Virtual Economies

Original topic by:

Scott Woodward

Chris Addy

Adjusted by: Prof. Hector Munoz-Avila

Economies

• Economy refers to the human activities related with the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services

• A virtual economy is an economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually in the context of a game

Virtual Economies

• Consist of 5 parts

– Persistence– Scarcity– Specialization– Trade– Property Rights

Persistence

• The gaming system keeps track of

– State of the world (what does this mean?)– Resources– Possessions

• The gaming system maintains these permanently

Scarcity

• Users must expend resources

– Time– Real money – Virtual money and resources

• To obtain goods, resources, or services in the virtual environment

• Examples?

Specialization

• Availability to players must vary

– Limit players ability to obtain resources based either upon skills, class, or other factors

– This creates conflict in the environment for available resources (alternative)

– Other forms of obtaining resources?

Trade

• Users must be able to transfer goods and services to and from other users– Virtual objects only have meaning in context

of the game– Worthless if unable to trade goods between

players and the environment

Property Rights

• The world must record which goods and services belong to which user’s avatar– The user may dispose of the goods or

services according to whim at any time via destruction, exchange or use.

Types of Games and Their Economies

– RTS– TBS– RPG– FPS– Board Games (Monopoly etc)– MMO

• inflation

Meaningful Play

• Integrated outcome– By interacting with the economy you obtain

resources that will further your own goals further down the road

Lusory Attitude

• You are willing to spend significant amounts of time or even real money to get those neat items

Virtual Economies in the News

• Online vendors sell currency, services or items in many online games – World of Warcraft– Everquest I & II– Second Life

• EBay bans the selling of virtual goods and services

• Virtual Taxation