles accompanied by physical presence or actions -- e.g., furniture moving or cleaning) and for services than information (intangibles not so accompanied -- e.g., decorating ideas). This may help explain why many of us are not more handsomely compensated for the brilliant intellectual property we produce.
Because of the foregoing, I agree with many of the commentators that the virtual good concept is not particularly novel. On the other hand, a very large number of people felt compelled to chime in, so I think the subject has more substance (pun semi-intended) than many of those commentators would give it. It seems to me that the strong response to this article can be explained in part because it touches upon many of the issues that arise on Slashdot with respect to issues of greater real-world import -- (i) open source v. monopolistic software practices and (ii) the potential of the online world as an alternative to overly commercialized features of the real world.
As I suggested above, a virtual good can be defined as one not associated with a particular physical object. Another feature of most virtual goods is that they are reproducible with a $0 marginal cost of production -- e.g., once someone writes a computer program, copies of it can be made for free. Thus, the existence of a non-$0 price for a virtual good implies that the producer or a third party has the power to enforce scarcity. Such monopoly power, and the possibility for the abuse thereof, naturally attracts the attention of the Slashdot crowd.
A game is defined by its rules, by the artificial limits placed, by mutual consent of the players, on the actions that may be taken within the context of the game. It understandably strikes many as unfair that resources extrinsic to a game could be used to alter the balance of power within a game. In recent years, with developments in technology (and not just computer technology), this issue has arisen in a number of real world games. Consider the use of steroids in pro sports generally, widebody rackets in tennis, big headed clubs in golf and aluminum bats in baseball. I believe that in car and boat racing there are elaborate rules regarding size of engine or sail, etc., designed to make the race a test of skill and not money or even, beyond a certain point, technology. Without limits on the technology used, a game ceases to be a game. To continue to play such a game seems to force one to become -- within the context of the game or in the real world market surrounding it -- either the exploited or the exploiter. When a game starts to become too infused with real world elements, I think my response would be to find a new, purer game and/or pursue the real-world elements of the contaminated game in the real world (e.g., take up Stratego and see whether there are any decent investment opportunities left in the real world given the recent market euphoria).
I remember joking with a lawyer friend of mine that, given the inexplicable popularity of movies, TV shows, etc. about lawyers, it may be possible for us to set up a game league in which people would play corporate lawyer, drafting documents, negotiating them over the phone with each other, etc. The idea would be that, once the league got off the ground and the _players_ developed some expertise, we would start feeding the players real transactions, billing them out to clients we would procure at several hundred dollars an hour. Of course, many real world businesses are dependent upon creating a _fun_ workplace, full of youngish, enthusiastic workers who don't mind pulling long hours, etc. And over in the virtual world, more than one web sites business model is dependent upon site visitors to generate the sites content....
UO accounts and the 'virtual property' they contain do not contain any more intrinsic value than cell phone minutes or cable TV programming. They are part of a service, designed simply and solely to provide entertainment. When you buy a character on eBay, you don't buy 'virtual life,' all you buy is the enabler for the particular entertainment service you are interested in -- playing a fun game of UO without having to go through the character building process.
Ascribing intrinsic value to what is merely an implementation of a particular entertainment service is either wrong or could be extended to countless other entertainment forms, invalidating any argument about the novelty of the 'virtual world' trading concept.
Katz's other argument that even if the novelty cannot be found in the concept, one should look at the popularization of the process as a radical shift is also lacking. First of all, a quantative increase seldom equals a qualitative change, and second, the involvement of the middle class in the activities described constitutes merely a shift in the group's attention and thereby spending from previously popular activities.
AC
> How much would Bill Gates pay the real DrTuring for the keys to that account? But people may quickly realise that whoever bought the alias DrTuring is no longer the "real" DrTuring. And, if no one notices the difference, then does it really matter? The community at large still has their DrTuring, as they perceive him/her.
Please tell me you started using the name "neo" BEFORE "The Matrix" came out
Does the company that runs the game incur liability if they make changes to the game that makes virtual property lose value? Maybe they need to address this issue in their license.
OK.....what drugs are you taking? In my time spent in god mode I saw more thieves and 3rd party users than honest players. It may have started as an inocent live online game but to many people decided that it would work better without rules. Now the game is just about gathering up all the money you can get and raising your stats so that you can be assured of being left alone by the bullies. Unfortunatly no matter how tough you are...someone with a hack can beat you.
I must disagree with th0m who finds no distinction between virtual property and traditional services.
In the sale of services, the customer takes the first step. He finds a service provider, and specifies what he wants the provider to do. The provider reacts, fulfilling the request.
By contrast, with virtual property, the provider takes the first step. She undertakes some activity, and places the result of that activity up for sale. The customer reacts by buying.
As soon as a piece of virtual property is created, the provider is done. Even before a customer has been found, she's free at that point to go on vacation or retire and let some intermediary like eBay handle the actual sale and send her the profits. By contrast, services must wait on customers.
In the virtual-property case, the customer is not buying activity-in-the-future. He is buying the results of activity already done: a product.
Those auctions on ebay are fake. No one is really paying any real money for UO "property"
Just because you saw it on the web, doesnt make it true!
The difference between the "virtualness" of the value of a dollar bill and a UO character, is that the US economic system HOPEFULLY guarentees that the government won't suddenly print a heck of a lot more dollar bills.
There is no such guarentee in UO. Origin could choose tommorrow (and probably will) to expand each one of their servers and suddenly create more virtual "property" on each of them.
Smart people know that the VALUE of an item depends on the FUTURE scarcity of it, not the CURRENT scarcity. Otherwise you are just gambling on the hope that the scarce item remains scarce (like stocks).
So, how does this differ from the software we've been buying?
Someone puts effort into coding. The code has no physical presence.
Then s/he markets the finished product.
Eventually, you have a world wide monopoly with a single person worth more than $50Billion.
Or you have a 14 year old auctioning off silver swords on eBay.
No difference.
Nothing new.
It depends on what jurisdiction your crime falls under. If your character did the stealing, then he would go to virtual jail.
Presumably you're not guilty for what your character does. I mean, does playing Doom make a person a murderer? Does playing Leisure Suit Larry make you a sleazy lounge lizard?
I seem to recall that, under Commonwealth law, book copyrights expire after a certain length of time, though I can't remember exactly how long. Perhaps software companies could voluntarily release older versions of their product. That way, those unfortunate people who cannot afford new things are not left too far behind. Meanwhile, professionals are able to use the newest shiniest programs, thus keeping up at least the cherished appearance of social stratification.
I enjoyed reading that post even though it was long :)
I also like X-windows because it is very customizable. I like the fact that no program is going to mess with my windows-manager configuration.
However, the reason that no program will mess with your windows configuration is that configuring X-windows is so complicated and unstandardized. Linux and X-windows support quite a wide variety of windows managers and GUI toolkits. It's simply impossible to write a script that can rearrange another person's desktop without nuking the whole thing. You just don't know if I'm running WM of fvwm or E, or whatever. On the other hand, if everyone used a single standard desktop, like KDE, then it would be possible for some company to create a Linux program with a nice "setup" icon. You click the icon, and presto-changeo your desktop is rearranged in all sorts of strange ways. This would be attractive to newbies and people used to user-friendly commercial OSes, but it sucks for the power user.
Next thing you know, it'll be sex for free!
I just saw the new version of Gauntlet at the local arcade. It lets you save your character.
-Anonymous Cowlings
Read Snow Crash and your eyes will be opened to how 3d with strict limitations imposed on it can be much more compelling than 2d. Just like our 3d world where we are limited by physics is a complex dynamic place, so also can a 3d environment with functional laws imposed on it become just as exciting.
-aaron sittig
Curious phrasing - 'A new idea that people have been thinking about for some while.' As many posters have pointed out, this is not new overall, just new to some people - and "huge new idea" is a bit of an overstatement. FWIW, those interested in the question of online games as 'real' property might find Dorothy J. Heydt's A Point of Honor worth reading. Dream Park might also be of interest - it's about AR rather than VR, but there are striking parallels.
As far as resource starvation goes, I don't think we have to worry too much about that - adding processors, storage, bandwidth, etc. is just a question of money. If there's enough demand, it will happen. Of course, that requires work "out here" in the real world, to produce those resources, and some VR players won't be willing/able to do that work. Hmmm... I wonder if we'll start seeing corporate sponsors for players or teams? "Help us sell our product, and we'll pay your access/storage charges."
I think that may be taking it a bit far, even though the idea of making money playing games would certainly be nice.
:)
Think about it this way. A large percentage of players of Ultima Online are in their teens/twenties, and even making a few hundred bucks is a great prospect (and it sure beats mowing lawns).
I myself (I'm 22) have a full time job as a network admin. Never-the-less, I have bills to pay, etc etc, and I've made over $350 in the last 2 weeks selling just a fraction of my Ultima Online account (some gold and a mining house). If I continue to sell off pieces at a time, I'll have enough money for that screamin' new pc in just a month or so (and I won't have to go without food paying it off).
It's definitely not enough money to live off of, but it's a nice perk for playing a game that I enjoy. I have no idea where the virtual property idea will go, but I (and a lot of other people) might as well hop on the train and see where it goes.
I was going to say 'the web is this' but the web is just a special case of the 'net'. You can get to and create worlds at addresses. In the current case all you need to know is the address (inet address & port) and language (protocol(s)) and maybe authentication (passwd).
I agree though. This type of thing is much more intrigueing/fun than a specific domain parcelled and managed my some overloard/god (UO execs, programmers, etc).
I am part owner of a reasonably successful mud.
Over the years, players have trade characters
and items for real dollars. Recently, high
school kids were selling characters to their
classmates for $10. This is strictly against
our rules and any characters found to have been
sold are deleted.
I are running a game where a player's ability
to compete and enjoy the game is based more on
their effort in the game than how much money
they can spend on the game. Sure if you can
afford a faster Internet connection and a more
reliable computer you will have a small
advantage, just like the golfer who can afford
a nicer set of clubs. However, paying for
characters and items is like paying for free
strokes in golf.
The big corporation that wants to sell you a
very restrictive license to use a wide spread
operating system and the small guy who wants
to sell you a character on a game have at
least one thing in common: they are both so
motivated by money they don't see or care that
there actions are extremely harmful to the
community as a whole. In the example of
gaming, the players who aren't willing or
can't constantly spend more real money to buy
items eventually find it impossible to compete
or enjoy the game anymore.
I have no problem with virtual property that
has direct correlations to real life economics
like space on a popular web site. Nor do I
have a problem with companies collecting huge
monthly fees to providing an entertainment
service like UO. However, I think it is wrong
to blindly put a dollar sign on every piece of
virtual property.
Currently I am an unemployed programmer (rare I know, but I'm sick of the business world, so I'm taking a break). To make some extra money, I've begun selling my Ultima Online assets over eBay.
I do find it immensely amusing that people will pay real money for these things, but I can somewhat understand it. Ultima is an obsessive game, one that draws you in to a world you feel part of. And like many new frontiers, it was settled by the pioneers before the masses came. I've been playing for over 2 years, and someone who joins the game has no hope of reaching the level of achivement I have. Because of all the changes in the game, I have things (like a large house) in the world others could not get easily or at all.
To all those that fear that someone will figure out these games and disrupt the economy, that is exactly what I am doing. I play an evil mage who lures the unwary and greedy into deadly traps and kills them. I have several cons I use to trick greedy people, and as a result I've gotten lots of valuable treasure and have looted a half dozen of other players homes. Many changes have been made to Ultima to protect the less intelligent players, so this isn't as great a loss to my victems as it could be (I have about 5 minutes to grab all I can before the player shows up at the house and bans me).
I don't fear much that the game will be changed in such a way as to destroy this economy. What would happen if they openned more game worlds? They did that a while back, and found that people didn't transfer themselves to the new world, but rather played on both worlds (openning new worlds does not decrease congestion in the old worlds). What would happen if they created a new space to put housing? It would be filled overnight by opportunistic players, determined to hoard every space so they could sell off the property later at greater profit.
My greatest fear is the dumbing down of the game. In the past, there where many cool features in the game, and creative people figured out clever things to use these features for. Unfortunately , like any good thing, more and more people would do those things, and it would become bad for the game world as a whole. Rather than think up real solutions to these problems, the game designers often simply eliminated these features. That is what is happening now with housing. Owning a virtual house is cool, but if everyone in the game world owned a house, the entire world would be congested and unplayable. So they are intent on reducing housing be making it harder or nearly impossible for players. Hence the high value on housing now. Not a real solution, since it benefits only long term players would had housing from before these changes.
And for me morally, it is just a game. I'd rather be a virtual thief than a real one. I do suffer virtual punishment for my crimes, and have little sympathy for those I trick, since I'm the victem on many occasions as well (I still must compete will all the other killers and thieves out there). It is all part of the complex virtual world I play in, and I'm just trying to carve out my niche.
No, but I will pay $10 for MEEPT!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Someone's been reading "Diamond Age"....
I read an interview with the person who paid like $1500 for one account. The programmer in the article paid money for an account, and a friend of mine bought some gear for UO off eBay. I bet this is just the beginning. Just because something doesn't happen to exist as atoms in reality, doesn't mean you can't buy it.
Just because you think it isn't true, doesn't make it so.
You're taking a shortsighted view, Jon, but you've really hit on something here, and I'd like to encourage that if I may. ;) )
I just had a guest over, for the sole purpose of showing him my Linux dualboot. He actually never saw the Mac side- he's seen those before, nothing special. Instead I was showing him all that was resident in Linux- the scope of possibility there.
On airwindows.com (and you better believe I snapped up the dotcom address- it was a primary motivator for my homesteading that domain when I did), I have desktop backgrounds and tiles and titlebars for Linux, and more specifically for Window Maker. However, it doesn't stop there...
I stole the animated desktops from Afterstep and put them in WM, editing them and picking different ones and throwing on extra parameters to tailor the behavior. I have menus mapped to fkeys so I can use my one-button mouse comfortably. I have four different kinds of xterm (all aterms!) fired off menu selections that have fkeys, all borderless minimalist purist rectangles that can be meta-dragged, or closed with F3 (window properties) or F4- xkill on a button! The rectangles have no titlebar or resize bar and come in black on white, white on black, black text on transparent and white text on transparent. I made icons for all of them in the GIMP.
I am, it would appear, a damned good, creative, virtual interior decorator. *grin*
What does this mean? Well, for starters, it means I am interested enough in my virtual home to want to make it my own- on a structural level as well as eyecandy, evidenced by the minimal term-rects and the evolving method of managing everything. I love Window Maker because it seems especially suited to this sort of adaptation. I was telling my friend that you could have a fkey that invisibly fired a menu option that ran a _script_ that launched your aterm under a different name for every day of the week, letting you have it automatically be a different background color for each day. Only an hour later did I realise that you could make it a different transparent tint for every day of the week. Granted, you have to control the root window's decoration to be able to get away with such tints- like running the Sonar theme which is _very_ suited to transparent terms and a personal favorite (the only theme I use regularly that I didn't create myself)- but then that's the point isn't it?
This sort of work is a weird hybrid between interface design, GFX and a touch of programming or at least scripting- and it could become roughly as valid a job as real interior decorating- most people wouldn't even consider it, but then you visit some places and go 'whoooa!' and it turns out Somebody Did It, some person was _hired_ to create the effect and it wasn't always the homeowner. The same thing could happen on the desktop (with Linux, much less plausibly with any other OS I know of, and I'm a Mac dude
The flip side of this issue is something I've written an essay about- at what point do virtual spaces become personal property, and what civil liberties apply? If I write to Bill Gates and ask him for a can opener, and he mails me one, the can opener does not emit a small bomb which explodes and blows up all my other appliances. If he sells me a house, the house does not extend a robotic arm and smash up my previous house, dumping the shattered rubble into a dumpster. These things would be considered criminal and real world stuff doesn't work that way (at least with can openers). However, if I ask him for a movie viewer, it is extremely likely that what he gives me will at least 'put the other movie viewers into the closet' (seize control of linking procedures like Internet Config) and in some cases even fight me, repeatedly changing settings if I dare to change things back. In the worst case, installing of OSes, there is a real danger that what Bill provides will seek out other disk drives, and if it does not find data it understands, reformat them, obliterating my property.
Why is this not illegal? A failure in imagination. Computers are new enough that not everyone accepts that their contents are property. A home is a physical object and it's hard to see how a buncha bits can equate to a coffee table when the fact is, one can spend a comparable time and effort just setting up a computer to be an appealing environment. Nobody has permission to smash up your coffee table at random, but virtual 'coffee tables', arrangements of preferences or clever scripts you make to do things, are not given the same protection, especially when they are uses of existing software that some other software needs configured differently. The tendency is to assume 'Well, of course you want me to nuke your prefs so you can see this amazing new program!'. I don't think that's defensible, but computer virtual space is such a fledgeling concept that few people have made that connection. Even stuff like PGP is about protecting a person's communication- it isn't about protecting the state of your applications menu or what icons go where on the desktop.
Some communities, like Mac users, have grown up with a different tradition- Macs tend to be very user-centric in this respect and will leave icons and things where you left them, making it a very high priority to retain the virtual space in the condition you left it- though even there you see troubles, and once you get beneath the surface, the condition of your software ceases to be your property- even the Apple Menu, very user-editable, is routinely messed with by installers, or software (speech recognition) will insist on having something there whether you want it there or not.
I think that of all OSes, Linux has the best shot at delivering genuine virtual property and the right to maintain the state of one's own computer unmolested by vendors. But it would help if more people understood the issues involved.
Congratulations, Jon, you finally got your quotes working =) "blah blah" looks so much nicer than ?blah blah? does.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'll give you $4000 for a valid, unique $8000 "envelope" of digital cash.
No bridges, though, thanks.
VRML is really annoying for those of us who don't always do our browsing from fast computers. Anyhow, a flyover renderer without true 3D (top-down, allows zooming in/out; Bases size, color of text on distance) would be very simple to code, require less hardware on the remote end (and not require a VRML application)
Frankly, the false 3D one gets by projecting an image onto a computer screen just isn't the best way to represent information.
2D or isometric views can provide a more detailed view of a gaming field or whatnot. By not trying to do this fancy hardware-rendered over-the-shoulder shot, the game designer can have far more simple control over the display of a specific (more limited) area. When I want my character to move three squares to the right and one down, I want to know exactly how far to move my mouse, and this to be consistant (not changing due to perspective).
Not that there aren't things 3D is good for. I'd hate to have to draw the looking-down-from-a-cliff panoramic shots manually, or only have a very limited area visible... or do them top-down.
And that's just gaming, where 3D really does have several legitimate uses. Do you seriously think IRC will be replaced with something using avatars, either 2D or 3D? That we'll walk (or fly) our way around web sites? Don't kid me.
2D representations of information are just more efficient and immidiately understandable. I can scan a page of text very quickly and click on a link far faster than someone in a VRML world can walk through a door. Okay, maybe some people will have such sites. They're the same folks who use Shockwave plugins, sound and gratuitous Java applets right now. Guess what? I don't visit their sites, not because I boycott web sites doing such things but because I'm more busy reading pages with actual content.
It'll just be more of the same.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
I agree with you on the virtual property part, but I think It'll take a bit more than 30 years for replicating technology to mature.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
no, I think katz has hit on a pretty important point. domain names are a lot like tv ads and so forth- but there is really no analog for middle class americans buying virtual potions from ultima online
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
and I suppose no one has ever paid money for source code, which is simply a stream of 1's and 0's.
Posted by stodge:
:P
Wow, took the words out of my mouth. Well you would have done, had I been intelligent enough to think of them
Well said bud
Posted by jhoffman:
Is Net and Web property infinite? That is, is the Net so expansible that it could never be overcrowded and congested?
Neal Stephenson did a great job discussing this in Snow Crash...the most valuable "properties" were those closest to the "stations" where people "entered" the "metaverse" (net, web, etc.)
Today, the stations are probably best represented by the search engines and other websites which are the "start-up" pages on people's browsers. Netscape had a monopoly on this for a while and didn't realize the value they had and blew it as Netcenter came to market after it was too late.
We've had the "land grab" and next comes the creation of "markets" and "trade"...best demonstrated by eBay itself and other "sticky" sites like priceline.com...with Ultima Online it is finally coming to a "comodity" which the individual players can accumulate.
This is a bastard comment... but... proximity to yahoo makes plenty of sense! Let's say that I register yaho.com, yahooo.com, and a few other misspellings. They're all quite close to yahoo. Now, I just put up a page with an ad banner and a meta tag to redirect the user to yahoo in X seconds. I make [dirty] ad money off of bad spellers or typists by being close to yahoo!
I'm unsure what the profit margins are on this kind of thing, but I always regret having images turned on when I misspell a domain name...
F0 07 C7 C8
Fisrt of all, I'd like to mention the idea of proximity. In the real world, we have heard that the most important thing about a piece of property is 'location' (x3). Part of this is because by being near something popular, an otherwise completely undeveloped location can become valuable, for a business, for advertising, for a home. But this is because being physically near something makes it easier to get there. This goes directly against the most powerful idea of a virtual world, namely that we aren't tied down by physical location. I can type in a URL and get to anywhere with the same amount of work. Being 'near' Yahoo, for example, doesn't even make sense. The nearest isomorphism would be links and/or banner ads. But both of these cases require the concent of the popular party, unlike neighbors in the physical world. To force the idea of 'nearness' upon a virtual world is to introduce arbitrary rules that dilute the power of that world. The only context in which you would want such rules is in a gaming environment, where rules hamper options and therefore increase challenge. Outside a gaming environment, extra challenge in navigation is rarely sought.
Second, we have to realize that a virtual world is created by someone, who is still capable and probably interested in continuing to create. So although hobbiests may be able to obtain real-world cash for ocasional pieces of virtual property, it cannot become an industry; whoever runs the system can too easily flood the market. For example, if people were making a living playing Ultima Online and selling the property they collect, think how much more an UO programmer could make by creating that same virtual property without working to earn it. The fact that this power must exist for any given virtual world to exist suggests that selling virtual property will never be a booming industry.
So as fun as the it is to watch UO approach the ideas of SnowCrash, they are both fictional worlds, and I'm afriad the real world will never have reason to attribute huge amounts of intinsic value to virtual property.
--Chouser
--Chouser
"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." -LL
No, that only removes java from the current directory. My command removes any java source from the entire system :-)
I should probably add use rm -f though.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Jon, this virtual property thing is interesting, but it's only surprising if you have forgotten that money is a virtual concept anyway. Whenever someone trades a new abstraction some slow witted people will be astounded ("people will never swap real food for paper money, bring back the gold standard...").
Money is traded for scarce items, when resources are limitless then value becomes limitless anyway. The scarcity in virtual property is completely contrived, minor changes to the software could multiply the available amount of property 1000000x causing the value to dissappear. The importance of this can be exaggerated though - artifical scarcity is commonplace in finance - eg diamond prices would collapse if DeBeers did not maintain artifical scarcity.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
You have drawn exactly the opposite conclusion to that which I would draw. If physical resources could be replicated freely then the main argument supporting IP dissappears.
The whole notion of intellectual property is a social construct.
However, this does not necessarily make it a bad thing.
The whole notion of standard property is a social construct -
there are many societies that do not have any real notion of property.
It is even more common to find societies for whom the concept of land ownership
is unknown. They are not being dense, it's just that for hunter gatherer based
societies, the concept of land ownership is not terribly useful.
We are so used to the idea of property that it is easy to forget that it is
a social convention. There is nothing inherently natural about the concept, and
we need police, locks, walls and fences to enforce it. The notion of property
is so deeply engrained in our society that many other unquestioned social
constructs are built on top of it: eg money.
You and I are both feel pretty comfortable with the concept of material property
and agree that it is useful. Obviously "Intellectual Property" is also a social
concept. As RMS is fond of pointing out, the very term "IP" is biased since it
implies that the concept of IP is as natural and necessary as the concept of
material property. Many special interest groups (eg RIAA) would
like to halt the debate there:
"IP is just like regular property, we all agree that property is necessary
for society, so ownership of information is necessary and good."
Except we all know there is a difference: when information passes
from one A to B, A still has the information. Should we treat ownership
of information and material in the same way ? Probably not, and its an
important question.
The only valid justification for social constructs are that they benefit society.
If the construct is not beneficial, it should be discarded. For instance,
land ownership provides an incentive for the owner to extract the maximum
long term benefit from the land. Land is better managed when it is owned
by someone so it benefits society as a whole for land to privately owned.
Two hundred years ago, society was based upon agriculture. Real wealth
meant ownership of land. One hundred years ago, society was based upon industry,
real wealth meant owning what Marx called "the means of production", ie factories.
Today we live in the information age, real wealth means owning information.
It is necessary to clarify what is meant by ownership of information.
There are really two forms of information ownership today.
One is accessibility. If you can freely access a piece of information
then in some sense, you own it. The internet has made us all much "richer".
The other form of ownership is the IP sense of ownership. That is, not only
can you access the information, but you have power over what other people
can do with the information. For instance, you can sell others access, but retain
sole rights to pass on the information.
The IP form of information ownership is a social construct. It is only
possible because we have laws that enforce it. Are those laws a good idea ?
Personally, I'm not sure. Some IP laws are certainly flawed (US software patents ???)
while some are probably beneficial.
It's pointless to argue for IP on the grounds that IP is just like material
property - its not.
It's also pointless to argue against IP on the grounds that IP is a social
construct - yes it is, but so is just about everything else.
AFAIK the argments for and against can be summarised as:
FOR: Without IP there would be less incentive for information creators.
AGAINST: IP laws make everybody poorer because information that is
freely passed around becomes available to everyone.
Both of those arguments can be expanded upon endlessly. I've got no
idea which is better.
I suspect that society might be in a bit local minima at the moment.
We would be better off as a whole if information was generally shared
and freely available rather than jealously hoarded, but it's not clear
how to achieve this.
On a side note, its amusing to see opponents of IP being branded as
communist because they believe that information should be free. The
argument has got virtually nothing to do with left/right wing.
The notion that there should be restrictions on copying of
information is a form of protectionism. The arguments to justify IP
ie "protect the creators" seem more socialist to me than the anti-IP
arguments (not that there's anything inherently wrong with that).
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Same thing happens when zoning boards are in real-estate developers' pockets, and you have runaway real-estate development.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The UO situation sounds rather boring to me (never having played it). Economics of scarcity are nothing new, whether played out in the virtual world or not.
What fascinates me are unlimited economies, something like a UO where users could create their own land and goods.
LambdaMOO was like this (still is? haven't been on for a while). Users could create their own objects, rooms, areas, etc. You weren't guaranteed a link to the main world, but you could often convince someone to give you a link. Or not; some people preferred to keep their own world separate, where you couldn't get to it unless you knew the special object number. Kind of like an exclusive club.
I remember that one user built a bar like this that ended up being a popular hangout. It wasn't accessible unless you knew the number, but the number was passed around a lot (someone even left a note in a central part of the system with the object number on it).
Not to mention that there was a lot of creativity in linking in places. There was a Monopoly board in one area of the place; several of the "houses" on the board were real houses, and you could actually shrink yourself and go in.
The significant scarce Net resource is eyeballs. Other people's attention. An audience/community.
That's why Yahoo and Amazon have such stunning stock prices, and why the Slashdot effect exists. Domain name scarcity is only a corollary - after all, you could always register y79grh0.com, or even do without! All you really need is an IP address, unless you care about people finding and remembering your site. Net "real estate" is exactly as valuable as the number of people who will visit it regularly.
Bandwidth and host capacity are considerations, of course, but only if you're popular, which ought to pay the necessary bills through ads, etc. There's no direct analogy to gentrification of neighborhoods driving people out, since the costs of becoming a "high-rent district" are directly coupled to income opportunity.
I realize that this is obvious to a lot of you, but Jon and others seemed distracted by the bogus idea of spacial scarcity (congestion/real estate).
Money for nothing? I want a piece of this! :)
Deleted
How long will it be before people start selling off their slashdot accounts for hard cash? Hoe much is it worth to people to have...
*A popular, cool username
*An oldtimer's low account id number
*An account with a history of positively moderated posts
Just a thought.
I'm sure the government wants to take a cut on these massive transactions so it can improve its virtual roads and provide law enforcement upon virtual citizens.
Just think of it. Online games would have criminals and classes of laborors just like the real word. Virtual people could file for virtual bankruptcy and be hauled off to virtual prison. If the IRS got involved in the transactions, a whole new deminsion of hell could be possible for games.
No wonder why real life sucks and games rule: less government interference and a community based development.
Although the VR version of cyberspace has not yet hit critical mass to start producing 3D versions (despite my, others valiant efforts with things like VRML and AlphaWorlds), the 2D version is very much starting to take on these Matrix-like effects. Some parts of the matrix are very popular (.com, .net, .org) while others are not (.us) while others are barely populated (.ro, .pt). People buy and sell these virtual addresses for some very huge amounts of money. Other people are the architects providing home building services, and down the bottom are a bunch of hackers like me trying to get the plumbing working.
What is happening now is the move from the 2D virtual property to the 3D. Although 3D is populated by game engines (and you can class, Isometric, 2.5D and 3D in this) eventually the same thing will spread to the general populace. As Katz points out, the arrival of the Middle-class into once what was hacker territory is a significant thing. We legitimize both the worth of the property and the fact that it exists. Stock options - how much virtual property are they? They are no more than a bunch of bytes on someone's harddrive these days, so what is the difference between that and a couple of pieces of armour and a good character.
The early adoptors always end up with a bunch of the most valued parts. Look around at the domain names, slashdot logins (I got in real early to get mine for example and the newer crowd haven't got such a range anymore. Maybe the login here will be worth something someday?). An interesting thing about these early adoptors is that normally they take the best stuff, not because it is, but because it reflects their personality or other trait that they like to express themselves with. Then, as time progresses, they become some of the most valuable simply because others want it. The gaming examples are just following the same trend already established in the flatlands. How long before some of these game environments start "meeting" at the seems?
The flip side to this is that, because we are digital, we can create as much property as we like. Just because a few games are hot today does not mean that they will be the only property available in a year down the track. Effectively limitless space can have some interesting effects on what and how items are valued. At what point do people come in to make a hedged risk on a new piece of virtual real-estate.
The funny thing that I find about all of this is that it will create jobs for the middle men. OK, so eBay is probably one of only a couple of sites on the 'net doing this now. How long do you think it will be before we start to see specialist virtual game property trading companies/sites being formed (darn, I should go out and patent that business idea!). That is, what we have in the real world will be mirrored in the virtual which will be mirrored in the real world... Just like the Matrix.
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
It differs in this:
When you quit playing Gauntlet you had to start over.
When you quit playing UO, you can start back up in the same position.
We call this "persistant".
You don't have to read about any gaming on /.
Get a filter from the prefrence menu.
Magic the Gathering sells cards for a collectible card game. They can print as many as they want.
There is a secondary market in Magic cards that's been selling them for years.
By your second point, someone at that company should have printed up some cards and sold them, thus destroying the market for these cards.
Once you wrapped your head around that one, try thinking before putting cute little quotes at the end of your messages.
I've been neo since 1985. I'm looking for a new name.
It would be one thing to write the same editorial with the tone of "this is interesting, I wonder how far it could go". Jon seems to prefer the "Eureka! I've found it! I'll change the world!! I saw it first!!!" tone when he finds something interesting.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Is Net and Web property infinite? That is, is the Net so expansible that it could never be overcrowded and congested?
Two words - dot com. You talk about overcrowded and congested, this is the prime example. New top-level-domains will help, but .com will still be the desirable property for quite some time.
Another example - the IP address space. Yes, I know IPv6 is on it's way, with enough IP addresses for everything on the planet to have at least 2, but it's not here yet, and for the time being, IP address space is getting pretty congested.
In theory, virtual property is infinite. In practice, it's limited. It keeps growing and growing, but there will always be limits, and we are quite good at pushing limits. And don't forget the infamous quote attributed to Bill Gates - "640K ought to be enough for anyone."
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
It is amazing, really, that people who work for virtual currencies would protest the non-reality of virtual economies. Consider that dollars, marks, pounds, yen and so forth, are all really nothing more than informational paper. There is no "reality" behind them, except the willingness of others to accept them in exchange for the products of their labor or for access to resources. A domain name like BY.NET is no less real than a physical address like WALL STREET. Both are simply linguistic devices which allow people to find things. Ultimately, all language is virtual reality. Language references people, places and things, but does not constitute the subjects themselves (with the possible exception of self-referential statements: i.e., "This statement is false.")
Peace and love, y'all
Remember the arcade game "Gauntlet?"
You could put more money in for more life points.
Paying for UO characters and property differs from
that exactly how?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It's bad enough that hackers are being berrated by main stream media for supposedly "stealing" from large, anonymous corporations, can we all see what will hapen when the middle class has a vested intrest in computer security?
What were to happen if a cracker got onto one of the ultima online servers, helped himself to some UO Cash and then bought himself whatever he needs?
Worse yet: Cracker gets onto the server, figures out some of it's data structure, and decides to get into another player's building and cleans him out?
Crackers/malitious hackers finally have something that has value to steal... and they would be stealing from mainstream america instead of the corps. This can have several consequences as i see it:
First and formost: The biggest hacker backlash in history. You think the Kevin Mitnick case was bad... now the law enforcement officials no longer have to work on the "estimated losses" reported by companies when they get documents copied off their servers (say source code), they have real world price tags on what the damages were.
Moreover, can we really trust mainstream american media to see the difference between hackers and crackers? It's bad enough that they can't do it now when the crackers are just defacing websites...
Secondly: With a bit of luck, this will drive all aspects of computer security forward. I can see dedicated players paying godo dollars for crypto systems that would protect their online assets. As well, internationalization of crypto technology will be given a big boost as non-north american players will want access to the same quality of crypto as we are priviledge to have.
Thirdly: Goverment regulation will quickly be pushed onto the scene. Any location generating real US$ seems to become the target of the US house and senate.
Third, B: TAXATION! As is, it's very difficult to keep the internet taxes at bay. In the states, the problem seems to stem from the seperation of states.. but if people start shelling out cash for virtual property, the likes of which cannot be seen right now, there will be a renewed effort by the USG to tax online transactions.
Fourth: Hopefully this will lead to the apparition of "free" servers that will pop up and have much more room to grow, allowing people to settle in. It'd be even nicer if a "Homesteading" act were to be implemented on UO (specific example) to move over onto the new systems, giving them some sort of bonuses (very much like the development of the "Wild West in early america.)
So much more can come of this, and i have to congradulate JohnKatz for bringing this to the light...
And that's just gaming, where 3D really does have several legitimate uses. Do you seriously think IRC will be replaced with something using avatars, either 2D or 3D? That we'll walk (or fly) our way around web sites? Don't kid me.
As for flying around web sites, it's already been done, and in some cases it's quite useful. Check out http://www.hyperwave.com. One of their viewers for web sites is uses VRML to show the documents and links. You can fly over the information landscape at the site and get a good idea of how the information is structured. They also have a more normal Windows Explorer style nested viewer of the links too. Both are at times handy.
Haven't you ever looked at a web page and wondered how much information lies behind each link? This is one way to get a "feel" for the web site without visiting each page.
They should throw you in virtual jail. :)
This sig is false.
Maybe some of the more famous folks could lease their accounts. Kinda like your 15 minutes of fame. Hehehe.
This sig is false.
I happen to completely agree with you here.
How is this even different from buying software? It is just a collection of bits on your hd (which in most cases can be taken away from you without much, if any notice [or whatever terms are stated in the eula]). What do you really own? A cheap cd with bits on it you might not even be able to legally use.
But that is just me.
This sig is false.
but there's nothing (in theory; please don't get technical-specific on my ass) to stop another phone or cable provider from offering a similar package at half the price.
Sure the cable provider can cut prices to half... and next month they wont be around because they went bankrupt.
What is happening with UO property is that people are giving it value based on certain factors. Maybe some of those factors are controled thru certain logic (the time they spent etc), while others are artifically maintained (like the fact that UO can increase the land to build on by two fold in a second).
Just because I'm selling my i486 for 2 million dollars doesnt mean you have to buy it.... or does it?
---
Not a personal attack against you Chris, in any way... just a heads-up to all those who are in the same situation as you... who put more value in data than in physical items. If society is to advance to an era where digital items are more important than physical ones we must stop the pirating now or risk the collapse of our entire economic system in the near future.
Another option is to extract a different sort of price for the settlement of new territories - risk and death.
If the "newly opened" continent is a hideously dangerous, wild environment - one that will effectively take years of gameplay by thousands of people to tame - then the virtual economy will probably boom instead of being destabalized, as support of the "brave explorers" and first few colonists becomes a part of the economy...
Of course, the new continent would need to have the riches (resources) to make settling it potentially worthwhile. Still, that can be managed easily enough; and unlike the real world, the expansionist economy can literally be kept up forver, since the virtual space is limitless.
-Samrobb
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
"i'm a bit confused by this post, partly because you seem to be agreeing with me for the most part."
Sorry if my post was unclear. I _am_ agreeing with you. I was expanding on your comment, not taking issue with it.
There is no rebuttal to your point. The only difference between your examples and Jon's example of Ultima Online property is one of expected (and I would argue, actual) value.
No one questions a decision to buy minutes from a phone company. No one questions that you bought those minutes with a piece of plastic with numbers on it, or through a "virtual" transaction of some other kind.
The only thing interesting about the eBay purchases of UO "virtual" property is the fact that people are buying what I would consider to be crap.
Jon's brain has confused him again. He looks for meaning and trends which don't exist. He scrathes and claws for cultural subtext never thinking that the trend is just one more step in a road our culture has been on for thousands of years.
Jon,
I would like to see a rebuttal of this. How does your virtual property example of Ultima Online real estate differ from the services described by th0m?
I'll help you. They are intrinsically less valuable.
Ultima Online does not sanction or control the sale of these assets (AFAIK) so they could change the value of these assets with impunity. If real estate is scarce, they could "virtually" increase the total amount, which would have the same effect as a government printing more money. They could change any rule of the game and change the value of the property.
With the example of online minutes from a phone company, the phone company cannot redefine "minutes" or change the service without breach of contract. A "month" of HBO is a month. The worst HBO could do is decide to make the service free to everyone, in which case all you lose is a month's payment. A domain name is absolute. There can be only one resolution to the browser query of http://slashdot.org.
Other than being a bad value, the examples of "virtual property" are no different than examples of real or meatspace property. Many things of monetary value cannot be held in your hand: 1000 shares of MSFT, car title, mortgage, bank statement.
My favorite line:
"ooh! ooh! virtual property paid for with *virtual money*! another monumental technological discovery"
[snip]
What's the difference between virtual money, which is a mere representation of money, and real money, which is a mere representation itself? There is no difference. The value is attributed and not inherent. American one hundred dollar bills only have as much value as we think other perople think they have. I know that the grocery store will let me walk out with a cart full of food if I let them take a shiny one hundred dollar bill, but I don't carry one around. Instead I pay for it with virtual money I store on a plastic card in my wallet.
Y'know, over on Ars Technica there's a very interesting interview with the lady who paid $2025 for an Ultima Online account, which sheds some light on the decision from her point of view.
It all boils down to the old economic principle of "opportunity cost" in making a decision . . . she had the money, and of all the alternatives on which she could spend it, this was the most attractive to her.
She's no rank newbie trying to buy her way into riches, either--she'd played the game since October 1997. The main reason for the purchase, she says, was the impossibility of acquiring "real estate" in UO anymore.
And of course, games involving real money for virtual property aren't new. I've yet to see anyone mention Chron X, an Internet CCG where you use your credit card to pay real money for virtual cards...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
{{if you haven't read Ender's Game, this probably won't mean much to you.}}
/., cnn.com, and nytimes.com.
>> * An account with a history of positively moderated posts
Wow. That would have made Val & Peter Wiggin's lives easier. Remember the time they spent creating those personas? Peter's political beliefs gradually became "syndicated" on a few of the Nets. Card couldn't have foreseen the exact structure of the Net (and who's to say that present-day structure is the structure?), but I think it's safe to say that our "major news nets" would include
Card hypothesized syndicated columnists (Jon Katz & Chris Locke both come to mind) whose opinions were posted -- much like Martin Luther's theses -- and debated vehemently. the debate was very public, and the political figures of the day stayed tuned, because the popular opinion in the debates let them know how to adjust their platforms.
Val & Peter (Locke and Demosthenes) were so well-known, and made such good points, that they eventually became political figures.
So... let's presume a persona comes into being on the Net. Let's say that this persona takes the name "DrTuring" and becomes immediately (and enduringly) popular with the online community. Let's say that a "Write-in DrTuring for President" campaign starts, and takes root. How much would Bill Gates pay the real DrTuring for the keys to that account? How much would Bush, Jr. pay? Are we no longer discussing profits of a few thousand bucks?
As more and more people enter the online community, political sites and news-debate sites will grow in power, and that power will have to spill over into the real world.
The entire concept of property (and even identity) is "virtual." Before the Industrial Revolution, you could pay to have documents forged that introduced you as whomever you pleased. With the advent of the photograph, identity became a more tangible thing. And now, with the advent of the "nick," technology has caught up.
another 2 cents from
Jurph;
penny for your thoughts?
Ok for domain names as being virtual property. In fact you can say the same about patents (which can be bought).
However there is a real change because domain names (and patents) are corporate property. Now that non corporate people buy / sell virtual property we can speak of "revolution" or at least a "turn". This was the same with the Internet and networking in general. As long as only corporations & organizations dealt with networking there was no revolution. But now that mass market come in, that's clearly a revolution.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
doesn't this sound familiar to you?
if nothing else, the trading of UO accounts and "property" is only going to make it more like real life. when someone's driving down the street in the $100,000 car with the $10,000 sound system, there's no guarantee that they've worked harder or invested more effort in their life to get those things.
all over the world, in england for example (with their surviving aristocracy), many people are 'born into' money; in america, people get lucky, or win the lottery, or get a huge lawsuit settlement, or otherwise just manage to land a six-figure-salary job involving virtually no work whatsoever. in reality there's very little correlation between amount of wealth / quantity of possessions and personal worth / effort / time invested.
now, whether it's good to inflict that model upon online gaming worlds is a point for debate, but ultimately it's not going to create a situation any more fucked-up than the one we live in now.
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
i don't have a "hatred of all things katz". jon's written some decent stuff on slashdot in the past (well, nothing that comes immediately to mind, but some of his writing on hotwired was good), but this article was dumb for the reasons i gave. feel free to criticize my reasoning, but don't say that i'm just blindly disagreeing because this article was written by katz. i've got better things to do.
you're confused, and you're wrong. how is cell phone time different to a game character? without a cell phone, you can't make use of the time; without a computer and a copy of the game, you can't make use of a UO account. that's why it's a service - it's an enabler for an existing product.
you wouldn't call a plumber if you didn't have any pipes in the house (well, you could, but you'd be a dumbass), you wouldn't buy cellular minutes if you didn't have a phone, and you wouldn't buy a UO character if you didn't have a copy of the game and a computer to play it on.
and, okay, debit card money may have a "tangible real world conversion", but that's not relevant to the issue. cash is essentially just a physical representation of an abstract item, and i could just as easily print out a page with the details of a specific UO character. see, there you go, it's a tangible item. do you see my point?
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
the only reason that cable TV service isn't traded is because it doesn't have any added value - why buy cable from your neighbor (and give him a profit) when you can get it cheaper from the cable company?
the difference with UO is that accounts accumulate value with [us]age. so there's a market demand, effectively, for used accounts, and they're sold at a price far above that of a brand new account (which are free, really, unless you want to include the price of the game - and you're going to be paying the monthly fee whatever account you use).
so, yeah, you're right, there is a difference, but it's not an intrinsic one. people don't buy post-it notes from each other; they buy them from a store. but if someone had a post-it note with, say, bill gates' - um, nevermind, linus' - signature on it, then someone will want to pay hard cash for it. it's still just a post-it, but it's had value added to it; the same happens with UO characters.
admittedly it's harder to provide added value to a specific cable TV or mobile phone account than it is for a UO account, but it's not part of the issue.
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
well, okay, that would be a good point... but where are you substantiating it? UO "property" is less valuable because the game's creators don't strictly control the value? i don't understand that.
granted, there isn't really a way to redefine 'minutes' or 'months', but there's nothing (in theory; please don't get technical-specific on my ass) to stop another phone or cable provider from offering a similar package at half the price. then your minutes/months would essentially be worth less, so i don't see how it's any different.
well, thanks, that's precisely my point. we deal with "virtual property" every day (in the sense that we 'own' the quantity of dollars that the bank's computer stores against our name in a database), which makes the angle of the article even less valid.
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
well, i disagree, of course.
i'd argue that the attributes and tools in UO are just part of the service that comes with the account. if i get a free (ie. new) UO account, i can enter the world just like anyone else, but i don't have any gold, potions or buildings - so in effect this is providing me with a worse service than if i'd bought a three-year old account with tons of that stuff attached to it.
i hate to keep coming back to this, but i don't just pay for cellular minutes; i also have optional voice mail and email send/receive service. these are, in your model of the world, 'attributes' or 'tools' that are part of my 'virtual property'. i could use the phone without them (just like i could use UO with a new account) but the service wouldn't be as useful to me. but, of course, they're not an exciting new breed of virtual property.
i just think that you're trying to draw a line where none exists - where do the normal account details stop and the 'attributes and tools' begin? if every account has a username and a quantity of gold, what makes the username part of the 'mere key' but the gold an 'intangible attribute'?
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
i'd rather not get stuck in the mud of plain unfettered katz-bashing, but you're completely right, and that's the point i was trying to make.
if you say enough obvious things, one day you're going to say something that someone else didn't think was obvious. eureka!
this is similar to the 'shotgun theory of comedy' or, as someone once put it,
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
i do think it's interesting, but i think the spin of jon's article was wrong. he's making a big song and dance about this new era of "virtual property", and that's misleading.
i would have enjoyed the article, rather than been annoyed by it, if he'd stuck with the subject in hand - told about some of the motives of people buying these accounts, talked to some UO gamers about how they thought this was going to affect the balance of power and influence in the game world, etc - but instead he chose the overly familiar path of trying to extrapolate a greater significance and meaning, resulting in a big fluffy article that didn't really tell you anything you wanted to know.
jon does this in every article, presumably in the hope that one day he'll actually hit upon a genuine revelation instead of regurgitating old material. keep an eye out for the inevitable "new era of wearable computing!", "new era of portable computers!", "new era of geek cinema!" etc (oh, hold on...) stories over the coming weeks.
as always, i don't take issue with what jon's saying; this sort of story would be very suitable to go into a print publication or a non-tech-oriented web site. there are billions of people out there who don't even appreciate or recognize the concept of a non-physical product, and they'd get a lot from the article - but, sadly, none of them read slashdot.
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
much as it pains me every single time i realize it, i'm afraid that i have to report that once again you're picking value out of vapor and getting all excited about something that, as always, isn't exciting or new at all.
i'm tempted to launch into an extensive diatribe, but i've got work to do today. suffice it to say that the "virtual property" that's got you so frantic in the last couple days is nothing more than a sale of service. it's amazing that you're managing to misunderstand this to the extent where you think there's something new.
every month i buy a package of 'minutes' for my mobile phone from my wireless company. these are just numbers in a computer, of course - am i purchasing "virtual property" here? and, if i am, haven't people been doing that for years?
i could subscribe to a paying-members-only web site; i could choose to pay for HBO; i could buy an Ultima Online account or good domain name from ebay. these are all the same thing - i'm buying the right to use a service. just because i'm not getting a physical product in return doesn't make it magic or 'cyber' or anything else you might want to think.
okay, the UO accounts and domain names might have certain 'added value' in terms of the time/effort invested in bringing them to their current status, but that doesn't make it any different. by buying an account or a domain, the purchaser is simply entitled to access to certain kinds of service in return for their cold hard cash - but hey, who pays in *cash* these days, anyway?
ooh! ooh! virtual property paid for with *virtual money*! another monumental technological discovery from jon katz! better write another /. column about this!
please.
-thom
-- in china, chinese food is just called food.
Not "Diamond Age" - "Nanosystems", Drexler's scientific study of nanotech! Sci-fi's no support for nanotech, but the technical text is.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
Such Luddism is rare today. You're performing a valuable service by keeping the old dogmas alive, much as the Inquisition taught scientists to be as meticulous as possible.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
I own nothing - or so my friends say. What I mean is, I own nothing physical. My apartment has no family pictures, my pots and pans came with the lease, and I only value my computer for the pattern of information on it. (A mountain bike is the one exception.) Yet I don't feel poor; totally the opposite.
Anyone with a grasp of nanotech research knows that within thirty years it's likely any physical object (within broad limits) will be replicable from a cheap feedstock; even physical objects will become valuable only for the pattern of information they're made from. So digital possessions won't just be on a par with physical things - they'll replace physical things. ("Got that new AMD box yet?" "Yeah, downloaded it yesterday.")
Think how much time you've invested tweaking your code as opposed to tweaking your hardware; I'd bet it's far more. You "value" your code far above the hardware it runs on. Perhaps we're already in that world of largely digital possessions and just haven't realised yet.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
But it's got the possibility to be so amazingly large that you'd hardly notice anyway.
Think. There is no such thing as purely virtual property in the sense that we're talking about. Items on UO, domain names, source code, all that stuff has to exist somewhere in the 'real' world. Even if it's in the magnetic properties of a small portion of someone's harddrive.
So, no virtual property without somewhere physical and 'real' to store it.
Now, there's a limit to the amount of physical, 'real' stuff around, you could turn the entire galaxy into computer storage, and it would be HUGE!, but still finite.
So, eventually, we're going to run out.
Of course, by the time we get there, most of you will be dead (I'm not planning on joining you) and technology may have found a solution anyway.
ASSUMPTIONS:
a) The universe is not infinite
b) Bhaal's not going to create more matter just because we run out of storage space
And incase you're pointing out how thoughts aren't physical, what's that grey squidgy stuff for then?
No, it's not "just service", because it can be traded amongst users. That is the point that you seem to have missed.
Most "services" like cable TV, etc. are not possible to exchange between users.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I'm currently writing a game which will be similar to Ultima Online (I've never played it, but from what I've heard about it, anyway), only cooler :-)
Anyway, I want to know if I should take precautions against this in my game or just allow it? Obviously I'd have unique ID numbers stored in each object on your computer, which would not be changeable, so that each object can only be used or "owned" by one player at a time. But should I take precautions so that each object can only be used from one machine (by a unique ID stored on the hard drive) or allow users to trade/sell them?
Unfortunately, this is a time when writing this game as Open Source is not feasible, because it would allow users to see the format of the game data files and change things such as object ID's and be able to change them so that they can duplicate or enhance objects.
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
Trying to sell ones and zero's
Also, sounds like SnowCrash with the 'Offices' and 'Houses', and there was something like your 'persona' that could be designed for you. The middle class used the generic persona's (Tommy & Susie?)... hmmm I'm having a hard time remembering, guess I'll have to read it again!
But I guess if someone want's to give me $4,000 for a sequental file of ones and zeros... um OK.
I wonder if anyone want's to buy a bridge...
--
Bun-Bun Rules!
90% of day read
10% of
How about getting a group together and virtually beating/killing property/items/etc out of people to sell on ebay?
You want Protection? 10$ for the UO Account and 10$ so you can play without getting your stuff stolen and sold elsewhere online.
I'm rambling also
--
Bun-Bun Rules!
90% of day read
10% of
I am surprised there is so much hubub here. This is a perfect example for an economics 101 calss. It is all supply and demand. I enjoy comics, so a Detective Comics 27 is worth $125,000 to me, to someone else it isn't worth the paper it is printed on. Look at the beanie craze. WHy would I pay $4000 for a dumb bear. It isn't worth more than $3 to me, but to a collector it is all about supply and demand. They have to ante up the $4000 to get it. In a sense this isn't virtual property any more than money itself. What is money? A littel paper and ink (or copper and nickel). In reality the only thing that makes it valuable is its socially accepted value and its scarcity. If the government printed billions more it would be worth far less. All these palyers are doing is paying one "virtual" item of value for another item or service. If you buy a character or gold, you are paying for the service of someone else earning it for you. It is an interesting twist, but no different in basic concept.
Jon Katz writes two articles on how eBay is pioneering the sale of virtual property, basing his work on some Merc Center piece.
If Jon knew anything about technology, he would have realized that meaningful virtual property has been bought and sold for years:
Internet domains
What's more virtual than a combination of letters and numbers like wallstreet.com or altavista.com, two simple records in a database that were sold for huge sums of money?
Katz seems to think that the purchase of Ultima characters is some kind of turning point, as if the world wasn't full of geeks who spend money on geekish pursuits. I look forward to his next piece on how the purchase of Star Wars Episode I toys illuminates the growth of personal spiritualism in America.
The real virtual property issues are in the namespace. I enjoyed Katz's efforts to give disenfranchised geeks a voice after Littleton, but these pieces on virtual property show why Katz is the last person in the world who should be commenting on technology.
The guy doesn't use it, doesn't understand it, and never will.
Thousands of individuals own domain names.
Isn't the the underlying concept of value the same? It shouldn't be surprising that people attribute value to something and others find a way to make a profit. A fool and their money are soon parted, regardless of the physical nature of it. I value my free time immensely. However, I have to be willing to give up some of it to afford my car. I pay my company with my time and they give me a scrap of paper that says I have the representation of 1000s of other scraps of paper being held by my bank. None of which would have any real value if it weren't assigned by society. You can't eat or drink virtual property or a $100 bill. If you can find someone willing to give you real food and drink in exchange, who gets the better deal?
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
This sounds like what happens in waking world real estate. Somes creative types find a place with cheap rent, do some incredibly creative things there, attract the middle-class, monied wannabees, who move in, raise the rents out of the reach of the creative types who move on to some other unwanted fringe. A few artists cash in, often cranking out clones of their original work and get rich or at least comfortable. The real estate agents also cash in. Me, I'm getting tired of moving.
I haven't read all the comments on this so forgive me if someone has already mentioned this but consider this: the Ultimate Online world uses its own form of currency for buying and selling things. Now, if a castle in UO is worth say 10,000 gold pieces, and someone goes on e-bay and buys that castle for $1,000, they have actually established a re-world currency exchange rate between dollars and UO gold pieces.
In other words, UO gold pieces have become REAL MONEY!
Electronic cash has become a reality, and no bankers were involved in its creation.
How much, if at all, will computer gaming be affected by what is sure to be the growing purchase of and
trading for virtual characters by the hordes of relatively affluent middle-class gamers thundering online?
One issue that I think we've not discussed that I'd like to hear other thoughts on is the implication of players of low level ability suddenly leaping into a game with tons of goodies.
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
Does anyone else forsee a "purist" gaming world where virtual property is not allowed developing parallel to the mainstream world of virtual property?
-- First post (by a female living in a state that begins with M and does not end in a vowel with a birthday that falls
That reminds me of a saying: You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl. Old money is a very different kind of status than new money.
However, I disgree that there's no correlation between wealth/effort/work invested. Sure, in a fair world, the correlation would be equal across the board, but that's not really my point. Even in UO, when someone buys a character for $2,000, that's real money, reflecting real work. What I really wonder about in an online world like UO is how other players perceive the characters who are "bought and paid for" -- does a high-level character owned by a relative newbie have the same sort of social status as a high-level character in which a player has invested lots of his/her own time and effort, beyond just a payment?
It sort of reminds me of ski towns. Locals don't always look very highly on the rich lawyers from Los Angelos who buy their way into the community.
I've never played UO, so I wonder if that situations translates across. Can anybody explain that one for me? Can other players even perceive when a character has been bought?
-Alan
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It has really precise real-world counterparts; As cities grow and sprawl they build new "downtown" areas. If the UO administrators were to create gobs of new land, the existing, densely-populated areas would lose value as players would expand to stake their claim on the new land (I have a vision of homesteaders rushing madly into Oklahoma).
I guess game dynamics would dictate what really happens to the new land; does it become the hip new region to settle, or is it like a new cookie-cutter urban sprawl subdivision? If players controlled areas of undeveloped land, can they cut it up and sell it off? What happens when groups of players want to preserve open space -- can they even do that? It's like the Wal-Mart vs. small towns crises that are popping up all over the U.S.
There are all sorts of implications for communities in there. Aside from all that, I have to wonder if it's any fun to play the game anymore. Do I really want to be a blacksmith in an imaginary world where I still have to pay rent?
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
>and plus it will cost so much when it does that few if any will be able to afford it.
Give me a break, man. How many of us looked at the nifty 3d graphics of a Cray supercomputer 10-15 years ago, and said that multi-million dollar technology will never make it to the desktop.
Technology is advancing so rapidly that none of us can really predict what is going to happen. The things that we think will never be within our grasp are the things that are most likely to become a huge part of our lives.
Sorry to ramble on, but I've been thinking alot lately of just how quickly we (humans) are growing...
James
get nemulator
Originally on UO people did this all the time... there were time warping bugs that allowed you to dupe items, very similar to Diablo, and if that ever happened, the 'real' value of ALL 'virtual' dollars would plummet and it wouldn't be worth 2 real cents to pay for. And people still do try to rob/steal/kill their way through the game and some are very successful, but it is set up with this capability in mind, so it's not easy to get carried away at all... in fact, it's harder to get rich evilly than it is legally, just because of the various rules and penalties assessed.
> Is Net and Web property infinite? That is, is the Net so expansible
/.
> that it could never be overcrowded and congested?
The Net is crowded and congested today. Good domainnames are rare, good spaces for banner ads are expensive, popular servers are overloaded and slow...
It doesn't really matter if property is infinite on the Net or not, because crowding occurs when some neighborhoods are considered better than others and people want to be (seen, live, work...) in cool places and not on the end of nowhere. Then prices and value rise.
Net property behaves exactly the same way as real estate. While a few acres in Siberia or Alaska are dirt cheap, people want to pay millions for their offices in Manhattan, downtown London or Zurich.
Given the minimal cost for undeveloped space, the main business on the Net seems to be net-estate development. Just have a look at Yahoo, MP3.com, cnet.com, etc. They succeed because they manage to convince people that crowding in their place is cool and then selling the crowd to the highest bidder.
Very confused and crowded at
johi
The reason UO objects have a value in real life is that they have a unique assignable _identity_ within the closed environment of UO. You can only transfer ownership from within the UO environment and they can't live outside of that single proprietary runtime environment.
Real-life virtual objects(!) don't have this property. Suppose I design a virtual Stradivarius containing some revolutionary algorithms for producing virtual violin sounds never before heard on a computer. I decide to make a single instance of this violin and sell it to the highest bidder. The price I get must be at least equal to the value I place on the algorithms as intellectual property, because no matter what method I use to safeguard the bits, once it runs on a machine not controlled by me, those algorithms are now freely available to at least the buyer. I won't get a buyer willing to pay the price I need, unless of course the buyer is buying with the intent to reverse engineer my algorithms, because 'honest' buyers know that all it takes is inadvertently allowing someone dishonest access to the Stradivarius (maybe I lend it to a friend) for it to be rendered worthless.
The difference between my virtual Stradivarius and a real-life Stradivarius is that it's not so easy to copy a Stradivarius in real-life (as seen in real-life) as it is in virtual life. I don't risk losing all my hard-won knowledge and my violin-making business when I sell the final product in RL.
Of course cyber-property will have intrinsic value for some people. The same way that a certain logo or designer's name on a piece or clothing has intrinsic value, for some people. The products (the sorts of things that are available to buy, sell, and trade) may change, but the people don't.
"I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent"
Are there other employment and economic possibilities beyond gaming in the concept of virtual property?
He said inexperienced players needed to be especially careful these days. "I lost 700,000 Ultimate Online gold pieces in an attempt to purchase a Tower, a structure it's no longer possible to build on UO because there's no more open land.
But suppose the programmers created a way to insert more open land into Ultima? (I haven't played Ultima, but the same sort of change might happen in any virtual economy.) Suddenly, all those virtual properties that players have been accumulating lose their status of no longer possible to build. The "Ultima artifact" monetary system suffers a sudden devaluation. This sort of changing of the rules which defined the value on a monetary system is much like printing money without limit - it can lead to runaway inflation and people leaving that economy.
There could end up being a conflict between the "virtual economy" and the "usage" view of a virtual item. (Adding new land to Ultima might make perfect sense as far as making the game more playable for the current number of people involved, yet it would devalue the surrounding virtual economy.)
There could also be the sort of "insider trading" issues that affect all commodity markets. "Sell your properties now, they're going to open a new continent next week."
I'll bid 5 UO Gold.
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs Grundy to go fly a kite. _R.A.Heinlein
The only thing being really proved here is that TIME = MONEY. The time spent to create these characters(and the vanity appeal) is what the money is buying. The amount of money being spent is directly proportional to the amount of resources(supply) left of UO. The demand for this property has caused the prices to skyrocket. Milton Friedman would get a kick over this concept. We all(most of us) pay for our ISP's to let us save "time" in researching information, or buy things on-line(time saved not having to go to store).
What's going to be really cool is when someone cracks UO, like we did Diablo, and charge for "Stolen" virtual property. I wonder if once someone does crack it, will the "Real" price of gold on eBay reflect the inflation. Sorta like the US leaving the gold standard.
Just rambling, I guess.
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs Grundy to go fly a kite. _R.A.Heinlein
I'm having trouble understanding how you've missed all the virtual property up to this point. Companies have gone public based on the value of their virtual property, lawsuits have happened over virtual property, mainstream media has hyped several forms of virtual property. With the valuations of the 'Internet Stocks', the billions of dollars involved, I'm amazed that you are only now recognizing the existence of virtual property.
Website content is virtual property.
A domain name is virtual property.
I think the term 'virtual' is a misnomer here. If we are going to apply it any effort that results in information, we should apply it to all such efforts. Why should pixels on a screen be considered any more 'virtual' than ink on a page? Why should hours of effort in one medium be thought of as 'virtual', and another medium be 'real'.
Online gaming isn't bringing anything new to the concept. First, trading gaming accounts or positions is not new online or offline. Simply because EBay has decided to capitalize on it doesn't make it new. Second, time and effort are what create value, which is not a 'virtual' concept. The value of a digital/informational result is no less 'real' than a physical product.