Das virtual capital : an economic perspective on playing online games : Fantastic scarcity and Real-market trades

Massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPG) are becoming a popular leisure activity world-wide. MMORPG players have created a new kind of market, one for virtual possessions. Some players will buy and sell virtual goods for real-world money. Many game developers oppose this real-market trade because it threatens the control of their intellectual property. These games are inherently social environments where players group together to fulfill quests and meet goals. The value of virtual possessions is a response to a game world’s fantastic scarcity, where certain virtual goods and activities raise a player’s social rank or further other goals. The game acts like a technological production function that produces virtual goods and capital. Players with high real-world wages will spend less time in games in comparison with low-wage players. Real-market trade allows buyers to shift their real-world wealth into game wealth. However, real-market trade also detracts from the information value of virtual goods, which are act as signals for the amount of time a player has invested and player ability