For a while now, there has been talk of CCP Games hiring a lead economist to produce economic information about the massive game world of the space MMOG EVE Online. The appointment of this “Alan Greenspan of the virtual economy” was announced this Tuesday.  Read more

Diablo II is a game released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000. In the game, the player travels in the world of Sanctuary on a quest to defeat the three prime evils, Mephisto, Diablo and Baal, while fighting their demonic minions along the way. The original game ended in defeating Diablo, and the quest of defeating Baal was added in 2001 as part of the Lord of Destruction expansion.  Read more

VERN is a forum for research on real-money trade of virtual property, but what exactly does that area comprise? There are over 50 entries in the bibliography, from economic analysis to policy studies — is there any pattern or consistency to this work?  Read more

EVE Online, the space-MMOG produced by the Icelandic company CCP, is known to have an advanced in-game economy with player-driven enterprises. The economy recently gained a bit of notoriety when the biggest-yet in-game banking scam was revealed, reported to be worth around 700 Bn interstellar kredits (ISK) or more than 100 000 USD at current eBay and IGE prices. I had the opportunity to interview CCP’s CEO Hilmar Pétursson and CMO Magnús Bergsson about EVE’s virtual economy and secondary markets at the Nordic Game conference last month. Below is a transcript of selected parts.  Read more