What is a synthetic economy?

In the game and permanent virtual worlds that use their own form of currency, participants buy a virtual currency with dollars in the real world. This generates the synthetic economy in the virtual world. Other virtual worlds are not created for playing games, but to simulate communities in real life. In these virtual worlds, participants can buy clothes, land or businesses. As many online games and virtual communities have hundreds of thousands of interacting, buyers and seller users, the basic model leads to a synthetic economy in every virtual world with some aspects that reflect the economies in the real world. Business Week Magazine represented one magnate with real estateral hundred thousand real-world dollars per year selling virtual ground. Although it is definitely an exception, it shows how many people are willing to sink heavily earned cash into the synthetic economy.

People who have never experienced a virtual world would sound vaguely bizarre. Why trade actual dollars for "fake dollars?" The answer is simple: virtual worlds are convincing, strangely addictive places. As soon as the user was interested in the virtual world, he began to identify himself with his avatar and the world himself. As in the real world, the user wants to excel in the virtual world, to distinguish or indulge in, which eventually leads to the purchase of things that feed on the synthetic economy.

Wikipedia notes that in December 2004, the island of Entropia sold for virtual dollars equal to $ 26,500 real US dollars (USD), while a virtual space station intended to be sold for $ 100,000. The synthetic economy offers an unlimited opportunity for a brand new way to generate dollars in the real world. However, everything purchased in the synthetic economy is subject to a loss without compensation. Laws in real sThe sentences did not affect the unique circumstances generated by virtual worlds, while the virtual worlds left the "Wild West" at a computer age. For most, however, released into virtual worlds is a social escape and investment in a synthetic economy is probably modest enough to be a guilty pleasure - for many, the wine pleasure worth every penny.

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