It's a real event and one that questions the boundaries between the game world and the real world and the realm of human decency.
So games like WoW can say a lot about us as people, but what do they say about the systems and institutions we create? MMORPGs have created micro-economies that have helped economists model how these systems can be adjusted for the real world. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. Eve Online is a great example of a game as a microcosm of societal institutions https://rideroftheyear.org/. This sci-fi space opera released in 2003 has an economy almost completely driven by players. Eve Online has such a dynamic economy that in 2007, they hired Dr. Eyjolfur Guomundsson to be the game's lead economist. He and his team acted as the game's National Economics Institute, Statistics Office, and Central Bank. Describing his job as "any economist's dream, because this is not just an experiment, this is more like a simulation. More like a fully-fledged system where you can input to see what happens." In Eve Online, there are more than 5,000 items players can buy and sell, and over 1 million transactions happen each day using in-game currency known as ISK, or Interstellar Kredits. As of 2014, there are around 600 trillion ISK in the game which translated to around $18 million real world US dollars. But since that was all player-made and tied to the creation of economic value, the gamemakers could not act as a government and infuse the economy with fresh cash so Dr Guomundsson had to find more subtle ways of balancing out the economy, like implementing broker fees, selling player skill books and imposing sales tax on in-game transactions to avoid hyperinflation. Also, Dr Guomundsson believes that Eve Online can be used to study monetary systems by looking at how everything from the Gold Standard to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can function on a grand level within the game. And here we thought the game was all just about building ships and blowing them up. Thanks, Thought Bubble! And speaking of building ships and blowing them up, Eve Online has made history for having one of the biggest and most costly in-game online battles of all time. You see, spaceship costs in the game can be translated to real world money, with the smallest worth around $1 to $13 US dollars and the largest as much as $7,600. And just so we're clear, those values are based on the average hourly pay within the game across all players which can be converted to US dollars because players can use real money OR in-game currency to purchase and trade play time. So in 2014, a battle that would become known as Bloodbath of B-R5RB raged over two days. And when it ended, there was over 11 trillion ISK worth of damage, or $330,000 real world dollars. Now, players can make money inside the games, so most of that money wasn't spent from actual players' wallets, but still, that's a lot of subscription time. But real money is constantly going into these games. Players routinely sell, buy, and trade gaming aspects from this game and others, even though it's forbidden. This is on top of the subscription, or pay-to-play business models. Gaming professor and economist Edward Castronova demonstrated in 2002 that the MMORPG Everquest was the 77th richest country on the planet, with a GDP higher than that of China's. But say you don't want to spend all your time selling spiderling silk in the Bazaar. There's a world out there for every type of player. Sci-fi fans have Star Wars: The Old Republic. Fantasy players have got Lord of the Rings Online. There's even a DC Universe Online for comic book and superhero fans. And the future is showing a new generation of MMORPGs. Games like Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy Online, and many others are keeping the genre alive and well. A new MMORPG, No Man's Sky, comes out in 2016, and according to its developer, Hello Games, offers players a chance to explore over 18 quintillion lifesize planets. Each planet will have its own unique environment. Sean Murray, the creator, states that, "Even if you explore each planet once a second, our own sun will burn out before you can see them all. This is all done with the power of procedural generation." And rather than ending with that existential crisis, I'll leave with this -- humans have a few core drives. We want to be together and we want to explore new worlds, and with MMORPGs, we get the best of both. Thanks for watching. See you next time! Crash Course Games is filmed in the Chad and Stacey Emigholz Studio in Indianapolis, Indiana and it's made with the help of all these nice people. If you'd like to keep Crash Course free for everyone forever you can support the series at Patreon, a crowdfunding platform that allows you to support the content you love. Speaking of Patreon, we'd like to thank all our patrons in general and we'd like to specifically thank our High Chancelor of Knowledge, Morgan Lizop and our Vice Principal, Michael Hunt. Thank you for your support.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author Marcus ReidBlogger, teacher, career tutor, surfer, shiba-inu lover and hand letterer. Acting at the intersection of modernism and intellectual purity to craft experiences that go beyond design. My opinions belong to nobody but myself. ArchivesCategories |