Over the Christmas break, while many of us were spending a week or two by the sea in a rented house, David Storey was fitting out his new island.
The twenty-two-year-old graduate student at the University of Sydney bought the deed to his new piece of real estate at an auction on 14 December, and has since been settling in nicely.
And why wouldn't he? The property includes a gigantic abandoned castle, some beautiful beaches ripe for development, and ample potential for hunting and mining. What's more, Storey picked it up for what some might consider a snip: $35 333.
The only catch is that the island isn't really real. It exists only within the confines of cyberspace, inside a multi-player computer game called Project Entropia. But the money Storey paid for it is very real.
'I paid the computer gaming company,' he says, 'I deposited the money into the company's account and the company's representative inside the game handed me the deed to the island.'
The deed comes with rights. If other players come to the island to hunt or mine, Storey gets a percentage of their takings, automatically deposited into his account. On top of that, Storey will be able to sell five plots of virtual land on his virtual island a month for the next year, the total proceeds of which are expected to top $40 000. Other gamers are expected to buy the land to develop, hunt and mine themselves.
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For a player in the MMORPG world, there are two ways to advance: spend a lot of time working inside the game on self improvement or making stuff, or simply buy better capabilities. Those games that forbid buying and selling have seen a thriving black market in characters, capability and in-game currency appear on e-bay, with over $8 million of virtual stuff auctioned on e-bay in the last six months.
Economic complexities
Until now, computer game manufacturers have been concentrating on perfecting the worlds they create for their players, whether that be a medieval kingdom with dragons and knights, or a suburban scene with neighbours and extra marital flings. Now, however, MMORPG managers are finding themselves managing enormous economies. Edward Castaneda, an academic at the University of Indiana has built a career out of studying the economics of these worlds.
By looking at how quickly players in MMORPGs accumulate wealth for toil, Castronova calculated that the average gamer has the same level of productivity as your average Bulgarian. More than that, by totalling up the number of players in the online world and their level of production, he reckons the economies of the online gaming world are about the same size as that of Namibia.
He says the important point is not whether his arithmetic is correct: 'Statistically and economically these worlds matter already, and its only 2004.'
