Virtual Economy Research Network

This Monday, Electronic Arts and the television production company Endemol announced a partnership to develop a concept they call Virtual Me (press release). It basically sounds like an online service where you can re-enact popular TV shows with other users using personalised avatars. Endemol is responsible for formats such as Big Brother and Deal or No Deal. In a similar effort, MTV last year launched Virtual Laguna Beach, a virtual world based on a "reality" TV show.

To some extent, the sudden interest in turning everything to avatars and virtual worlds may be due to the Second Life hype. But there is also substance to it. In the teenage virtual world Habbo Hotel, re-enacting television shows has been a popular pastime for years.

Yesterday's seminar was a great success, thanks to all who participated. A video recording of the presentations is now available through here.

One of the themes was what creates demand for virtual property. For MMORPGs, Professor Sang-Min Whang showed us data from Lineage that linked property value with time required to obtain it. In the social virtual world Habbo Hotel, Sulka Haro told us how Sulake time-limits the supply of certain items to create valuable rares. Sulake does not profit from this directly, as they sell the to-be rares at a mere 4 euros when they are available. However, it makes Habbo's "economic game" of barter exchange more interesting and raises prices in the budding secondary market.

We also heard some fascinating stuff about demand for virtual items in a service that is nothing like a virtual world, but a "flat" community site, similar to MySpace.

Time: Tuesday, 26. September, 13:00-16:00 (GMT+3)
Location: Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (6th floor), Tammasaarenkatu 3, Helsinki.

On 26. September, the DCC research group at HIIT is organising a mini-seminar under the topic "Massively multi-user services and the item payment model". A keynote speech will be delivered by our visitor from Korea, professor Leo Sang-Min Whang of Yonsei University. Prof. Whang is a leading researcher of the psychology of MMORPGs and virtual items in Korea.