Index P f 10 real-life income in America is only, like, thirty-seven thousand, "Castronova tells me, "you realize these people have a non-trivial amount of wealth locked up inside the games When he finished his research, Castronova assembled it in a paper called"Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. "He submitted it to an academic Web site, the Social Science Research Network, that distributes working papers, free for anyone to read The site has 43,982 papers, by more than 37,000 authors. He didn ' t expect too much. "I thought maybe seventy-five people would read it, he recalls, "and that'd be great He was wrong. The paper sent a shock wave through the on-line world. Ever Quest players pounced on it and wrote up excited descriptions on game-discussion boards. That led to a flurry of posts on popular blog sites. Soon, academics and pundits in Washington were rushing to read it. Barely a few months later, Castronova's paper became the most downloaded paper in the entire database-beating out works by dozens of Nobel laureates. Today, it's still in the top three Why the rush of interest? What can a game filled with elves and warrior dwarves tell us about the real world? Quite a lot, if you believe the economist Edward Chamberlin. In 1948, Chamberlin admitted that all economists face a critical problem: they have no clean"laboratory"in which to study behaviour. The social scientist. cannot observe the actual operation of a real model under controlled circumstances he wrote. Economics is limited by the fact that resort cannot be had to the laboratory techniques of the natural sciences. Instead, classical economics tries to predict economic behaviour by theorizing about a completely fair marketplace in which people are rational actors and all things are equal The problem with this -as plenty of left-wing critics have pointed out-is that all things aren't Some people are born into rich families, and blessed with great opportunities. Others are born into poor neighbourhoods where even the most brilliant mind coupled with hard work may not forge success As a result, economists have warred for centuries over two diverging visions. Adam Smith argued that people inherently prefer a free market and the ability to rise above others; Karl Marx countered that capital was inherently unfair and those with power would abuse it. But no pristine world exists in which to test these theories-there is no country with a truly level playing field with pt, possibly, for EverQuest, the world's first truly egalitarian polity. Every one begins the same way E hing. You enter with pathetic skills, no money, and only the clothes on your back. Wealth comes from working hard, honing your skills, and clever trading. It is a genuine meritocracy, which is precisely why players love the game, Castronova argues. It undoes all the inequities in society. They're wiped away. Sir Thomas More would have dreamt about that possibility, that kind of utopia, he says Virtual worlds have produced some surreal rags-to-riches stories. When the on-line world Second Life launched, the players were impressed to see a female avatar industriously building a sprawling monster home. An in-game neighbour stopped by to say hello only to discover she was a homeless person in British Columbia, logging on using her single remaining possession, a laptop. Penniless in the real world. she belonged to a social elite in the fake one Not all social inequities are absent, of course. For instance, Castronova discovered that women in the game are worth less than men, in a very measurable way: when he compared the sale of male and female avatars, he found than female characters sold for 10 percent less than male ones at precisely the same power level. Players with female avatars also say it's harder to advance in the game, at least initially even though the female characters are often being played, in real life by men. (a study by the game http://www.walrusmagazine.com/printpl?sid=04/05/06/1929205real-life income in America is only, like, thirty-seven thousand," Castronova tells me, "you realize these people have a non-trivial amount of wealth locked up inside the games." When he finished his research, Castronova assembled it in a paper called "Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier." He submitted it to an academic Web site, the Social Science Research Network, that distributes working papers, free for anyone to read. The site has 43,982 papers, by more than 37,000 authors. He didn't expect too much. "I thought maybe seventy-five people would read it," he recalls, "and that'd be great." He was wrong. The paper sent a shock wave through the on-line world. EverQuest players pounced on it and wrote up excited descriptions on game-discussion boards. That led to a flurry of posts on popular blog sites. Soon, academics and pundits in Washington were rushing to read it. Barely a few months later, Castronova's paper became the most downloaded paper in the entire database — beating out works by dozens of Nobel laureates. Today, it's still in the top three. Why the rush of interest? What can a game filled with elves and warrior dwarves tell us about the real world? Quite a lot, if you believe the economist Edward Chamberlin. In 1948, Chamberlin admitted that all economists face a critical problem: they have no clean "laboratory" in which to study behaviour. "The social scientist . . . cannot observe the actual operation of a real model under controlled circumstances," he wrote. "Economics is limited by the fact that resort cannot be had to the laboratory techniques of the natural sciences." Instead, classical economics tries to predict economic behaviour by theorizing about a completely fair marketplace in which people are rational actors and all things are equal. The problem with this — as plenty of left-wing critics have pointed out — is that all things aren't equal. Some people are born into rich families, and blessed with great opportunities. Others are born into dirt￾poor neighbourhoods where even the most brilliant mind coupled with hard work may not forge success. As a result, economists have warred for centuries over two diverging visions. Adam Smith argued that people inherently prefer a free market and the ability to rise above others; Karl Marx countered that capital was inherently unfair and those with power would abuse it. But no pristine world exists in which to test these theories — there is no country with a truly level playing field. Except, possibly, for EverQuest, the world's first truly egalitarian polity. Everyone begins the same way: with nothing. You enter with pathetic skills, no money, and only the clothes on your back. Wealth comes from working hard, honing your skills, and clever trading. It is a genuine meritocracy, which is precisely why players love the game, Castronova argues. "It undoes all the inequities in society. They're wiped away. Sir Thomas More would have dreamt about that possibility, that kind of utopia," he says. Virtual worlds have produced some surreal rags-to-riches stories. When the on-line world Second Life launched, the players were impressed to see a female avatar industriously building a sprawling monster home. An in-game neighbour stopped by to say hello only to discover she was a homeless person in British Columbia, logging on using her single remaining possession, a laptop. Penniless in the real world, she belonged to a social elite in the fake one. Not all social inequities are absent, of course. For instance, Castronova discovered that women in the game are worth less than men, in a very measurable way: when he compared the sale of male and female avatars, he found than female characters sold for 10 percent less than male ones at precisely the same power level. Players with female avatars also say it's harder to advance in the game, at least initially — even though the female characters are often being played, in real life, by men. (A study by the game Index Page 3 of 10 http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print.pl?sid=04/05/06/1929205 10/28/2004