(via Wiebke Abel) The BBC has a fascinating story on the astounding growth of virtual economies. Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester’s Institute for Development Policy and Management has produced a report entitled Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on “Gold Farming”. The report makes for a fascinating read, Read more…
I’ve just attended Virtual Policy ’08 in London, organised by BERR and the Virtual Policy Network. This has been a different event because it has brought together regulators, industry, educators, developers, economists, and academics to explore current and future policy issues involving virtual worlds. The wide number of sectors represented Read more…
(via B2fxxx and Terra Nova) Back in March we reported on an important suit involving World of Warcraft and software developers MDY (I don’t know why I’m using “we”, it’s only me writing this). The suit involved cheating autopilot exploit which allows a player to gather gold automatically by using Read more…
As an update to the WoW gold spamming story I wrote earlier, I have noticed that in the last month the spambots have gone. There is still some spam, but I could swear that SpamMeNot has been reporting less and less spam recently. I have also noticed that the corpses Read more…
There has been considerable excitement in those interested in virtual world research about the results of the election of EVE Online’s Council of Stellar Management, which is as far as I know the first ever democratic experiment involving users of a virtual world. EVE Online is one of the most Read more…
This is an excellent use of Machinima to illustrate the need for Fair Trade.
(The next victim stands on top of a pile of dead spammers) A curious scene has been taking place in the streets of Stormwind. The square between the Auction House and the Bank is by far the busiest place in the game, with dozens of players moving to and from Read more…
I’m in Malaysia for a WIPO seminar on the software industry (note to self: in the future, stay away from water and ice). Yesterday there was an interesting session on the gaming industry in the Asian region. The representative from the Japanese software industry gave statistics on the subscription-based online Read more…
Meet a typical level 70 human mage (name and server omitted to protect the innocent). He has reached highest level, so what is he to do next? Embark on the endless pursuit of better gear and epic mounts! But he cannot compete with those kids that spend all day in Read more…
(via TerraNova) Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are involved in copyright litigation against MDY, the makers of a cheat program called Glider. This program allows users to run the game on autopilot by becoming a bot that allows the user to kill monsters and farm their loot without Read more…