Measuring aggregate production in a virtual economy using log data

Authors

  • Tuukka Lehtiniemi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v2i3.631

Keywords:

virtual economy, macroeconomics, aggregate production

Abstract

Virtual worlds typically contain systems of resource allocation, production, and consumption, which are often called virtual economies. The operator of a virtual world clearly has an incentive to monitor the virtual economy, and users and outside observers would benefit from e.g. temporal or cross-economy comparisons. Standard methodology of computing macroeconomic aggregates for virtual economies would allow this kind of analysis, but such method is currently unavailable. This study fills this gap by employing the concepts of national accounting and unique log data from a virtual world. In particular, the focus is on virtual economies where the production of new virtual goods takes place as the users expend inputs to produce predetermined outputs along predetermined production paths. The major MMOGs fall into this category. Previous attempts on measuring the aggregate production of a virtual economy have been based on non-standard method and externally collected data. In virtual economies the operator can collect extensive data automatically, a characteristic feature that should be reflected in any standard accounting scheme. Macroeconomic aggregates for a national economy are computed using the UN System of National Accounts (SNA). It is a standard accounting system, and its probably most quoted outcome is the gross domestic product. The most relevant borderline in SNA lies between the national economy and the rest of the world: domestic production is included, whereas foreign production is not. SNA cannot be directly used in a virtual economy, as the concepts of

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Published

2009-09-16

Issue

Section

Peer Reviewed Research Papers