Virtual worlds, virtual lives

On Tuesday, November 28, Engenius Solutions hosted a talk called “Virtual Economies and Societies in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game” in the Myers Presentation Room. The lecture was presented by Edward Castronova, an associate professor in the department of telecommunications and director of graduate studies at Indiana University. The talk drew around one hundred people to it; some were there due to a professional development requirement.

The basis for the talk was from a project Castronova is working on, where he is doing a variety of research on online games. He talked mostly about the game industry and the economics behind it, but also had some input on how the online gaming industry affects people and society. “Some of the things you are doing will be helpful for you down the road,” were his feelings towards people playing online games.

He included some basic statistics comparing golfers to gamers, where there is a ratio of four gamers to one golfer in the United States. His also had statistics stating that the average gamer is 30 years old, and that one in five is over fifty. This was a general comparison so he could provide a basis of how big an impact the gaming industry is having on society. “[There is] far more demand for this activity,” stated Castronova when comparing the game industry to the movie industry. “It’s communal; it’s not by yourself […] it’s a social activity […] no movie where five people need to go with you to see it […] You don’t need a healer to sit here.” This caused the crowd to erupt with laughter.

After his basic introduction into the gaming world, he began his actual talk on what he calls the “Synthetic World”, which is where most people play MMORPG’s (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), which are like EverQuest, World of Warcraft (WOW), and others. According to research, there are over 10 million people that play MMORPGs, the average age is post college, around 24 years old, and most of them work full time. Twenty percent of these people feel that their life online is their real life.

Most people, who have a comment about WOW or other games think it is a waste of time. Castronova summarized this attitude by saying “who would give up their life to play in a fantasy life? That’s crazy.” He then said, “Real world sucks for a lot of people… [it is a] reasonable choice for a lot people,” which is to turn to the alternative of online games such as World of Warcraft.

Curt Barnard, a junior computer science major, agreed with Castronova on this subject. “I really like how people use it as an alternative to sad lives.”

His talk mostly covered the aspect of virtual societies in MMORPGs, but he had some relevant comments on the economy of the games. In poor societies, people play the game as gold farmers and make about 1 dollar and hour. “In low wage places, you can farm gold… [You] kill a [monster], loot the money, and then turn it over to the guy that runs the sweatshop and then he sells it on eBay,” commented Castronova.

The next aspect of the talk was about Castronova’s game project he and others were working on. He also let his co-workers talk about their aspect of the project. For more information about this, visit swi.indiana.edu.

The game they have in development is an educational MMORPG that focuses on Shakespeare. Their opinion was that if Shakespeare were made fun and interesting, students would want to learn about it.

The last point Castronova made was that his plans and his thoughts of the future were to use the virtual worlds to experiment with different ideas. For example, if a government were to change, how would that affect society? Castranova believed that people could change their virtual world to meet these new ideas; scientists could see how the world developed and use AI to improve the virtual worlds. In other words, it was a transformation of real life in a virtual world.

Patrick Caffarel, a junior electrical engineering major enjoyed the talk. “It was interesting. Building worlds and testing theories sound like a pretty good idea.”

Scott Ward, a junior computer science major also had similar feelings. “I thought it was really funny that this balding guy in his 30s was talking to us in speech we use.” On the subject of creating more MMORPGs, “He’s a little over thinking it; it’s not a MMO if only five people are playing. In other words, if lots of people are playing lots of MMOs, then there are no people playing.”