Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Virtual World grows real economy
Just musing:
It is a shame all those fantasy world spare competitive mental cycles
couldn't be harnessed for solving real wicked problems.
Maybe you could just trick folks into thinking they were playing a fantasy
game when in fact they were solving world poverty? (01)
Something else: This might sound like a platitude, but perhaps wicked
problems don't get solved easily because there isn't a large enough mass of
participants competing for a big enough (individual winner) prize. That is,
you need both the critical mass of intellectual input and sufficient
individual incentive to make it work. And also, perhaps the framework or
rubric within which the 'competition' is supported *needs* to support any
time, any way, contribution so that players can contribute with an
individual strategy but the whole gets augmented as a result of play no
matter what. (02)
--
Peter (03)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Park" <jackpark@thinkalong.com>
To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 3:11 PM
Subject: [ba-unrev-talk] Virtual World grows real economy (04)
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991847
> "A computer game played by thousands of enthusiasts over the Internet has
> spawned an economy with a per-capita income comparable to that of a small
> country, according to new research by a US economist.
> The online fantasy game EverQuest lets players create and control
> characters - or avatars - within a fantasy world called Norrath.
Characters
> gain skills and possessions that they can then trade with other players
> using the game's currency of "platinum pieces". However, many EverQuest
> players have found this process too complicated and have instead opted to
> sell their assets for real money though trading web sites such as eBay.
> Edward Castronova, of the economics department at California State
> University at Fullerton, studied thousands of EverQuest transactions
> performed through eBay to determine the real-world economic value
generated
> by the inhabitants of Norrath.
> Castronova discovered that Norrath's gross national product per-capita is
> $2,266. If Norrath was a country, it would be the 77th most wealthy in the
> world, just behind Russia. "
>
> (05)