[ExI] The "real" world

[Keith Henson]

"If you've spent time on Facebook, you might be mystified by all the
people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets. I know I am.
Not only does this seem a strange way to spend time, but here's the
even weirder part: a lot of these people are spending real money to
buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain
advantage in these Web-based games."

snip

"CCP Games, creator of a virtual community called EVE Online, actually
hired an in-house economist to regulate the economy of its online
world, which has 330,000 members. "My role is like that of a lead
economist in a central bank—I give information about the economy to
the players and to CCP," says Eyjólfur Gudmagnusson, who was an
associate professor at a university in Iceland before joining CCP."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/235170

Game economy stabilization was the background on which _Halting State_
was written.

I wonder how long it will take for the virtual economy to exceed the
"real" economy?  (And for that matter how you would measure it?)

It the last few years what has been going on in the real world is
stranger than what has been discussed on this list.

Keith