A research group is studying how game economics may mirror the real world, analyzing the virtual economy of Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest II.

According to a story on MSNBC, Edward Castronova, professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, said researchers can learn almost anything about human society in games as they really are human societies. He said that the research team can do controlled experiments in the game that wouldn't necessarily work in real life, which make virtual worlds invaluable as a study tool:

"Controlled experimentation is the very best way to learn about cause and effect. We are on the verge of developing that capacity for human society as a whole."

Some tidbits about the virtual world of Norrath vs. the real world:

• Average age of players is 31 compared to 35 for the general population.
• Eighty percent of players are male versus 50 percent for the general population.
• Players skew more white than the overall population.
• Players are also wealthier than the general population with an average mean household income of $84,000 versus $57,000 for the general population.

The story concludes that as the recession tightens moneybelts, more gamers are flocking to free-to-play MMOs, according to SOE president John Smedley:

"We've gone from box-only products with free play components to monthly subscription models, and now we're seeing an evolution to hybrid models that are very similar to the great number of choices seen in the music industry."

Are MMO economies really worth studying if you aren't a player? It seems like a stretch, particularly since demographics can be so skewed. What do you say?

Everyone complains about lousy remakes of favorite games, but activist Chinese gamers did something about it - at least for a little while.

zonaeuropa reports that the online relaunch of Hot Blooded Legend was stopped cold by a mob of avatars that blocked new players from passing through the gates of the game's virtual city. The avatars were controlled by Chinese gamers who were upset that the new game didn't do justice to their beloved original:

Several days ago, Shanda published some screen captures which the players sadly found to include class restrictions and commercial stores... if a player has cash, he can purchase equipment to upgrade without having to go through the trouble to combat monsters ...

The players decided to call for a boycott...  At 2pm, the game opened as scheduled...  At one entrance, more than 40 characters stood still.  They wore cloth dresses and cloth shoes and stood shoulder to shoulder. Other players cannot enter... Meanwhile, several thousand people were blocking the gates of the various cities in the game.

The "counter-attack" [by game admins] came soon... Some players found their screen went black suddenly... Other players were transported by the system administrator far into the wilderness...

While the blockade eventually ran out of steam, the protesters made their point.

Via: boingboing

Employees of Eve Online developer CCP Games were paid in foreign currency during Iceland's economic meltdown in late 2008/early 2009.

gamesindustry.biz reports that the unusual action was taken due to wild fluctuations in the value of Iceland's krona. CCP Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson told gi.biz: 

What really was the problem for us was how many of our employees were hit by the [financial] crisis...

We're not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but at the very least we could leverage part of CCP's infrastructure that you wouldn't normally think would benefit your employees - allowing people to be paid in foreign currency, for example, makes it much more stable for people looking towards the future - when being paid in Icelandic Krona was still fluctuating by a few per cent here and there, it was very volatile and you can't really work with that kind of currency.

Are the virtual worlds portrayed in massively-multiplayer online games inherently sexist?

Although she believes the situation is improving, Jaime, a veteran female gamer, still sees a great deal of sexism in MMOs. In a column for MMOsite she explains her view:

From my own experience, in the early days of MMOs – looking back at Ultima Online and EverQuest – there was a definite attitude that women simply didn't play games... Female players who identified their gender... [were] ignored. Women... [had] their skills and abilities in the game questioned...

Players began to slowly accept that there were women playing MMOs... Nonetheless, the attitude itself was still low and chauvinistic. I can recount at least half a dozen times while playing Dark Age of Camelot... [receiving] requests for pictures, breast size, age, if I was available for dating, and various sexual requests and connotations...

There's also been one constant: the harassing of female characters... whispers soliciting cybersex, of course, but also more innocent gestures such as the use of emotes to flirt at, kiss, poke, tickle, tease, grope, slap, and otherwise virtually sexually harass a female character.

Not surprisingly, Jaime sees the anonymous nature of the online world as a major contributing factor in MMO sexism.

The Entertainment Consumers Association is urging gamers to stand up and be counted for Net Neutrality.

In an e-mail circulated yesterday, the ECA issued a call to action:

Now is the time for you to stand up for your rights and join millions of Americans of every political persuasion in the fight for Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is the principle that ensures that gamers are free to go where they want, do what they like, and connect with whom they choose onlin. Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) have introduced H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.

Take action now and tell Congress to make Net Neutrality the law of the land. Without Net Neutrality, your Internet Service Provider is free to: charge you extra for playing World of Warcraft, to interfere with Xbox Live, or to completely shut off your ability to access for favorite web sites. Net Neutrality effects your entire online experience...

This is our best chance yet in making sure that Net Neutrality is passed by Congress. The head of the FCC supports it, the President of the United States supports it, and we're asking you to make sure to tell Congress you support it. Take a moment to send them the message to make Net Neutrality the law.

A suggested letter to Congressional representatives is available from the ECA website.

GP: Gamers, this issue may not inflame passions in the same way that the censorship debate does, but it's just as important in the long run.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

Let’s say you’re hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft.

You play for 16 hours a day. You’ve lost your job, your friends, and you hardly eat or bathe anymore. Obviously, you need help but you’re unwilling to tear yourself away from your PC and see a counselor.

Well, if you’re not going to them, maybe they can come to you - in Azeroth.

Dr. Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre in London, would like therapists to join the game in order to treat addicted gamers right where they’re spending all their time.

[Addicted gamers] don’t exhibit the same outward warning signs as most teenage anti-social behaviour issues do because they’re in their bedrooms most of the time, seemingly out of trouble. Because of this we can’t get through to them in the traditional educational environment or intrude on their actual bedrooms, we need to turn to the internet itself to tackle these problems.

Graham admits that many psychiatrists may not be very good at playing video games and suggests existing players can be recruited to act as “peer mentors” for users identified as problematic.

The project is scheduled to be launched by year’s end by which time Graham hopes to convince Blizzard to waive or at least discount the game’s subscription fee for psychiatrists.

AE:  An interesting idea but, as a practical matter, one wonders how an addicted gamer would react to another player "counseling" him or her to take a break.

Via: Telegraph

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

If you're a Swede who has unloaded an unwanted MMO account for a few extra Kronas, the taxman would like a word.

On the other hand, if you're an American who has sold your account to a Swede, the taxman would still like a word.

GameCulture points out a Stockholm News report detailing efforts by Swedish tax officials to come to grips with e-commerce. To that end, the Skatteverket is even taking a look at small fish like gamers:

The Swedish Tax Agency hold that you have to pay tax for selling an avatar from a computer game. The agency has investigated the trading in avatars during a 14 month period and found the advertised sum of avatars for sale by Swedes to be 662 million SEK. But no one has ever declared any income for trading in avatars to the Tax Agency.

But even U.S. citizens could be subject to Swedish taxation on such virtual transactions, according to the Economics of Virtual Worlds blog:

[Note that] a sale has taken place in Sweden if the seller is a Swedish trader who sells [to]... a private person in Sweden or another EC [European Community] country. A sale from a foreign trader to a Swedish trader has also [legally] taken place in Sweden. The same applies if a trader from outside the EC sells services to Swedish private persons.

Thus, even U.S. citizens are subject to Swedish taxes in virtual worlds, as long as one of the participants is Swedish. The implication is that if similar tax rules are adopted around the globe, U.S. citizens could end up owing taxes to Sweden, Japan, South Korea, and other nations (depending on which and how many worlds they are part of) – all because they played some games...

Skatteverket states that gamers should send invoices to each other. It’s unreasonable stuff they’re talking about. The [game] users [typically] don’t know who they’re interacting with...

Evony, a browser-based MMO which debuted recently, has angered some bloggers by using a comment spam campaign.

Popehat writes:

Online pharmacies and questionable purveyors of herbal remedies advertise by comment spam... Porn sites advertise by comment spam... Fraudulent financial services advertise by comment spam...

Legitimate business, and legitimate sites, do not advertise by comment spam. I associate comment spam with the underbelly of the web, with fraud and crime and child porn... Maybe Evony’s site won’t inflict malware on my computer. But I won’t take that chance. Given the company Evony has chosen to keep, you shouldn’t either.

Bruce on Games expresses similar concerns in a post titled simply, "Don't Play Evony."

A recovering WoWaholic recounts his descent into depression and game addiction in a new blog.

C Gibson explains that WoW Survivor is intended to offer a supportive place for those who found the MMO world a bit too compelling.

In an introductory post, Gibson candidly discusses his own experience:

I was going to school full time in NYC and working. Because of an issue with my family, I became depressed. I stopped going to class, quit a good job for a lamer one... and reinstalled WoW. Instead of dealing with my issues, I ignored them by grinding reputation for a mount while my wife was at work...

 

I was on the verge of losing the person I cared about most over something that really didn't matter to me and had ZERO real life benefits. I agreed to and went to a counseler... and that helped eliminate my depression because I was no longer a passive variable in a world I didn't pay attention to.

I uninstalled WoW and haven't played since. I do read up on the blogs on occassion, and I actually find that that solidifies why I don't play. There is no way to keep up and I don't feel like getting wrapped up in a never ending adventure while my real life crumbles...

GP: When I read such stories, it's hard to know whether the writer's game addiction is a symptom of something else - like depression - or the underlying disease itself. In any case, Gibson's story seems to have a happy ending. He reports that he is successfully pursuing a writing career in NYC and that he and his wife are the proud parents of five-month old.

Via: ExGamer

A class action lawsuit has been brought against Square Enix of America alleging unfair business practices, false advertising and unjust enrichment with regard to their long running MMORPG Final Fantasy XI.

In the suit, lead plaintiff Esther Leong of San Francisco claims that Square Enix deceived more than 100,000 customers about the game's monthly fees, penalties and restrictions. The suit seeks damages of $5 million. The nasty business which Leong charges that Square Enix engaged in includes:

• Licensing of online game software disguised as a sale
• Monthly fees to play the game
• Penalties for late payment of fees
• Interest charges for late payment of fees
• Charges while the user's acccount is suspended
• Termination of right to play for late payment of fees
• User restrictions and conditions related to the game
• Termination of game data for late payment of fees

Unfortunately, specific details of how Square Enix allegedly screwed its customers are not specified in the complaint. 1UP points out that the FFXI website lists a $12.95 monthly fee to play

DOCUMENT DUMP: Grab a copy of the lawsuit here.

-Doug Buffone, Entertainment Consumers Association intern

Via: Courthouse News Service

June is Gay Pride Month in the U.S. and the LGBT community in World of Warcraft marked the event with a large-scale celebration on the Proudmoore server.

GayGamer reports that this year's event was the fifth such gathering:

There were a variety of activities including Pre-Parade Festivities, March, Meetup with Alliance, Nude Duel Championship final round, March to Ratchet, Dance Boat Party to Booty Bay, Azeroth's Next Top Model Competition, Crafting Faire and Post-Parade Dance Party in the Bay.

It's great to see events like this happening in WOW and City of Heroes.

Via: Destructoid

The post-election tumult in Iran has taken a toll in Second Life, where Iranian members have been notably absent in recent day, reports New World Notes:

When the widespread protest... erupted last weekend, I went searching Second Life for Residents who lived in that country. According to Linden demographic stats published last year... there were over a hundred of them then, logging into Second Life on a regular basis...

 

Linden spokesman Peter Linden confirmed to me last night, "[W]e've not seen any log-ins from Iran." ...the utter lack of Iranian log-ins in the last few days suggests that Second Life is being blocked, or that Internet connectivity has become so degraded in that country, it's shut down by default...

 

For the moment, however, it is probably better that Iranians' Internet activity center on Twitter and other such tools.

We've been mentioning (warning?) GamePolitics readers that last night's episode of Mental included a plot element about a violent, 8-year-old gamer.

Fidgit's Tom Chick caught the show and serves up a detailed report [SPOILER ALERT]:

If you're watching [Mental], you probably caught last night's episode in which a kid is deprived of videogames, and therefore invents one in his head.

But the problem is that the videogame he invents in his head sucks... the kid ends up freaking out, hurting his mother with a knife, and then going catatonic. I know how he feels. I've played some bad videogames in my time, too. The kid's hands keep twitching as if he were playing a videogame. With a console controller, of course...

 

The situation is resolved when the sensitive physician with a lot of time on his hands guides his misunderstood patient through how to play the imaginary videogame...

Once he's beat the game in his head, he reconciles with his neglectful father and starts on his medication.

You can catch the full episode yourself at the Mental website. But you'll have to install Fox's video player; I'm not crazy about that...

GP: So, I watched the episode this morning and didn't find that it especially sensationalized games. Don't want to spoil it for anyone who may decide to check it out, so I won't say more about that for now. Overall, the show offers a sensitive treatment of mental health issues.

Today's edition of the Dr. Phil show will re-air an episode on game addiction which features Brad D. (left) of ExGamer.net.

As GamePolitics reported in October, 2008 when the show initially aired, Brad speaks frankly about a suicide attempt.

Also appearing on the program is Wendy Kays, author of Game Widow.

At the behest of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into children's access to explicit content in virtual worlds.

That word comes by way of Virtual Worlds News which spoke to a pair of FTC attorneys last week. The regulatory agency's report on its findings is scheduled to be presented to Congress in December.

GamePolitics readers may recall that in 2008 Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) called on  the FTC to issue a parental alert about the virtual sex occurring in Second Life:

Sites like Second Life offer no protections to keep kids from virtual "rape rooms," brothels, and drug stores. If sites like Second Life won't protect kids from obviously inappropriate content, the Congress will.

VWN notes that Second Life publisher Linden Lab recently announced a plan to restrict underage SL users from accessing mature content.

Via: Massively

Should online games be required to encourage human rights?

The 47-member nation Council of Europe thinks so and has issued a position paper, Human Rights Guidelines for Online Game Providers. The CE's recommendations include taking into account the potential impact of gratuitous violence and sexual content in games targeting minors.

In addition the CE warns against content which advocates criminal behavior and urges providers away from conveying themes like aggressive nationalism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, racism and intolerance.

The CE documents alludes to the risk of online game addiction as well as the potential for children to encounter negative types such as griefers, bullies and stalkers in online gaming venues. Threats to privacy are addressed as well. The CE also encourages online game companies to follow rating guidelines and to develop parental control tools for their products.

Most interesting, however, is the CE's surprisingly forward-thinking position on user-created content. The organization encourages providers to be thoughtful in deciding whether or not to delete such content:

Before removing gamer-generated content from a game, you should take care to verify the illegality or harmfulness of the content... Acting without first checking and verifying may be considered as an interference with legal content and with the rights and freedoms of those gamers creating and communicating such content, in particular the right to freedom of expression and information.

This would constitute a sea change for most online game providers. As Cory Doctorow notes on boingboing, "many online games actually put up an 'agreement' every time you patch them in which you promise not to assert your right to either [freedom of expression or creativity]."

The CE also frets that content created by immature users today might come back to bite them in the future, and urges that providers create a system to prevent this:

Consider developing mechanisms for the automatic removal of gamer-generated content after a certain time of inactivity, in particular for games targeting children and young people. Creating a lasting or permanently accessible online record of the content created by gamers could challenge their dignity, security and privacy or otherwise render them vulnerable now or at a later stage in their lives.

The once-happy business union of Ultima series creator Richard Garriott and Korea-based MMO publisher NCsoft turned vicious at its end, according to documents filed by Garriott with U.S. District Court in Texas.

Kotaku broke the news of the lawsuit yesterday, but GamePolitics has the details - and they're ugly.

Garriott, best known for the Ultima RPG series, alleges that he lost millions when NCsoft manipulated him into cashing out stock options earlier this year after firing him late in 2008. Garriott's dismissal is news in itself, as his departure from the company was presented to the gaming community by NCsoft as voluntary.

From the complaint:

In... November 2008, Chris Chung, President of NCSoft's North American operations, informed Mr. Garriott that NCSoft has decided to "part company." Although Mr. Garriott objected to his dismissal, Mr. Chung insisted that the decision was final - Mr. Garriott had to go.

 

As Mr. Garriott prepared to leave NCSoft, however, Mr. Garriott learned that NCsoft had internally re-characterized his termination by Mr. Chung as a "voluntary" resignation... This mischaracterization had profound and detrimental effects on Mr. Garriott's stock options: if NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott's employment (which it did) then the options - worth tens of millions of dollars - would remain in effect until 2011; but if Mr. Garriott resigned voluntarily (which he did not), then NCsoft might have terminated those options... within ninety days of his departure...

 

NCsoft forced Mr. Garriott into a Hobson's choice of exercising his options... and forced him to sell into one of the worst equity markets in modern history...

Garriott claims that he not only lost millions by prematurely selling his options, but also incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liability associated with the unwanted deal.

Garriott's well-publicized turn as a space tourist also comes up in the suit:

Following the lauch of the Tabula Rasa game, Mr. Garriott took a leave of absence... to pursue a different kind of launch... Mr. Garriott used the considerable media coverage surrounding his space-launch to publicize and promote Tabula Rasa for NCsoft. For example, Mr. Garriott send a coded message to the Tabula Rasa player base during his space launch...

 

NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott's employment while he was still in quarantine from his space flight...

 

Despite Mr. Garriott's repeated objections, NCsoft refused to retract its misstatements regarding the nature of Mr. Garriott's departure and the cancellation of his stock options...

In his lawsuit, Garriott alleges breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation on the part of NCsoft. He clams to have suffered "more than $27,000,000 in actual damages."

DOCUMENT DUMP: Grab a copy of Garriott's complaint here.

Canada.com reports that researchers are learning how pandemics spread by tracking progress of the Corrupted Blood outbreak that occurred in World of Warcraft in 2005.

Prof. Nina Fefferman of Rutgers University commented:

Suddenly, there did exist [in WoW] an experimental framework to watch how people would behave during an epidemic. That's exactly what we worry about in real-world epidemics — the little behaviours that we don't tell people to do or not to do, because we have never seen this happen before.

For those who don't play WoW, or didn't back in 2005, here's how the game's virtual pandemic went down:

Blizzard Entertainment decided that some players' characters had become too powerful, so they created a virus — called "Corrupted Blood" ...The virus quickly infected any nearby character, regardless of its relative strength.

The programmers imposed a mass quarantine, and expected players to take it seriously because "death" can cause their characters to lose items, strength, weapons and armour they had accumulated over many hours of play.

Yet many players ignored the quarantine, spreading the virus. Eventually, more than four million of the game's six million players worldwide were infected, and millions "died."

Swine flu may be causing a bit of a global panic just now, but the virus has apparently existed in Azeroth since the days of the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

The pic at left comes from the database at WoWHead, via Giant Bomb.

The increasingly game-aware People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will hold a save-the-virtual-baby-seals event in World of Warcraft at 1 P.M. EST on Saturday.

According to a post on the PETA site:

Activists from across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are banding together to put a stop to the atrocious seal slaughter. Anyone who slaughters baby seals for their fur must surely be in service to the evil Lich King.

 

You must be in the WhisperWind realm in order to fight... go to Northrend, where you will find a zone called Howling Fjord, where the baby seals live on glaciers and boats float in the fjords. This will be the battleground to stop the slaughter.

Unfortunately, casual WoW players will not be able to check the event out since characters need to be level 68+ to enter the Howling Fjord zone. One of the reasons why the Ron Paul WoW campaign rally was so successful was that it took place in a starter zone.

In addition, hardcore WoW fans have posted comments to the PETA article and its Facebook event listing pointing out other concerns:

I actually do find this somewhat ironic, as there is soooooo much animal killing involved during the levelling of your characters.

I am a little aghast that you chose Alliance; if you want to be environmental you really want to be looking at the Tauren mythology. They are one with the earth and they are very environmental. As someone who plays mostly Horde characters, this just comes off as prejudiced.

Whisperwind is NOT a pvp server, most likely you are just going to be a witness to the biggest in game seal slaughter and you will be powerless to do anything about it.

Whisperwind is already a very high population server, which means most PETA members are just going to see the queue screen like the Ron Paul people did.