From EverQuest to World of Warcraft, online games have evolved from the exclusive domain of computer geeks into an extraordinarily lucrative staple of the entertainment industry. People of all ages and from all walks of life now spend thousands of hours—and dollars—partaking in this popular new brand of escapism. But the line between fantasy and reality is starting to blur. Players have created virtual societies with governments and economies of their own whose currencies now trade against the dollar on eBay at rates higher than the yen. And the players who inhabit these synthetic worlds are starting to spend more time online than at their day jobs.

In Synthetic Worlds, Edward Castronova offers the first comprehensive look at the online game industry, exploring its implications for business and culture alike. He starts with the players, giving us a revealing look into the everyday lives of the gamers—outlining what they do in their synthetic worlds and why. He then describes the economies inside these worlds to show how they might dramatically affect real world financial systems, from potential disruptions of markets to new business horizons. Ultimately, he explores the long-term social consequences of online games: If players can inhabit worlds that are more alluring and gratifying than reality, then how can the real world ever compete? Will a day ever come when we spend more time in these synthetic worlds than in our own? Or even more startling, will a day ever come when such questions no longer sound alarmist but instead seem obsolete?

With more than ten million active players worldwide—and with Microsoft and Sony pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into video game development—online games have become too big to ignore. Synthetic Worlds spearheads our efforts to come to terms with this virtual reality and its concrete effects.

I found this book very interesting but the first part seems to me far more intereseting than the second on policy matter. As I see the issue, there is two ways to embrace virtual worlds économy: 1) to consider VW economies as real economies pertinent per se for exchanges that take places in it (which include policy analysis in game and for designer) and 2) VW as an experimental field to test real economics hypothesis, theoris and models (such as incentives to buy and sell, to meet people and to band with, entrepreuneurship behaviour and trading notions).

Castronova relies quasi exclusively (there is one or two ambiguous sentences in the book, not very much in a lengthy book) on the first idea of VW in economics. And a long list of contributors to this very rich bibliography are in the same mood.

What do you think, all, of this distinction and what are your preferences. Im very interesting in knowing that point since I favor the second one but not disregard the second.

Laurent: I agree about the two approaches. As you say, most of the current literature is about virtual economies pertinent per se, except maybe e.g. Bradley & Froomkin 2003.

Still, many authors at least mention the possibility of using virtual economies as a testbed. I think there are some reasons to be a bit sceptical of it though. Despite the label "virtual world", there are many ways in which these systems are not isolated from "the real world".

I must confess I had not seen the castronova's piece "ON THE RESEARCH VALUE OF LARGE GAMES: NATURAL EXPERIMENTS IN NORRATH AND CAMELOT" where he said that

"large games should be thought of as, in effect, social science research tools on the scale of the supercolliders used by physicists: expensive, but extremely fruitful." (in the bibliography on this very site)

and asks the question of the experimental process. Surely, there would be a lot to say about his articles, results and hypothesis but at least, what I called the experimental approach has been tackled.

And for your argument about the lack of isolation of VW, it's obvious but there is many ways to bypass it by a strict control of experimental process, design of a specific experiment... A large pannel of research are now available with MMOgame.

So, I'm unforgivable and I need to read a lot more.
Thanks Vili for your research database and to provide a very nive place and network to discuss with.

People who are knowledgeable about the subject may not find too much they didn't know already but nevertheless it's a good read for anyone interested in the subject.
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