Real life Vs. Virtual Economy
Real life can be a controversial term. Some people use it as a value judgement to describe "productive" activities, specifically jobs or the support of one's family. In this case, activities described as real life are seen as "better" than other activities, such as playing video games or surfing the internet. However, many speakers use the phrase in an ironic sense to describe an alternative to their own activities, which may be valued as more important.
A Virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually in the context of an Internet game. People enter these virtual economies recreationally rather than by necessity; however, some people do interact with them for "real" economic benefit.
Intersection of real life and virtual economy
The internet has evolved tremendously throughout the years. It has also lead to the creation of virtual economies. So many people has joined these virtual economies such as second life and they enjoy it. People are actually spending many ours out of their daily lives to attend to these virtual economies. But these virtual economies aren't just games anymore, they are someone what looked at as "real Life." Virtual economies actually involves real money, and people tend to do exactly what they would do in their daily lives online. People buy houses as they would in real life. People go shopping, as they would in real life. People has jobs, families, food, and go have fun, as they would in real life. It then leaves the question, is virtual economies the new life? In my opinion, I would have to say yes and no. Yes because people are really spending their own money and actually making money back. People can actually build friendships and relationships. There was actually a case where two people from an economy actually got married in real life. But everything has its flaws. Although you can do similar things online as in real life, there are some exaggerations. In the real world a person with an average salary would not spend so much money on shopping and partying on a daily basis. Also people on virtual economies tend to do a lot of vicious things to others because they know they will not be punished for it as they would be in real life. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I'm pretty sure a lot of people may argue that its real and other may say its just dumb and fake. But I just see it as people making time out of their day to live another life or in other words, a FAKE life.
Defining Open economy and Closed economy
An open economy is an economy in which people, including businesses, can trade in goods and services with other people and businesses in the international community at large. But a
closed economy cannot make international trades.
Open Economy
Entropia Universe is an online virtual universe designed by Swedish software company MindArk. It advertises a unique "Real Cash Economy (RCE)" in which Entropia Universe currency (PED - Project Entropia Dollars) can be redeemed back into real world funds at a fixed exchange rate with the U.S. dollar, where 10 PED = $1 U.S. dollar. This means that virtual items acquired inside Entropia Universe have a real cash value, and a participant may, at any time, withdraw their accumulated PEDs back into real world currencies according to the fixed exchange rate. The Entropia online community claims to have over 563000 registered participants from over 220 countries, with the average number of players online at any one time previously stated to be around 600 (as of August 2005). The community has produced several real world marriages as well as creating a multitude of cross-border friendships.
The Entropia Universe entered the Guinness World Book of Records in 2004 for the most expensive virtual item ever sold.
The Entropia Universe entered the Guinness World Book of Records in 2004 for the most expensive virtual item ever sold.
Closed economy
EverQuest II (commonly abbreviated as EQ2), based upon the popular EverQuest, is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) . It features graphics and gameplay vastly updated from its predecessor as well as NPCs that use audio for speech. In the game, players explore a fantasy world of sword and sorcery, fighting monsters and enemies for treasure and experience points and interacting with other players. As they progress, players advance in level, gaining power, prestige and abilities. Players can also procure powerful items for their characters in a variety of ways: through slaying monsters (and then looting the remains), doing "quests" (tasks and adventures given by non-player characters ( NPCs) in which a reward is given upon success), or by gathering raw materials and then fashioning them, via numerous trade skills such as tailoring or blacksmithing, into useful (or not-so-useful, but nevertheless fun) items.
Differences and Similarities
With Entropia Universe, people are basically living a fake life. They go spend there money on business trades and other things. its mostly about spending money and living a daily life. But Everquest II, does not involve people spending their real money in a virtual game, it focuses more on people interacting and joining together to kill monsters and facing certain challenges with a one another, going from one quest to another.
Although there goals are different, both games help people interact with others and build friendships and sometimes close relationships. Another similarity is the labor hours involved. Both games involves people putting in a lot of hours to accomplish things. Both games also involves human activity and has its benefits.
Real money into virtual worlds
Although it may seem fun to spend use real money in virtual economies, it still has its flaws. People can lose their money very easy through virtual communities. Other players may cause you to lose your money so they can benefit from it. Also people may hack into your system and steal your money. Unlike the game monopoly, people would really get angry if they lost their money. This can also lead to an addiction. People may get very addicted and constantly put their own money into it hoping to receive more. It can turn into a gambling problem that is uncontrollable.
My Opinion
People are always saying that they wish they could change themselves or live another life. Virtual economies allows them to do that. It helps them live a life that they dream and hope for. But what people don't realize is that its just a dream, its not reality.
References-
Edward Castronova, Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies, 1 May 2006
Business Weekly online, 6 April 2007, from
Entropia Universe, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, 6 April 2007, from
Everquest 2, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, 6 April 2007, from
Real life, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, 6 April 2007, from
Virtual economies, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, 6 April 2007, from
Open and Closed Economy, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, 6 April 2207, from
Life's a Game, News Feature, 4 January 2007
Nature publishing group, 6 April 2007, from
UBLearns
1 comment:
This was an interesting post and had some good point´s,but if you stop to think about the people that play these games for their job like in entropia universe is´t that time well spent?
Now not everyone can do this but I know of some people that do and how is their virtual day any different to someone who works in an office as shall we say a computer programmer or a graphic designer, who sit in front of a computer for 8 hours of the day with people that they did´t choose to be in the same room with.Then you look at the gamer sitting at home playing entropia universe ,playing out his fantasies with friend´s he met there and making money at the same time and having fun to.
I think in the near future these virtual world´s will sustain many jobs and carrier´s for people that cant have real jobs due to disabilities or losing there job to a machine.
Just food for thought.
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