line between the real and game space… a peek into the future?

As Lisa noted in her comment to an previous post on class and gaming, the Economist reviewed the new book by Edward Castronova entitled, Synthetic Worlds : The Business and Culture of Online Games.sythetic worlds
Castronova, also wrote an essay that was included in the Game Design Reader that was behind the “Making Games Matter” panel we attended. This essay marks the first analysis of the economics of people and their interactions in a virtual reality. Interesting to note, it has yet to be formally published in an academic economics journal.
In these studies, Castronova calculates the economics of the virtual by looking at what people are willing to pay in real currency for online gaming characters and their associated costs. As previously posted, people are making their livings in these virtual spaces by creating and selling their avatars. We are entering an era where the boundaries between the real and virtual are blurring.
Although some affluent gamers are buying their way into the higher echelons of game spaces such as EverQuest, there is still the opportunity for anyone with enough time and skill to create advanced characters. Where as in the real world, there are only a limited number of players in the NBA and CEO positions in the Fortune 500 companies. There is enough “room” in the game space to allow for many top tier characters, because the vast majority of the “normal” characters are bots run by the gaming engine.
Is the online game space the utopian society where everyone can be equal and rich and powerful? Is this a peek at the future of the real world when robots take over all the jobs that people don’t want to perform?

One thought on “line between the real and game space… a peek into the future?”

  1. ray cha

    An article in the yahoo gaming site noted that 18,000 members of World of Warcraft’s 5 million reported subscribers have been banished from the game for breaching the online game’s Terms of Use. Most of the offended parties were operating bots to mine for gold and items for sale in the real world. We have reached the point where computers are playing games for us. Why pay for someone to play a game for you, when a bot will do it for free?
    In a way, obtaining avatars through ebay or bots is not that different from reading Cliff Notes. Here, people have someone or something do the work for them. The major difference here is that Cliff Notes is not written to be read as entertainment.
    I am intrigued how online gaming as narrative blurs the distinction between work and play. A gamer is supposed to work (that is to spend time) to build up his characters, which is supposed to part of the fun.

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