Can Video Games Predict the Next Financial Crisis? - Tom Chatfield

[mikepousti]

great video

[HBSanta]

This guy looks exactly like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.

[bestplugins]

The only ones who can predict them, are the ones who make them

[TomChatfield]

Remember, money isn't "real" either. It's a grand and very serious game, of belief and counters and values. If nothing else, learning how to handle yourself within game economies can be a pretty brilliant, and painless, education in some vital life lessons about monopolies, scams, scarcity, teamwork, bidding, competition, borrowing, reward, pay, labour, trust, greed…

[Zubinen]

MMO economies are the same as in real life. Simple as that, morons.

[eirpcalc]

Knowing that it isn't real can change the gamer's behavior beyond recognition. This is a significant uncontrolled variable.

[etzel33]

Awesome. I thought I was the only one who thought that could happen. Alternate currency models, alternate tax models, this could all be thrown into an mmorpg and tested, analyzed. Cool concept. Hope he pursues it.

[m0nkeybl1tz]

Man, do you know what the VAT would be on an epic mount? Ugh, you'd have to get a second mortgage on your tier 6's...

[lllraverslll]

yup i always used keybinds or hacks to free myself from the rules the game applied. cross arrow hacks reload health money hacks anything i could use to bend the rules . heck even cliches were fun. we do what ever we can whether it is right or wrong to be better stronger richer ...

[chessdawgz]

The speaker's taking it too serious...

[oiuoiu988]

its funny to see the rest of the world slowly coming back to austrian economics... realistic virtual economies have been teaching deductive economic truths to this generation for years, theyre going to absolutely burst out laughing when they read keynes in econ 101!!!

[Ep1cure]

The virtual and real world:

There are some interesting parallels but there's a big difference in the sense that one's fear of death is laughable in the virtual world, and the opposite is often the case in the real world. Just restart the game...

There are a few other notable differences also. But analysis of virtual behaviour might bring SOME useful insights.

[Mastikator]

How people manage their economies is the same in both, however.

[Ep1cure]

There's allways so many qualifiers you could write a book on it. Reply appreciated. ;)

[Mastikator]

In most games you can't just restart if you loose resources, and often have to compete against other players for better resources. There is some foul play involved as always, but it's generally frowned upon and when discovered it's often rightly punished. And experienced and intelligent players can often amass huge sums of money.

It's incredibly Laissez-faire in that sense since there often isn't any market intervention in the game-economy.

It punishes the irresponsible and benefits the smart.

[VertNinja]

It's the same? Really??.. I'm broke you wanna send some monsters my way so I can loot their corpses? oh wait this is the real world.... yeah.

[Mastikator]

Details Ninja, details.

[Ryosuke1208]

It is the same in many ways but not all, some item that is very common would be a low price, or a weapon that is very hard to get in one world because the players dont have high levels, that weapon will tend to be more expensive that on the other worlds with high-level characters.

[PhotoPlankton]

There is still a fear of losing one's investment in some games. For instance in "EVE Online" (which has one of the most sophisticated game economies) the loss of a spaceship in battle can set you back by weeks. Weighing Risk and Reward against each other is one of the central issues in that game. When talking about this type of game, you cannot just restart it.

Ofcourse, not all of these online games are as punishing as EVE Online is.

[return135]

How about looking at the Austrian business cycle theory! The Austrian free market economists have been spot on in predictions!

[ProfMike789]

If by "spot on" you mean "horribly wrong," then yes.

[oiuoiu988]

look up a video on youtube called, what video games taught me about economics... what you'll realize is that video games have been proving austrian economics correct ever since multi-player video games have had economies. its part of the reason so many young people now arent fooled by positivist economics.