Majandusteadusest ja viroloogiast sünteetilistes maailmates

Video- ja arvutimängudes kujutatavad virtuaalsed maailmad muutuvad üha keerulisemaks ning pakuvad üha rohkem huvi nii sotsioloogidele kui majandusteadlastele, kes näevad sadade tuhandete osalejatega virtuaalsetes maailmades huvitavaid võimalusi ja arenguid.

Alles see oli kui mõned ettevõtlikud isikud suutsid ennast Ultima Online'is leitud/ostetud/vahetatud virtuaalse kolaga elatada müües sea edasi eBay'l. 2003. aasta BBC artiklist:

Sites such as eBay, Player Auctions and Tradespot list items, characters and player accounts for sale.

The amounts being traded are huge. Figures collected by economist Edward Castronova show that the total dollar value of what is being traded, excluding EverQuest items, runs into the millions.

Mr Dibbell has become an itinerant merchant wandering the land of Britannia seeking out gold and other goods to sell.

"I've discovered that there is a food chain and the producers are at the bottom and the merchants are at the top," he says.

Artiklis mainitud majandusteadlaselt Edward Castronova'lt ilmub peatselt raamat Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, mille ilmumise eel andis mees intervjuu The Guardianile. Üks Castronova huvitavamaid täheldusi:

JS: Are these games doing to closed societies what the Voice of America did to the Soviet Union in the cold war?

EC: Much, much more intensely. Right. I think the smart thing for the US state department to do today is build a game about Islam but make it a democracy. And set it up so that every 16-year-old from Morocco to Pakistan can go into that world when they get a computer. Not say anything overt about democracy but have them play - have them vote, for example.

Terve intervjuu on huvitav ning käsitleb muuhulgas virtuaalsete maailmade kasutamist sotsiaalseteks eksperimentideks (kommunism, marksism - aga palun!).

Soovitan kõigile, keda sünteetilistes maailmates toimuv huvitab.

Natuke teise nurga alt, kuid võib-olla veel huvitavam on hiljuti World of Warcraft'is toimunu, mille käigus pääses valla "virutaalne katk", mis ei oleks pidanud levima:

Game administrators were baffled. As they scrambled to quarantine areas of the game world, the disease quickly spread beyond their control. Partially to blame was the game's "hearthstone" feature, which allows players to essentially teleport from one area to another, and which made it possible for the plague to reach the most distant regions of the map in just minutes.

Eventually the game's administrators came up with a "spell" to cure the plague and managed to distribute it to the players en masse. But the legacy of Corrupted Blood remains. While software viruses are nothing new, Corrupted Blood is unique in that it's the first such infection ever to spread through a virtual environment without being deployed by malicious intent. It was, in a certain sense, naturally occuring in its environment. You might even say it evolved and sought self-propagation, just as any lifeform would do.

Mida keerulisemaks muutuvad virtuaalsed/sünteetilised maailmad seda keerulisem on nende loojatel ennustada ja ette näha väikestest muudatustest tulenevaid probleeme. Isegi programmeerija ei ole kõike nägev ning arvestav jumal vaid inimene, kes teeb aeg-ajalt vigu.

Kui suudaks nüüd veel ainult ise uuesti mängima hakata aga...lihtsalt ei julge selle ajaneelajaga maadlema hakata.