Economies of Scale in Online Games

Today I feel like talking about economies of scale... in online games. Of particular interest, when centralized online economies in games translate to real-world profits.

Case in point: World of Warcraft--with just over 12 million subscribers since October 2012 (seriously)-- is a booming example of an online economy. Individual players buy, sell, and trade items amongst themselves, and can buy from and sell items to non-player characters, or NPCs. They may craft items, and some custom items cannot be replicated. Vendors pawn their goods to other players, and mods have been created by the user community in order to facilitate the ongoing search for products of interest (e.g. Auctioneer). This is not a micro-economy; it is an amalgamation of cultures all over the world exchanging goods. And yet it is fictional.

Individuals who specialize in making money in massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games for the purposes of real-life sales are called "farmers" by many MMO communities. The dub farmers is a reflection of their ceaseless, efficient, and monotonous repetition of the same actions in order to garner in-game money, usually by killing monsters. Often the same monster. Over and over and over and over and over again. All day.

Farmers strategically pick targets of interest, kill them, and take in-game money drops. In WoW, farmers gather gold and sell it in online venues. Players with hard cash, usually from Western nations can purchase in-game money or items in order to make their online questing more comfortable. In recent years, the WoW developer Blizzard has strong-armed online marketplaces into protecting their WoW economies by making it against terms of service, and a bannable offense.

Often farmers are from Eastern nations. Chinese gold farmers are especially prevalent, sometimes (certainly not always) working in sweatshop-like conditions, playing MMOs for most hours of the day alongside other twenty-something Chinese players to meet gold quotas, under supervision of a "factory" boss. This is, of course, to sell for a real-world bottom line; Chinese gold farmers may typically earn up to $250 in a month, but more realistically earn about $75-100 in a month. While real-world gold auctioning violates WoW's terms of service, it isn't illegal. Players generally look down on farmers and those who patronize them, with disdain for what they perceive as cheating. Unfortunately, then, farmers are assumed by players to be Chinese and are often harrassed, enduring the pejorative or racist comments attached to assaults. But the business model is so successful that it has spawned as many as 100,000 gold farmers in China. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/technology/09gaming.html?_r=1&ex=1291784400&en=48a72408592dffe6&ei=5088)

 Why is this important? An online economy is being transformed into a real-world economy. Fictional currency can be bought and sold by players all over the world, and shifting hands through online venues and organized using venues like eBay or forums. Western nations provide the capital for this business; while the conditions are often not ideal for workers, it is still a service of value. Customers will apparently pay. We must, then, consider the value of some large online economies relative to real-world economies. Second Life is an example that perpetuates this concern, with businesses and individuals paying for virtual real estate, avatar modifications, services, and every virtual object you can imagine (see Second Life Marketplace). A real-world market for virtual goods is already viable. The next big question is whether this innovative adaption will perpetuate itself and grow, or fall away.

Technology and Social Interaction

3. Technology and Social Interaction

Your task for this assignment is to describe your thoughts on how technology influences social interaction. Do you think the spread of technology has had a positive or negative impact on your everyday face to face interaction? What about for people more generally? What do you think about using the Internet to meet other people (via online dating sites, Craigslist, message boards, fan sites, online gaming, or virtual worlds)? Is connecting to others via online communities a viable way of creating meaningful relationships, or are we neglecting our everyday relationships in favor of these "virtual" relationships? Do we, as a society, need to focus on creating more "real" spaces/public spheres for people to connect, interact, and discuss meaningful political and social issues?
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Technology loosens the restrictions on interactions with strangers. We are not as accountable to strangers whom we speak to with interactive technology as a proxy. Online dating websites, for example, depend on impromptu interactions with strangers that wouldn't ordinarily happen due to real-life social restrictions. Technology also extends the capacity to interact with real-life acquaintances. Students email professors, voice and video chat, use instant and text messaging to exchange information with acquaintances. Finally, we have a newfound capacity to extend the reach of our real-life social networks through social technology. Long-distance relationships sprout between online acquaintances, and sometimes translate to intimate relationships with individuals who otherwise may never have been accessible.

Is this positive or negative? For me, this has been very beneficial; I'm rather introverted and come out of my shell online, making friends and forming relationships I would otherwise neglect. The influence of technology in my social life could conversely be seen as a "crutch," and it is possible I would be forced to form substantive relationships in person instead if not for the Internet. While there certainly can be negative consequences of social technology, I would argue the influence of such technology is largely positive and has benefitted cultures that adapt their regular use. We make decisions based on information, and social media is one broad category of software that draws in practical information for consumers. This promotes a uniquely well-rounded environment for decision making. That said, information can simply be manipulated--a feature some technologies will taut as an asset, and others, a liability.

I am largely skeptical about meeting individuals whom I've met on the Internet. I feel anonymity makes it easier to mask undesirable characteristics, while simultaneously inviting unforeseen honesty behind the protection of the computer screen. I am curious whether I am meeting who I think I'm meeting, but in some regard, real-life interactions face similar concerns. Some contexts for forming friendships are more sketchy than others. For example, I might be willing to meet players I've befriended from a popular massively-multiplayer online game for coffee, but I would think twice about meeting someone from Craigslist, especially in light of news of "Craigslist killers" Anonymity allows individuals to hide their intentions, but certain contexts lend well to a natural interaction, where individuals are held more accountable, anchored to online identities (as with some dating websites, online games, etc.). The prospect of meeting online friends offline largely makes me skeptical.

I think there are benefits and trade-offs for on- and off-line relationships. I think real-life relationships lack honest discourse, and online relationships lack a sense of reality. For example, I have a friend from Arizona who I had video-chatted with dozens of times, but I did not have a sense of her mannerisms, how she walked, fidgeted, and played with her fingers when nervous until I met her in person. There is no adequate replacement for a real-life interaction. But by the time I had met her, I knew most everything about her--the truth without fear of reprisal real-life interactions imply.

Perhaps we, as a society, would benefit from creating venues for interaction straddling real-life and technology-mediated communication. In this way, we might benefit from brutally honest discourse social technology allows through anonymity, and yet still have a personal, intimate environment as an anchor.

Social Networking and Privacy

2. Social Networking and Privacy

Your task for this assignment is to record your thoughts on the prevalence of social networking. How often do you use social networking sites/tools like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare? How much time to do you spend texting, tweeting, or checking status updates on your phone or computer?
Do you think the cultural move toward social networking, constant access, and the loss of privacy it sometimes brings about is a positive/negative trend on the whole? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this entanglement between our personal lives and technology?  Have you ever "over-shared" or texted, tweeted, or posted something you have regretted? Do you ever worry about your privacy when it comes to using these tools?
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While I don't use Twitter or FourSquare, I use Facebook every day.
I imagine being more mindful about it influenced to me browse Facebook less often, but I recorded 32 instances of clicking on my Facebook icon in my Firefox browser. That said, it's still far too many.
Every time I have an idle minute online, I'll default to checking my Facebook for status updates, wall posts, or other content of interest my friends have linked. While these sessions typically don't last for more than a few minutes at any given time throughout the day, they are intermittent and absolutely a distraction. If my mind wanders even a bit, I find myself on Facebook. I have a similar habit of looking at the Wikipedia random page and then clicking unfamiliar links from there.

I have yet to "over-share," although it wont stop my friends from doing it on my behalf through Facebook tagging, or simply using my computer to post status updates. I might delete posts like this, but I'm aware that the information is essentially there forever, and can be available to those who care enough to dig it up. Because of this, I never post anything potentially embarassing or questionable. Your online reputation is very easily trackable, and some websites specialize in congregating data attached to your name and selling it (e.g. http://www.spokeo.com/). Privacy is definitely a concern.

This might not be the local IP.

The technology, in particular, software, is being packaged so conveniently that individuals with no significant computer knowledge (read: script kiddies) can steal identities over unsecured networks with software like Firesheep (http://www.pcworld.com/article/209333/how_to_hijack_facebook_using_firesheep.html). It is really easy to do this, making places like internet cafes or Starbucks suspect locations for identity theft. As a response, Facebook recently instituted full HTTPS support (read more here), protecting all information transferred on Facebook.com, should users choose to activate it. Denial of service programs (LOIC) make antisocial activity similarly easy, although they might need to organize others to attack websites. On the other hand, inexperienced users are prone to revealing their own information in the process to more tech-savvy users.

Care should be taken to retain anonymity through IP routing or proxy servers. Again, this process has been simplified for casual users (Tor). The language I've used might sound foreign, but this is all very straight forward for any user who is a bit interested and has fifteen minutes to kill. The simplification of complex software for the user-end is practical, bridging the divide between those who know and whose who don't. Blogger itself is an example of an a simplified user interface, so users unfamiliar with HTML can share and format their thoughts easily. Users should take care to understand the limitations of anonymity and the software they use.

I see the cultural move toward social networking and constant access as a relatively neutral cultural change. That is, there are positive and negative aspects, as with all mediums of communication developed. The medium itself isn't inherently bad or good, but the uses can be. For example, newspapers have been used to traffic information to a broad populace in western countries. This is a service to society. On the other hand, political mudslinging mudslinging in the 19th century used newspapers as a medium, which, arguably, is unacceptable by today's standards. Nonetheless, these trends continue on the Internet. The medium is faster, and anyone can have a say. On one hand, information is freely shared and given instantly. On the other, uninformed populations can have a wide net of influence due to computer networking.