Real-world sales of virtual resources gained within multiplayer online computer games has surpassed $100 million worldwide, according to a new estimate.
鈥淚t鈥檚 something of a milestone,鈥� says Edward Castronova, an economist at the University of Indiana, US, who specialises in the study of these synthetic worlds. 鈥淭welve months ago I would have guessed the global market might be about $20 million, but now we鈥檙e looking at an order of magnitude update.鈥�
His 鈥渃onservative estimate鈥� for real trade in resources for these massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) already rivals the gross domestic product of some small countries. And the real figures are likely to be much higher as China and Japan, where virtual worlds are booming, were not included.
Advertisement
Castronova obtained the figures by adding reported eBay sales of virtual items to data on the volume of Korean sales through a website called itemBay.
Real-world trade based on virtual items is at least three years old, says Peter Ludlow, a philosopher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US, who was banned from the popular online game, The Sims, for publishing a web-based newspaper that reported stories on the lurid goings-on in the game鈥檚 virtual town.
Real-world economics
The trading emerged alongside the first MMORPGs, such as EverQuest, when time-starved gaming addicts realised they could buy game-labour rather than putting in the hours themselves 鈥� just like in the real world. Now this has grown into an economy that reflects the pressures of real world supply and demand.
For example, 鈥渧irtual sweat shops鈥� or 鈥渇arms鈥� have emerged in Hong Kong and Mexico, where armies of players are assembled to build virtual objects such as swords or simply to amass credits within a game by superior play, solely to sell those items in online auctions.
Trade is rapidly increasing as the number of worlds increases 鈥渁t the rate of Moore鈥檚 Law鈥� 鈥� doubling roughly every 18 months 鈥� says Castronova. The more time people spend in these worlds, the more eager they are to make them attractive places, so sales of virtual fashion items and clothes are also increasing, says Beth Noveck, organiser of the 鈥淪tate of Play II鈥� conference that began on Thursday in New York City, US.
Marketable virtual goods fall into three main categories, says Castronova: accessories like swords; money, currently traded according to an exchange rate for the game; and whole characters.
Runaway inflation
Once the seller receives a real-world cheque from the buyer, the two agree to meet at a specific time in a virtual location within the game. Once there, the sale is completed with an exchange of virtual goods.
But Castronova says that virtual world behaviour can differ from the real world. In games, virtual money must be constantly doled out as a reward for overcoming certain challenges. If a real government started printing money purely to pay employees, this would cause runaway inflation. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a design choice,鈥� he says. 鈥淗aving a world with treasure and inflation is simply more fun than having a real-world economy.鈥�
The ability to replace skill in the game with real world wealth is seen by some players as a 鈥減ollution鈥� of the harmony of a fantasy world, says Castronova. They value games precisely because they can escape the demands and inequalities of the real world.
But Ludlow says the intersection of the real and online worlds is 鈥渁 glimpse of the future鈥�. He says virtual spaces will increasingly be used as assembly points to carry out business meetings and as physics simulators to experiment with building physical objects.
鈥淧eople are already using virtual worlds to try out design products such as clothes before attempting to market them in the real world,鈥� Noveck adds.