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Back in 2001, economist Edward Castronova completed a then-groundbreaking study. He'd just spent the last two years looking at the economy of Norrath, the game-world of online game Everquest, and he'd come to an interesting conclusion: taking accepted measures of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) into account, Norrath had the 77th largest economy in the world.
About 12,000 people call [Norrath] their permanent home, although some 60,000 are present there at any given time, He said. The nominal hourly wage is about USD 3.42 per hour, and the labors of the people produce a GNP per capita somewhere between that of Russia and Bulgaria. A unit of Norrath's currency is traded on exchange markets at USD 0.0107, higher than the Yen and the Lira.
The reason for this valuation was the real-world currency resale value of goods and services aquired or provided in the game world; spend an hour gold farming or questing for magic items, and the average resale value of those items would be US$3.42 an hour.
The problem with using GDP as a measure for pretty much anything is that it is rubbish. First developed as a means of economic measurement back in the 1930s, GDP is defined as a measure of the value of 'finished goods and services' - that is, things like sacks of potatoes and manufactured cars. The problem is that it's utterly hopeless at measuring things like intellectual property and intangible goods, so when people say that the GDP of the UK is US$2.65trn, that's at best a wild guess: it's estimated that as modernised Western economies have shifted away from manufacturing and towards information, service and energy trading, GDP estimates have become wrongly estimated by up to 20% which can obviously have some quite serious knock-on effects. It's perfectly possible that the UK has a couple of hundred billion knocking about in the economy which nobody knows about and the recession isn't as bad as everyone thinks. Then again, we might be up to 20% worse off, in which case we're actually now functionally bankrupt and it's just that nobody has noticed.
Let's hope they don't, eh?
The advantage of using online worlds to measure things about GDP is that it is possible to know everything which is going on in a way which you can't in the real world: all the finished goods, all the gold in circulation and so on allows an exceptionally accurate knowledge of the value of an economy, and games have been proposed and developed to carry out the sort of economic experiements with control of variables which were impossible only a few years ago.
What's more interesting is the way online games have continued to grow since Castronova did his first study. WoW has topped 14 million players, putting Everquests' 60,000 to shame. A survey of the continent of Northrend in WoW indicates that this single area has a real-world equivalent GDP roughly equal to Romania, the 42nd richest country in the world.
What this comes down to is that sooner or later Azeroth is going to be in a position to demand a seat on the G8. Personally, I can't wait for the photocall. If I'm being honest, I'd rather be represented by Grom Hellscream than Gordon Brown on the international stage anyway. It'd be much less embarrassing.
About 12,000 people call [Norrath] their permanent home, although some 60,000 are present there at any given time, He said. The nominal hourly wage is about USD 3.42 per hour, and the labors of the people produce a GNP per capita somewhere between that of Russia and Bulgaria. A unit of Norrath's currency is traded on exchange markets at USD 0.0107, higher than the Yen and the Lira.
The reason for this valuation was the real-world currency resale value of goods and services aquired or provided in the game world; spend an hour gold farming or questing for magic items, and the average resale value of those items would be US$3.42 an hour.
The problem with using GDP as a measure for pretty much anything is that it is rubbish. First developed as a means of economic measurement back in the 1930s, GDP is defined as a measure of the value of 'finished goods and services' - that is, things like sacks of potatoes and manufactured cars. The problem is that it's utterly hopeless at measuring things like intellectual property and intangible goods, so when people say that the GDP of the UK is US$2.65trn, that's at best a wild guess: it's estimated that as modernised Western economies have shifted away from manufacturing and towards information, service and energy trading, GDP estimates have become wrongly estimated by up to 20% which can obviously have some quite serious knock-on effects. It's perfectly possible that the UK has a couple of hundred billion knocking about in the economy which nobody knows about and the recession isn't as bad as everyone thinks. Then again, we might be up to 20% worse off, in which case we're actually now functionally bankrupt and it's just that nobody has noticed.
Let's hope they don't, eh?
The advantage of using online worlds to measure things about GDP is that it is possible to know everything which is going on in a way which you can't in the real world: all the finished goods, all the gold in circulation and so on allows an exceptionally accurate knowledge of the value of an economy, and games have been proposed and developed to carry out the sort of economic experiements with control of variables which were impossible only a few years ago.
What's more interesting is the way online games have continued to grow since Castronova did his first study. WoW has topped 14 million players, putting Everquests' 60,000 to shame. A survey of the continent of Northrend in WoW indicates that this single area has a real-world equivalent GDP roughly equal to Romania, the 42nd richest country in the world.
What this comes down to is that sooner or later Azeroth is going to be in a position to demand a seat on the G8. Personally, I can't wait for the photocall. If I'm being honest, I'd rather be represented by Grom Hellscream than Gordon Brown on the international stage anyway. It'd be much less embarrassing.
