Fast Capitalism

[dr_mickey_k]

I had an article published today in Fast Capitalism about massive online games on the virtual political economy. I thought some of you guys might be interested.

www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/4_1/kent.html

Comments

[mikey_ob]

Good article.

Interestingly, anecdotal reports from in game server have relayed to me that gold sales in WoW have dropped dramatically since Blizzard raised the "daily quest" limit and their subsequent rewards, so now players can easily make 200+ gold in an hour. This has significantly reduced the demand for farmed gold. As an active player I have experienced this through the near total extinction of in-game gold vendor advertising around city banks on both the servers I play on.

WoW is due for another massive economy revision as the new expansion (WotLK) gets ready to launch. When TBC (the first expansion) came out all items of level 60 value suddenly dropped as the new power levels came into play, the economy began to sort itself out as pricing for items settled over several months of players getting a handle on the worth of new materials. As a researcher I would suggest that you might be interested in getting involved to get a first hand view of this change over of economy. Write it up as a virtual fast bust-boom cycle paper, get a grant to play - the expansion is due in early November (and play alongside Dave and I).

The other great threat to the WoW economy is looming in the form of the Warhammer online game. Many see this is a serious contender to challenge Blizzards place, the thing is Games Workshop's design and lore was the basis for some of Warcraft's aesthetic. Interesting times ahead.

[accy]

God damn, The Pusher man.

[strangedave]

I think also the move to have more and more high end gear from either Badges or PVP, making gold in general less useful. Which I think was a deliberate ploy by Blizzard - the prime customers, who are desperate to level up, find that gold is increasingly not that useful. And the 'recruit a friend' system probably cuts into the power levellers business, too.

Blizzards response to the gold farmers has been, in part, to reduce the importance of gold as a factor in the game. Which makes it very clear that the economy is a toy one. Badges and other non-transferable tokens are increasingly being used in place of gold.

Compare EVE, in which cash etc are an absolutely central part of game play, because the economic competition is clearly at the core of the game.