MMO Games

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mmo = massive multiplayer online - persistent virtual worlds that reflect millions of users

there are two great mmo games today. they are sometimes advertisers here. both of em. we are glad.


 * WoW (world of warcraft; blizzard entertainment)


 * EVE (EVE or EVE Home, ccp games)

economic simulation
These are multi-player games that take place in persistent simulated worlds. Worlds in which you can, in time and through effort, make yourself pretend rich-enough. do what a reasonable agent would under the circumstances. the participants in the worlds are real people with virtual economic interests. and there are lots of them. better statistics.

These worlds generate simulated economies with bid/ask and arbitrage. and transaction volume. not as much as a real economy but many, many rational actors making clear, logged supply/demand decisions 24/7. big econ lab with multiple instances to support counterfactuals and quantitative data for state derivatives.

These are rich universes. While it is bloody hard and tedious to get Gates pretend-wealthy, it is easy to get better than pretend-comfortable. pretend doctor-rich. Place in the country. Into the land of discretionary spending.

The broad parameters of supply and demand can be adjusted and varied over multiple instances/regions. Wool or cotton or mineral drop rate can adjust a high volume trade price curve in ways easily measured and verified over multiple distinct realms/regions.not just an outcome. A probability distribution. scaled product properties produce relative value decisions.

user interface management simulation
each game enables editing, extending and structuring the user interface.

virtual management modeling and simulation
guilds, clans, corps, pugs, gangs and fleets. organizations with scale and articulation covering a wide range. plans from "Charge!" to campaigns like 1944-45 and projects like hoover dam. planetary interaction and supply chain simulation add further sophistication to the modeling capabilities of the industrial system.

business models
the two main business models are subscription based (pay per month) and pay for virtual stuff. We believe but only from anecdotal reports that pay for virtual stuff is more popular in Korea. Subscription based games dominate the US and Europe.

To get a sense for this, consider - WoW charges $15 or so a month for an account. There are about 10 million subscribers. That works out to $150 million per month or almost $2 billion per year. Marginal cost of a new member at this stage converges on $0. growth goes almost straight to the bottom line.

user interface management simulation
each game enables editing, extending and structuring the user interface.

more links
Nick Yee


 * PlayOn PARC - comment


 * daedalus project

Edward Costronova - Indiana University


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link category


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