October 18, 2007
Give Ted Castronova a million dollars
I’ve reviewed Ted Castronova’s book and I’m a big fan of his work:
A small group of researchers now believes that a new experimental tool is at hand. One of them, the economist Edward Castronova, calls it “a social-science supercollider”. He is talking about the new breed of online computer games, in which players log into a fantasy universe and control characters who trade, argue, fight or, depending on the world, have sex with each other.
That sounds a little crazy, but in many ways this is a more realistic setting than Vernon Smith’s lab. Players invest a lot of energy into getting what they want. Real people work hard to produce things that have real value to themselves or to others. Make no mistake, some games support real economies inside make-believe universes.
Experiments are easy because virtual worlds exist in parallel. For technological reasons, a popular game might run 10 or 20 subtly different versions on separate servers. The researcher can adjust the money supply or the system of property rights in some of the worlds and observe the differences.
Castronova has secured funding to construct a game world where he can put his ideas to the test.
Well, the funding has run out. Somebody write that man a cheque.
