My Synthetic World

Edward Castronova’s book, Synthetic Worlds gives a fantastic view of the MMORPG genre breaking down key aspects. As a loyal World of Warcraft player, I felt that that the book did a fantastic job of capturing the spirit of the massively genre early in the book by explaining in easily understandable terms of how game play actually works. Key aspects such as player interaction, selling of items and the eventual belief that the player eventually becomes the avatar. This belief that the player of the game is actually in this virtual environment is very important because it is something that other genre do not do. This little avatar becomes a virtual representation of the player, for better or worse. The player gets a connection to this character and begins to care about what items this virtual creature possesses. This leads to the next part of the book which is the economy. The idea that real world dollars were being used to buy MMO items was not a shock to me but new ideas in the book were presented like what makes this virtual economy fun? The ideas of work vs. fun and profit vs pleasure in along with the ideas of building a fun economy are interesting topics. The book explains that virtual finances are controlled with trade and specialization; while your character might be good at some skills he cannot make as much profit without trading and buying other items. Making items consumable fuels this process as items and wealth will deplete and disappear after time. Castronova also brings up good points when explaining how the MMO world works and player interaction with the NPC. These non-playable characters act not only as a guide but as a virtual tester in the virtual world fulfilling multiple roles while giving the player tasks. Overall the book did a fantastic job at looking at the important aspects of the genre and breaking them down into something that was easy to understand.

As a player of MMORPG’s, it is easy to see that I am fan but they have created a new sort of world for people to interact in. Playing a game can now allow people to meet new individuals or interact with friends (near and far) from the comfort of their home. This can been seen as the MMORPG genre has never been more healthy with major companies such EA games, Bioware and even the local Bethesda planning new games in the genre. As it stands, the next big step in gaming seems to be the MMO and while it may not last, games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft have changed modern gaming and American culture.