Tag Archives: MMO

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Iceland’s economy is dependent on imaginary space pirates

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EVE Online screenshotCourtesy of Jamais Cascio, here’s just another reminder of the fact that we live in a very strange world that gets stranger by the day. Point in case: the wrecked economy of Iceland is less real that that of the online space RPG EVE Online:

The in-game currency of EVE Online is the ISK. That’s right, the Icelandic króna. And where most multiplayer games have attempted to ban the translation of in-game assets to and from real-world money, EVE Online has not only permitted it but actively embraced it – so much so that daily speculation on world/game financial leverage is conducted openly on the official game web boards. As a result, the EVE Online ISK has remained fairly stable against virtually all the real currencies of the world for a few years now, fluctuating but not spiking, not crashing. There are people out there making an income, a real-life income, just handling the trades on the “floor”.

All of which is to say: Iceland has collapsed so thoroughly that at this point, it’s only economically viable export may very well be an internet spaceship game, and that internet spaceship game’s króna is for all intents and purposes a more real and valid and valuable currency than the actual country’s actual money.

Strange stuff is afoot in the Global Village, no? [image by Psycho Al]

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Gold-farming still big business

World of Warcraft gold vaultVia BoingBoing, here’s a Guardian article on the MMORPG gold-farming phenomenon:

These virtual industries sound surreal, but they are fast entering the mainstream. According to a report by Richard Heeks at Manchester University, an estimated 400,000 Asian workers are now employed in gold farming in a trade worth up to £700m a year. With so many gamers now online, these industries are estimated to have a consumer base of five million to 10 million, and numbers are expected to grow with widening internet access.

As I mentioned last time, what interests me most about gold-farming is that it seems to be comparatively immune to the economic slump. WoW gold or weapons are surely luxury items by any economical definition, but for some reason they’re not going the same way as bling and gas-guzzler cars. Is this due to the low ticket price, combined with the fact that gaming is a comparatively recession-friendly pastime? Is it also a recognition that the one thing we value more than our money is the time to achieve what we want (virtual or otherwise)? [image by fernashes]

Looking forward, though, how soon before the market saturates? The collapse of Chinese manufacturing has resulted in an expanded pool of labour, but that just means more competition for the work. If, as some economists have suggested, the recession is a prelude to greater financial parity on a global scale, will gold-farming or its equivalents become an increasingly attractive employment option in the West as the traditional options for blue-collar work erode?

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Recession-proof industries: gold-farming

World of Warcraft gold vaultWhile meatspace endures lay-offs and plummeting valuations, it seems that there’s still plenty of life left in the virtual currencies business – an MMO gold-farming site has just been snapped up for US$10 million. [image by fernashes]

Gold-farming is an interesting business phenomenon for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it deals in completely intangible goods. But it’s also out on the edge of legality when you consider the exploitative methods used to accrue the gold and items that are traded, and for most MMOs it’s against the rules to trade in in-world items beyond the game’s confines.

But it’s even more interesting to see the gold-farming market riding high while the real-world markets are tumbling, because it implies the two systems are connected but separate. Perhaps in the near-future people will be able to ride out the rough times by shifting their work into the virtual domains?

If we have any economists in the audience, I’d really welcome your input on this story; the interaction between real and virtual economies is as fascinating as it is baffling to me.

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All change in the metaverse: EVE embraces democracy as Reuters turns tail on Second Life

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EVE Online screenshotThe space opera science fiction MMO game EVE Online was recently rocked by an insider-trading scandal. Unlike World of Warcraft, the EVE universe is singular and persistent: you can’t move your character to another server, so anything that happens effects everybody. [screenshot by Pentadact]

As such, it’s imperative that EVE‘s makers CCP maintain a strong and transparent bond of trust with their paying players, the latest development of which is the Council of Stellar Management – a peer-elected group of players who act as advisers to CCP on matters regarding gameplay. [via BoingBoing] How long before this (or another similar) monitoring system becomes big enough to harbour its own layers of corruption?

Still, at least CCP are making the effort to keep their userbase on side, unlike Linden Lab. The media glow on Second Life has been spasmodic since the initial burst of enthusiasm last year, but today’s big metaverse headline is about news agency Reuters pulling out of Second Life, with former stringer Eric Krangel launching a zinger of a parting shot from his new post at Silicon Alley Insider [via The Guardian]:

Abandon the idea that Second Life is a business app. I wasn’t in Second Life to play, I was there on assignment for Reuters. The login server would crash. I’d try to reach sources, but Second Life’s IM window would hang on “waiting” all day when trying to figure out who was online. “Teleports” … would stop working and I’d get locked out of my own office. These weren’t one-offs, they were my daily, first-hand, happens-all-the-time experiences. For all its bugs, Second Life is tolerable as a playground, but enterprise users will never and should never use it for business. Re-focus on the core mission: Keeping the hobbyists happy and converting potential recruits into hardcore (read: fees-paying) users.

Unfortunately, Linden Lab can’t even seem to keep its paying customers happy, as protests over recent price hikes have demonstrated. I doubt this spells the end of the line for the metaverse – or even for Second Life itself – but the brave new world doesn’t seem quite so brave or new any more.

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The Superstruct Game is go!

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Hey, remember me mentioning a kind of Mundane SF/futurist social media roleplaying game back in July? Well, The Superstruct Game finally kicked off this week, and you can get involved on a number of levels – hundreds of participants (including a number of Futurismic staffers) are already helping to invent the future, so hop in and join them.

What are the requirements? That you can imagine what the world might be like in 2019… so ideal for science fiction fans, I’d have thought. Get involved!