Enter the Virtual Economy!

Just imagine a guy, expert in economics, getting paid lavishly for playing an MMORPG games! Weird, you may say. But not with Eyjolfur Gudmundsson. He is the Chief Economist with the CCP Games, the creator of a virtual world, Eve Online, a science fiction computer game run out of Iceland. What does he do there? He does what Y.V. Reddy does for India; manages and balances the economy of EVE. The monster of inflation bugs not only the real world but even the Virtual world. How you may ask. Take example of Linden Labs, the creator of Second Life. It uses the currency called Lindex with which you can trade any merchandise with-in the virtual world. Linden Labs have even pegged their currency with the US Dollars. As on Aug 08, 08 the rate was: 267.46 L$ per 1US $ . The Second Life has got a market place where you get all the information of the ongoing economic conditions of the Second Life World. Games like World of Warcraft, "Everquest, Lineage and Final Fantasy XI all have some unit of currency that is of value in its own virtual world. Generally these games have a "Faucet" from where you churn out point/currencies. This leads to increase in money supply with-in the virtual world. Now when there is more money supply, then more money chases fewer goods. This lowers the value of the currency. So what you could buy with 1 dollar now you need to shell out 2 dollars. Now that's inflation. Now how can the effect be negated. The only way to immunize the virtual world from over-heating of economy is to set "drainage". Now these drainage suck out the excess money from the virtual economy. It can be like more charges on ammo or skill-upgrades after a particular level. This higher charge will deter the "avatars" from wasting money mindlessly. This keeps the economy balanced. They are synonymous to the taxes of the real world. More you earn the more tax you pay. That's not all... well there are NPCs (Non Player Characters) who sell or buy from the virtual world to keep up the economy intact. So, If you find a guy who even after getting M.A. (Hons) in economics is interested in playing MMORPG then you be sure that the guy is gonna be some "Governor of some Virtual World Economy". But how can a world be free of more problems. There are something called COPYbots which was initially meant as a debugging tool with which you can export objects within Second Life to an XML file, which can then later be imported for use in the game. But now it is being used to "copy" the objects and own it without having to pay for it! From the whole drama written above, I am sure that Wachowski Bros' Matrix-like life is not far away. Right?? -- O.A.K. Tree