Virtual Economies - Design and Analysis

In the twenty-first-century digital world, virtual goods are sold for real money. Digital game players happily pay for avatars, power-ups, and other game items. But behind every virtual sale, there is a virtual economy, simple or complex. In this book, Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova introduce the basic concepts of economics into the game developers and game designers toolkits. Lehdonvirta and Castronova explain how the fundamentals of economics - markets, institutions, and money - can be used to create or analyze economies based on artificially scarce virtual goods.

About the author

Vili Lehdonvirta is a Research Fellow at Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Edward Castronova is Professor of Communications and Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University. He is the author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games and Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality.

Product details

• Authors: Edward Castronova, Edward (Professor of Telecommunications and Professor of Cognitive Science Castronova, Vili Lehdonvirta, Vili (Research Fellow Lehdonvirta, Vili Castronova Lehdonvirta
• Assisted by: Sandra (Professor Braman (Editor), Paul T. (Assistant Professor Jaeger (Editor)
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.05.2014
• EAN: 9780262027250
• ISBN: 978-0-262-02725-0
• No. of pages: 306
• Series: Information Policy; Information Policy
• Subjects: Guides > Hobby, home > Games, quizzes; Social sciences, law, business > Business; Volkswirtschaftslehre, GAMES / Video & Electronic, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / Comparative