People are doing this - iirc the economist who did research on everquest for a lark, realized that the ingame economy was actually outperforming some third world countries.
Other research has continued on this as well - pretty sure game theory systems have been tested here.
Its always been a hope of mine that at some point, blizzard open sources their trading and economy data for people in the academic community.
The best labs to test human group behavior to changing incentives is probably video games. They've already established that in a world where everyone is created equal, you end up with only a small fraction cornering most of the resources/gold.
When I was in high school with plenty of time on my hands I turned my hobby of playing Everquest into a pretty lucrative business (especially for a 17yr old). I found it amazing what people would pay for items to help advance their characters, especially those who were older and had limited time, and thus wanted to minimize time-sinks.
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People are doing this - iirc the economist who did research on everquest for a lark, realized that the ingame economy was actually outperforming some third world countries.
Other research has continued on this as well - pretty sure game theory systems have been tested here.
Its always been a hope of mine that at some point, blizzard open sources their trading and economy data for people in the academic community.
The best labs to test human group behavior to changing incentives is probably video games. They've already established that in a world where everyone is created equal, you end up with only a small fraction cornering most of the resources/gold.
Yup that's correct. Check out Ed Castronova's paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828
When I was in high school with plenty of time on my hands I turned my hobby of playing Everquest into a pretty lucrative business (especially for a 17yr old). I found it amazing what people would pay for items to help advance their characters, especially those who were older and had limited time, and thus wanted to minimize time-sinks.