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.

Those who have been following the RMT scene for some time can probably recall the shady company called BlackSnow Interactive ('BSI'). Like many others, BSI was using computer-controlled player characters ("macros") and vulnerabilities in game code ("dupes") to obtain large quantities of game property very inexpensively. According to Julian Dibbell (Unreal Estate Boom sidebar, Wired magazine, January 2003), they also set up a "virtual sweatshop" in Tijuana, Mexico, where unskilled laborers played Dark Age of Camelot ('DAoC') in three shifts. (See comments below)

In 2002, BSI became famous for suing DAoC's operator Mythic Entertainment over the right to sell game properties outside the game. They also threatened to sue Funcom, operator of Anarchy Online, to retrieve accounts that Funcom had frozen for EULA violations. There was some anticipation that BSI's actions would result in the legal status of virtual property receiving clarification in the U.S.