This article argues that advancement in the MMORPG Runescape is connected to virtual performances of colonial exploitation. It places in geographic and temporal context various societies represented ...in Runescape by historicizing in-game cultural representations. Thereafter, it is asserted that players partake in virtual iterations of colonialism to advance their accounts. Analysis is grounded in four case studies exploring the themes of exploitative archaeology, colonial cartography, imperial diplomacy, and resource extraction. Each example represents opportunities for in-game progress. In connecting the virtual advancement of user accounts to performances of colonialism, it is argued that Runescape reproduces historic colonial projects in which European powers commodified other societies to advance their own economic and cultural agendas. Through this analysis, the article seeks to develop a guiding framework for the study of MMORPGs as replicating Eurocentric colonial encounters.
► We use a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) as a site for virtual economic experiment. ► We use Runescape players to test theories of the endowment effect. ► Individuals with ...more trading experience are less likely to exhibit status quo behaviour in trade. ► Highly experienced individuals are more likely to swap the item rather than keep it. ► Virtual economies may be useful venues for field experiments.
We examine the feasibility of using a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to test economic theories. As a test vehicle we use the well-known endowment effect. Even though our goods are entirely virtual, our results confirm earlier results that individuals with more trading experience are less likely to exhibit status quo behaviour in trade. However, we also find evidence that highly experienced individuals are more likely to swap the item rather than keep it – i.e. there appears to be a propensity to ‘truck, barter and exchange’. A further experiment suggests that this feature is robust and is unlikely to be due to subject misperception or experimenter demand effects. However we are unable to eliminate selection effects as the source of our correlation between experience and propensity to trade. We conclude that virtual economies may be useful venues for field experiments.
This article is about teen services at Eltham Library, serving the independent community of Eltham, in the northeastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It tells how Eltham staff used the ...playing of the international computer game, Runescape, to attract teens and preteens, particularly boys, to the library. The author tells how the library involved youth in planning the Runescape project, adaptations after the project began and how the project attracted community attention and support for the library.
We examine the feasibility of using a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to test economic theories. As a test vehicle we use the well-known hypothesis about the relationship ...between market experience and the endowment effect. Our results confirm earlier field experiments that individuals with more trading experience are less likely to exhibit status quo behaviour in trade. However, we also find evidence that highly experienced individuals are more likely to swap the item rather than keep it – i.e. there appears to be a propensity to ‘truck, barter and exchange’. A further experiments suggests that this feature is robust and is unlikely to be due to subject misperception or experimenter demand effects. We conclude that virtual economies may be a useful venue for field experiments.
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