What if life is a game? Are you winning? Have you even decided what 'winning' is? Game design could be defined in many ways, but here the term is used to denote the practice of creating choices. Designing a game, in this sense, involves crafting limits, rewards, incentives, and risks in such a way that the person who interacts with the game - the player - makes choices that have consequences. Edward Castronova urges readers to think about the fundamentals of the human condition and compare them to different games that we all know. In some ways, life is like an idle game: providing unchallenging distractions that fit easily into a person's daily routine. In other ways, life is like the game Minesweeper: You poke in different places to learn about what you don't know, taking care to avoid big explosions. Or, life is like a role-playing game: You adopt a persona and speak your part, always seeking adventure. Bringing together questions relating to diverse fields - such as politics, economics, sociology and philosophy - Castronova persuades readers to broaden the scope of game design to answer questions about life's everyday obstacles. The object of this book is to take seriously the idea that life is a game. The goal is not to make readers wealthier or healthier. Its goal is to go on a journey into the human condition, with game design as a guide.

From "EverQuest" to "World of Warcraft," online games have evolved from the exclusive domain of computer geeks into an extraordinarily lucrative staple of the entertainment industry. People of all ages and from all walks of life now spend thousands of hours--and dollars--partaking in this popular new brand of escapism. But the line between fantasy and reality is starting to blur. Players have created virtual societies with governments and economies of their own whose currencies now trade against the dollar on eBay at rates higher than the yen. And the players who inhabit these synthetic worlds are starting to spend more time online than at their day jobs.
In "Synthetic Worlds," Edward Castronova offers the first comprehensive look at the online game industry, exploring its implications for business and culture alike. He starts with the players, giving us a revealing look into the everyday lives of the gamers--outlining what they do in their synthetic worlds and why. He then describes the economies inside these worlds to show how they might dramatically affect real world financial systems, from potential disruptions of markets to new business horizons. Ultimately, he explores the long-term social consequences of online games: If players can inhabit worlds that are more alluring and gratifying than reality, then how can the real world ever compete? Will a day ever come when we spend more time in these synthetic worlds than in our own? Or even more startling, will a day ever come when such questions no longer sound alarmist but instead seem obsolete?
With more than ten million active players worldwide--and with Microsoft and Sony pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into videogame development--online games have become too big to ignore. "Synthetic Worlds" spearheads our efforts to come to terms with this virtual reality and its concrete effects.
"Illuminating. . . . Castronova's analysis of the economics of fun is intriguing. Virtual-world economies are designed to make the resulting game interesting and enjoyable for their inhabitants. Many games follow a rags-to-riches storyline, for example. But how can all the players end up in the top 10%? Simple: the upwardly mobile human players need only be a subset of the world's population. An underclass of computer-controlled 'bot' citizens, meanwhile, stays poor forever. Mr. Castronova explains all this with clarity, wit, and a merciful lack of academic jargon."--"The Economist"
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""Synthetic Worlds" is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they "are" real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations."--Tim Harford, "Chronicle of Higher Education
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What if life is a game? Are you winning? Have you even decided what 'winning' is? Game design could be defined in many ways, but here the term is used to denote the practice of creating choices. Designing a game, in this sense, involves crafting limits, rewards, incentives, and risks in such a way that the person who interacts with the game - the player - makes choices that have consequences. Edward Castronova urges readers to think about the fundamentals of the human condition and compare them to different games that we all know. In some ways, life is like an idle game: providing unchallenging distractions that fit easily into a person's daily routine. In other ways, life is like the game Minesweeper: You poke in different places to learn about what you don't know, taking care to avoid big explosions. Or, life is like a role-playing game: You adopt a persona and speak your part, always seeking adventure. Bringing together questions relating to diverse fields - such as politics, economics, sociology and philosophy - Castronova persuades readers to broaden the scope of game design to answer questions about life's everyday obstacles. The object of this book is to take seriously the idea that life is a game. The goal is not to make readers wealthier or healthier. Its goal is to go on a journey into the human condition, with game design as a guide.

This is the sixth edition of the BBVA's annual series, dedicated to exploring and disseminating the key issues of our time. Esteemed scholars from around the world examine the internet as an agent of change, incorporating the most current knowledge on the subject into their essays while using accessible language. They address the impact of the internet on a social, cultural, economic, political and scientific level, but also how it affects people's daily lives: their relationship habits, leisure and work. Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School), Federico Casalegno (MIT), Manuel Castells (University of Southern California), Edward Castronova (Indiana University), David Crystal (Bangor University), Zaryn Dentzel (Tuenti), Paul DiMaggio (Princeton University), Lucien Engelen (Radboud University Medical Centre), David Gelertner (Yale University), Peter Hirshberg, Mikko Hypponen (F-Secure Corporation), Thomas Malone, Evgeny Morozov, Michael Nielsen, Dan Schiller , Neil Selwyn (Monash University), Juan Ignacio Vazquez (Universidad de Deusto) and Patrik Wikstrom (Queensland University of Technology).

An intriguing look at the exploding phenomenon of unregulated private currencies and how they will change our economy forever Private currencies have always existed, from notes printed by individual banks to the S&H Green Stamps to Bitcoin. Today's economy has seen an explosion of new forms of monetary exchange not created by the federal government. Credit card companies offer points that can be traded in for a variety of goods and services, from airline miles to online store credit. Online game creators have devised new mediums of electronic exchange that turn virtual money into real money. Meanwhile, real money is increasingly going digital, where it competes with private currencies like Bitcoin. The virtual and the real economic worlds are intermingling more than ever before, raising the possibility that this new money might eventually replace the government-run system of dollars, euros, and yen. Edward Castronova is the leading researcher in this field, a founder of scholarly online game studies and an expert on the economies of virtual worlds. In this dynamic and essential work, he explores the current phenomenon of virtual currencies and what it will mean legally, politically, and economically in the future. In doing so, he provides a fascinating, often surprising discourse on the meaning of money itself-what it is, what we think it is, and how we relate to it on an emotional level.

An intriguing look at the exploding phenomenon of unregulated private currencies and how they will change our economy forever Private currencies have always existed, from notes printed by individual banks to the S&H Green Stamps to Bitcoin. Today's economy has seen an explosion of new forms of monetary exchange not created by the federal government. Credit card companies offer points that can be traded in for a variety of goods and services, from airline miles to online store credit. Online game creators have devised new mediums of electronic exchange that turn virtual money into real money. Meanwhile, real money is increasingly going digital, where it competes with private currencies like Bitcoin. The virtual and the real economic worlds are intermingling more than ever before, raising the possibility that this new money might eventually replace the government-run system of dollars, euros, and yen. Edward Castronova is the leading researcher in this field, a founder of scholarly online game studies and an expert on the economies of virtual worlds. In this dynamic and essential work, he explores the current phenomenon of virtual currencies and what it will mean legally, politically, and economically in the future. In doing so, he provides a fascinating, often surprising discourse on the meaning of money itself-what it is, what we think it is, and how we relate to it on an emotional level.

How the basic concepts of economics-including markets, institutions, and money-can be used to create and analyze economies based on virtual goods. In the twenty-first-century digital world, virtual goods are sold for real money. Digital game players happily pay for avatars, power-ups, and other game items. But behind every virtual sale, there is a virtual economy, simple or complex. In this book, Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova introduce the basic concepts of economics into the game developer's and game designer's toolkits. Lehdonvirta and Castronova explain how the fundamentals of economics-markets, institutions, and money-can be used to create or analyze economies based on artificially scarce virtual goods. They focus on virtual economies in digital games, but also touch on serious digital currencies such as Bitcoin as well as virtual economies that emerge in social media around points, likes, and followers. The theoretical emphasis is on elementary microeconomic theory, with some discussion of behavioral economics, macroeconomics, sociology of consumption, and other social science theories relevant to economic behavior. Topics include the rational choice model of economic decision making; information goods versus virtual goods; supply, demand, and market equilibrium; monopoly power; setting prices; and externalities. The book will enable developers and designers to create and maintain successful virtual economies, introduce social scientists and policy makers to the power of virtual economies, and provide a useful guide to economic fundamentals for students in other disciplines.