Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Tag: economics
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Over in the UK, the long period of flirting with market-based solutions to the NHS’s problems has finally come to a head, with the new coalition government deciding to abolish the cap on fee-paying patients at public hospitals. This means that the big hospitals can compete for a supposedly lucrative health tourism and private health…
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Our DM (who is so old-fashioned he doesn’ t even have a blog) is drip-feeding us information about the Feng Shui world, so I can’t say too much about where we are or what we are doing, but our characters have ended up in 2056 in a strange future “dystopia” controlled by a bunch of…
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I have complained previously about the injection of banal meat-world activities into computer games which occurs in MMORPGs, particularly the need to “work” to make money and items. I play computer games to escape from my ordinary reality, not to go to work after I have finished work, so the importance of “grinding” and trading…
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Further to my comments about a game which uses real money in its virtual world, Terra Nova has a post about the game Habbo, in which children buy virtual objects for their virtual world using real money. The company has just put a $35 a month limit on how much the kiddies are allowed to…
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Cruising the canals of Amsterdam over the weekend, I discussed my musings on virtual economies with my good friend (and WoWer) the good Dr. A. His response to my ideas about a virtual economy built on real money was to ask “why”? Good enough question, I suppose. Why would a company make a risky game…
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Terra Nova blog report on the results of an economic experiment they conducted in a virtual world. In essence, this experiment showed that increasing potion prices reduces the amount that players buy, suggesting that at least some commodities in some virtual worlds show price elasticity of demand. Not only does this suggest that economic laws…
Compromise and Conceit 