Synthetic Worlds

Quite a bit has been written about virtual worlds recently, primarily by psychologists, sociologists, and other "people-oriented" researchers who dive in fingers- and feet-first into the synthetic landscape. What's missing is research from other disciplines. Castronova brings the important perspective of an economist to the table.

But that's not what you get at the beginning of the book. Castronova has much larger goals in mind, attempting to introduce the vast intricacies of virtual worlds to newbies. This, in my opinion, is a mistake – the first chapter derails the book and those looking for a more serious discussion might be turned off. But if you're willing to slog through or simply skip those chapters, you're in for a treat.

The hook here is the economics – that people can get rich off of World of Warcraft – and while Castronova addresses that possibility, it's an oversimplification of his premise. Castronova provides a perspective on the insane growth of virtual worlds. If he is occasionally starry-eyed about the possibilities it's forgivable, because in economic terms virtual growth is unprecedented.

Castronova occasionally strays outside economics territory, but his thoughts are still valuable. He posits that the "Wild West" nature of self-governing through player-killing simply doesn't work, which matches with my experience as an administrator on Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). He points the finger at "Coding Authorities," the companies who create and manage these worlds. At base, these companies have no interest in actually monitoring the goings-on of the world. Castronova skewers this sort of laissez-faire management with the statement "I've never once seen a customer service representative actually do anything." And he's right – the sheer burden of properly managing virtual worlds is much too onerous for a game company looking to make back its investment on the latest graphical avatars. Or in other words, until virtual worlds collapse in a flaming ball of anarchy (like Ultima Online nearly did) the programmers and developers won't lift a finger because it doesn't pay to. It's a refreshingly realistic take in a series of breathless books touting the wonders of virtual interaction.

Castronova concludes Synthetic Worlds by daring to make predictions about what will happen next. In a book about the exponentially increasing virtual worlds, this is risky. Within years of publication, some of his predictions have proven out (virtual interfaces are slowly advancing to include gestural interfaces, like the Wii) and some are just simply off base ("virtual citizenship" and its implications have shaky logic). But that doesn't detract from the book's value to those new to online worlds or beginning their research in this relatively new medium.