دانلود رایگان مقاله سوالات سیاستگذاری شده توسط اقتصادهای مجازی

abstract

Over the past decade the number and scope of so-called virtual economies has risen rapidly. Careful study reveals that the label “virtual”, while useful in a descriptive way, does not identify anything economically unique. Virtual economies tend to behave like any other economy and also increasingly interact in predictable ways with the so-called real economy. Yet, these interactions raise important and unresolved questions for law and policy. While most of the legal questions have been addressed by scholars, at this point, most remain unresolved by the courts. In addition, there is little systematic analysis of policy issues for virtual worlds. This paper identifies a number of reasons why the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are eroding. In doing so, it addresses a few of the major policy issues faced by virtual world operators as the boundaries of their creations push against the real world. It also demonstrates how the developers of virtual worlds already behave as policy makers, and how their own actions continue to blur the boundary between themselves and national governments.

4. Conclusion

This essay has described a shift in the conception of the designers of virtual worlds from the delivers of content to the governors of complex social systems. Traditionally, virtual worlds have attempted to insulate themselves from the policy issues of the real world by defining themselves as spaces for play, enclosed in a magic circle. The role of world-makers as governments was recognized very early in the history of virtual environments, but was considered from the start as completely distasteful and unfortunate. As author Julian Dibbell describes it in his book My Tiny Life, the technicians who built the world of LambdaMoo in the 1980s soon become frustrated at the amount of heat they took for changes to the virtual environment (Dibbell, 1998). One day the “wizards” (as they were called) decided not to be involved any more, insisting that they would only take care of the “technical functioning” of the world, that its social norms and political tides were no longer part of their ambit. They refused, in other words, to be a government, finding it simply too difficult and inelegant. Almost immediately, however, the wizards learned the lesson that it is impossible not to be in charge, that not issuing rulings is the same thing as issuing non-rulings, and that therefore the person in the governor's seat cannot not govern. Policymaking is not a job that anyone creates and then inhabits. The social world of humanity creates policymaking jobs and, if it must, imposes them on specific people to handle as best they can. These same forces have created policymaking positions in the leadership of virtual world making companies. The acts of these companies are policy already and can be studied as such.