Author: Zubon

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Milton Friedman, the most important and second most influential economist of the last century, died last week. You can see the fundamental truth of his work every day in some of the oldest and most popular online games.

Most online games print currency the way that third-world kleptocracies do: whenever it is convenient and in demand, with little thought for long-run consequences. This works in the extreme short run and leads quickly to ridiculous inflation.

Continue reading MMORPG Monetarism

Good news: The California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court have both held that, under federal law, actively reposting defamatory material does not make you liable for the defamation. That is you may not libel someone, but you can freely repost others’ libel, even if you know the claims are false and tortious. If this interpretation carries in Florida, you are free say anything you like about The Lawyer Who Shall Not Be Named, as long as someone else said it first. (H/T: Volokh)

Bad news: Universal has sued to threatened to sue Myspace, along with fans who they asked to help promote the film Serenity. Maybe I’m confused and Universal Pictures is not connected to Universal Music Group, but if any MMO you write about is connected to any Universal intellectual property, now could be a good time to start deleting those screenshots and reviews.

: Zubon

The mayor of Boston plans to bill Sony for public security costs related to the PlayStation 3 release. Meanwhile, a city councilor is trying to have Grand Theft Auto ads removed from city buses. No plans have been announced yet about forming a lynch mob and storming the nearby offices of Turbine.

In a nearby state, the Senator who was promoting video game censorship as part of her re-election campaign won by a rather large margin. In yet another nearby state, her co-sponsor on the “Family Entertainment Protection Act” was re-elected by a somewhat smaller margin.

If you did manage to acquire a PlayStation 3 or Wii, you may want to put it in your car and start driving west.

: Zubon

hat tip: Hit & Run and Overlawyered.

[City of Heroes] I have been editing some things on the Paragon Wiki recently (because I am a nerd). It is a useful guide to City of Heroes and Villains, although I am still supplementing it with Vidiot Maps at present.

My favorite thing on the wiki so far is the page of City of Villains accolade badges. These are the ones that give you powers, and the page is a convenient guide to which powers there are, which badges get you there, and what you need to get those badges. I now have a text file for each of my main villains, where badges get deleted as I get closer to having my accolades. If you have not looked at your accolade needs, it can be nice to realize that you can get a permanent +5% endurance for reading a plaque (given what you did without trying).

I liked it so much, I made another for City of Heroes. More text file checklists may be in my future (because I am a nerd). I now have another thing to keep me occupied while waiting for people to get ready for missions.

: Zubon

[Second Life] My wife has been asked to make a presentation for librarians at Second Life’s Information Island next year. Yes, real professional organizations have meetings in Second Life. She has been logging time to practice and not be a total noob. Also, she has been shopping for cute hair and dresses, though she does not plan to give her presentation as a fairy or in her new Wonder Woman costume.

Information Island is a fun place to network with other librarians. One had a grant to bring public health information online, so they were discussing information architecture and ways to deliver public health resources. Then one librarian said something about her tattoo and nipple piercings. “Sorry, wrong channel.”

I was surprised that was as risqué as it got, not just because Second Life is a cyber-brothel, but because these are librarians we are talking about. If that does not make sense to you, you need to hang out with more librarians.

: Zubon

One of the more important economic principles that affects MMOs is called “network effects.” Network effects cause some goods to become more valuable as more people have them. The first fax machine, for example, cost a heck of a lot but had exactly zero value because no one else had one. To whom are you going to fax anything? The value you get from buying a fax machine is being able to interact with all those other fax machines out there.

In online games, the same effect applies to players. The more players there are, the more you can play with. Being the only person at an online poker site is pointless. Being on an underpopulated server means that you cannot get a full group going. Playing during off-hours means the same thing, as does playing a game where you don’t really speak the language.

Products with large network effects either have standardization that facilitates multiple entries or else tend towards market concentration on one winner. Did someone say WoW?

Continue reading Network Effects

Why is World of Warcraft The One? This has been a recurring theme in our little world of gaming blogs and discussion groups for quite a while. Answers have generally focused on what WoW supplies in terms of casual play, soloability, polish, simple but compelling graphics, popular intellectual property, attracting new market entry, network effects, humor, etc. I would like to focus on a demand side issue.

Median Voter Theorem is an important political concept explaining why we get the public policy that we do. I would like to briefly apply that to MMOs, explain why the model is wrong for a market with multiple games (rather than one government), and why it is right enough to produce WoW revenues on the order of $1,000,000,000/year. The short answer? It is what people want.

Continue reading Median Gamer Theorem

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: Zubon