We’ve not discussed much about video games throughout this course, however i find it one of the most interesting and rapidly evolving social media there is, so here a post about the blurring lines between virtual worlds and the real world.
It has become a multi-billion dollar industry over the last few years; the buying and selling of virtual goods over websites such as eBay. The majority of web users play video games one way or another, from simple Facebook app games to complex MMORPG games with a functioning virtual world with millions of community members playing their part in it. However time has value, and sometimes people who want to progress in games faster do not have the time to do so, hence they resort to buying virtual items or money with real money. This can be a couple of dollars for a rare crossbow to hundreds of dollars for a legendary sword. It has reached the point where the virtual market has had such massive rise in people working to make virtual money and selling it for real money that the entire game market has had a severe inflation. Virtual economies follow the same basic principles of scarcity, demand & supply etc. as the real market, and with now real life value being added to these goods, can this still be considered a virtual market or rather an extension of the real market? This is just one example of how social media can blur the lines between virtual and real platforms, do you think that this can become a serious issue in the future?
Reference:
Castronova, E., Williams, D., Cuihua, S., Ratan, R., Xiong, L., Huang, Y., … (2009). As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world. New Media & Society, 11, 685-707. doi:10.1177/1461444809105346
Guo, Y., & Barnes, S. (2007). Why people buy virtual items in virtual worlds with real money. Database for Advances in Information Systems, 38, 69-76.
