[...] offers notes from the session entitled Making Virtual Economies Work, while Raph has notes from Why Virtual Goods Matter: What’s Driving User Adoption? and Virtual Goods Success Stories. Fascinating stuff, this. Patch [...]

Some places will take virtual criminality more seriously than others. In some places, it may not (culturally) matter at all. One country will say, “if someone steals your virtual shoes, it won’t make your real feet cold. If someone steals your real shoes, cold feet are a danger, and that’s more important than cold virtual feet or even getting pounded to virtual death by an orc because the AC boost your missing shoes would’ve given you.” Other countries will come to their own conclusions.

All in all, I agree the the fact that “the same neurons fire” is a profound point, and explains much about virtual economies. But it’s important to remember a virtual economy is a luxury economy. Whether or not people want to do without it, they can. Depriving them of virtual goods, or changing those virtual goods so they have a different value, is fundamentally different than depriving people of real-world goods.

Of course, at this point you can say, “But money itself has no intrinsic value — that’s a culturally-conditioned overlay too. The balance in your checking account is pretty much virtual (mediated within a digital realm) as well, from the point that it’s direct-deposited to the point that your automatic bill-pay pays your bills”. Fair enough.

But if this article is about anything, it’s about mitigating the risks associated with this sort of virtuality. Banks are required to have real hard currency reserves, and considerable regulations to protect the integrity (i.e., concept of virtual value) of the dollar. These real, physical safety measures counteract the real risks (like the 1929 stock market crash, and subsequent depression / world war) that can occur when money gets too virtual.

Dollars are at least a symbol of the power of the US government to collect taxes and the US economy to export goods; what are WoW gold pieces a symbol of? It’s just so much bling. Sure, they’re worth more than the Iraqi dinar today, but if the Next Big Thing is released tomorrow and WoW players migrate to other games (or there’s a dupe bug introduced, or a farming exploit is discovered), the value collapses. It’s a house of cards. What mitigates the risks? Onerous financial oversight? That’s hardly a solution.

Prudent policy demands that we minimize the ways in which these houses of cards can adversely affect our economies, on an individual (theft) an industrial (investment) and a national (tax base) scale. I believe this means that ultimately, the Second Life / Project Entropia model of tying virtual currencies to real-world currencies may have to be regulated out of existence.

It’s just monopoly money. Even at best, the “value” of any given game’s currency and goods is just a passing fad, similar in “value” to Magic cards. Trying to regulate it so it holds value like real money is doomed to fail, and will ultimately just hurt the online game/world industry.

[...] – VGSummit2007: Why Virtual Goods Matter: What’s Driving User Adoption? [...]

Virtual Goods 2007 wrap-up…

The first Virtual Goods Summit was on Friday, and congrats to Charles and Susan for getting together an amazing group on short notice. There was remarkably little filler and a ton of real concrete discussion from the leaders in this industry. I moderat…

[...] potential laundering vehicles… it gets just far more complicated. 댓글달기 [...]

If the human brain doesn’t do this specialization, except as a kind of culturally-conditioned overlay that is thinner or thicker in different people and countries, then why shouldn’t we take virtuality seriously? That is, the effect it has on the brain in terms of conditioning, for good or bad. Therefor criminality in virtuality should matter.

Why Virtual Goods Matter: What’s Driving User Adoption? Virtual World News’ notes: Virtual Goods Success Stories Why Virtual Goods Matter Making Virtual Economies Work Virtual Items – Mainstream or Not? Are Virtual Goods the Next Big Business Model?

2009년에는 중고등부 과정도 개설할 예정이다.” (참고: Gamelab의 CEO 이승택 씨 인터뷰: 피그민) 게임 개발의 AI: 좋음에서 훌륭함으로 브룩타운 하이(Brooktown High)와 서양 연애 게임의 미래 VG Summit 2007: 왜 가상 세계의 물건이 중요한가? 무엇이 유저의 참여를 이끄는가? 포인츠 오브 엔트리: 뉴욕 타임즈에 게재된 새로운 뉴스게임 3D 튜토리얼: 로우 폴리곤 잎사귀 만들기 꿈을 기록하고 공유하는 드림크라우드(Dreamcrowd)

Jia Shen, RockYou! » John Vars, Dogster » James Hong, HotOrNot » J.T. Stephens, Six Apart » Robert Scoble, PodTech (moderator) … Why Virtual Goods Matter: What’s Driving User Adoption? via 3pointD via Raph via Virtual Worlds News Virtual goods offerings continue to garner more momentum in the marketplace. Why do consumers want to spend their money on items that only exist in a virtual context? Is it even appropriate to make a distinction between what

Virtual Goods Summit: Are Virtual Goods the Next Big Business Model? – Virtual Goods Summit: Virtual Goods Meet Entertainment Raph Koster’s blog: – VGSummit2007: Virtual Goods Success Stories – VGSummit2007: Why Virtual Goods Matter: What’s Driving User Adoption? Original post: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1323