Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy
- Report: Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy. World Bank InfoDev programme, 2010.
URL = http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.1056.html
Description
"Last year, the World Bank’s InfoDev programme asked me to write a report on the “development potential of the virtual economy”. The report, titled Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy, is published today. It contains a number of new facts and ways of thinking about the virtual economy, and I’m excited to see what the reaction is.
In this report, we understand the virtual economy more widely than as mere online game economies, although online game economies are big part of it. Other sectors of the virtual economy are markets for such things as Facebook likes, Twitter followers, and digital microtasks. All of these are valuable yet scarce digital assets that have emerged as the so-called “digital economy” of online services has grown.
The development potential here refers to the potential to provide income opportunities to poor and undereducated people in developing countries, and to support the development of local ICT infrastructure. It is well known that gold farming provides income to many people in developing countries. In this report we estimate that it may employ as many as 100,000 full-time equivalent game laborers. For the first time, we also examine the full value chain through which gold farmers’ services are brought to Western players: everything from advertising to account hacking. We call all of these functions together the “third-party gaming services industry”, of which actual gold farming is only a small part. The total revenues of the industry are estimated at 3.0 billion USD.
But the future development potential of the third-party gaming services industry does not look good. It is threatened by game publishers’ decision to start selling virtual goods to players directly. Moreover, its services often bring harm to other players and game publishers, meaning that their net social value may often be negative.
In contrast, another sector of the virtual economy represents an unequivocally positive contribution to society: the market for Microwork, or small tasks such as tagging an image or trascribing a snippet of hand-written text. E-commerce sites and other companies need such work. With suitable technology, this demand translates to income opportunities for digitally connected individuals in developing countries. In the report, we examine the value chain of this industry and assess its development potential.
One important point to make is that microwork is distinct from the related concept of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing refers to the outsourcing of all kinds of tasks to a crowd via an open call. Microwork refers to tiny, digitally distributed tasks, whether these are sourced via an open call or, as is also common, through closed networks. (http://virtual-economy.org/2011/04/07/world_bank_virtual_economy_rep/)