Question: You’ve proposed the creation
of an academic center for the study of synthetic worlds. What would
such a center try to accomplish?Castronova: It would try to develop some
sense of the policy options in this space, try to parse out the
opportunities and the risks. It would develop educational applications.
It would develop the following research idea: If we built a series of
comparable synthetic worlds, couldn’t we unleash slightly different
policies in each one? It seems to me that this would be an
unprecedented opportunity to study human behavior at the social level.
No one has ever been able to study such things before, not in this way,
not using the tried-and-true experimental methods of the natural
sciences. Imagine how a few well-designed experiments about socialism
in 1870 might have affected world history. We have a lot of pressing
questions about societal behavior right now–human population response
to disease, for one example; community response to natural disaster,
for another. These things could be directly studied in synthetic
worlds; without them, all we have is pure theory, and historical data
(in which policy causality is basically impossible to untangle). The
idea would cost $20 million to $50 million, but it would also
dramatically improve business as usual in a large chunk of the
university.
Here is the interview. Here is the web page for the book. Here is Castronova’s blog. Here is the Amazon link to the book.
I file this one under: Matters I am Probably Too Old to Understand. Isn’t the ever-versatile Jane Galt addicted to Civilization? I once tried the game and was too addled to play it, or even to figure out what playing it would mean, much less to use it for research. I brought it on my laptop to my Mexican village, where they shrieked each time the cow went "moo."
Is this experimental economics but with "synthetic," programmed people? Is this experimental economics with real people playing a computer game but in a richer synthetic environment? Is this experimental economics but cheaper because you use the "status money" of a game instead of real money? Some mix of the above? Comments are open…
Thanks to www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer. And speaking of synthetic worlds, John Fowles has just passed away.
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman† stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation
Well there goes #2.
Another problem. I doubt a researcher could develope a game anyone would want to play.
The people who play the games like World of Warcraft, normally play a lot. That means the games had better be fun.
Michael Vassar, I’m curious what you think is “seriously (even critically) misleading” about Civilization’s take on history. Not because I necessarily disagree with you, but because I grew up playing (one of my fonder childhood memories is the morning I woke up to discover that the graphics in the original DOS-based Civilization had changed markedly when we installed DOS 6.0) and it probably affects my interpretations of events in ways I don’t necessarily recognize.
jadaqul,
I would second Mr. Vassar’s assertion that Civilization is misleading as to history. As just onc example, check out TCS’s review of Civilization IV, which was just released.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/102805B.html
Of course, the Civilization titles have their differences as between each other, so they would have their own inaccuracies as well. I never played CivI, so I can’t say how it might have effected you.
Castranova has written quite a bit in the past about how virtual worlds tend to follow precisely the type of economic changes as we would expect in a similar real world. For instance, there are a dozen or so major MMORPG’s. They each have “increased the money supply” (by making certain goods more common, for instance) at different rates, and the cost of those items in the real world (when sold on ebay or other forums) tends to increase at the same proportional rate as real world goods in an inflationary economy. There are many interesting hypotheses that can be tested simply by examining virtual world data, even without control on the game server.
Virtual they may be, but running controlled experiments in these worlds would be as unethical as in the real world. From what I have read, players place great value on their virtual lives. I remember China Daily reporting that one Chinese player killed another, after the second guy borrowed a sword, online, and sold it to another player (for real money).
Still, it offers a much larger set of environments from which to study natural experiments.
jadagul:
The first lesson of Civ is completely true: Nations have no friends, only temporary allies. After that, it all falls apart.
1) National leaders have far, FAR less control over thier economies than the games would suggest, and are NEVER immune to replacement.
2) Trade benefits both parties, not just the one initiating the trade. (They finally got that one right in SMAC, Civ II was particularly obnoxious on that one.)
3) Societal response to changes in governmental policy is non-linear to the point of being chaotic.
4) Redirection of inputs or outputs requires substantial infrastructure change. (Imagine having to pay credits every time you made changes on the city map or adjusted the $/!/:) bars.)
It’s calibrtaed simulation – which is theory, not empirical work – but with cooler graphics than usual.
You’d only want to consider the worlds with real agents, since no program is going to adequately mimic the range of human creativity and learning ability. (This criticism applies to the “agent-based” literature as well; I am uncertain as to how much we’ll really be able to learn from those studies.)
A question I have is whether the agents populating these worlds are “typical” enough. Evolutionary pressures (the less profitable die off) will still function just fine, but will the behaviors we see tell us enough about the real world? (Perhaps the “entrepreneurs” are too busy to play these games.)
Experiments being held within the game might attract certain kinds of players, but perhaps that’s what you want to avoid.
The ethical issues are not, I think, unsurmountable. Environmental changes (like increasing the money supply) can actually keep things interesting for the game. The counterargument: my strategy is ideal for this game and I become king; rules change and I become a pauper; now I am pissed off because I had no idea the rules might change, or because I have no idea how to play under the new rules. Creating rules for how the rules might change in interesting ways may well be entirely too challenging.
I am exceedingly confident that Alex and Tyler could come up with an exceedingly interesting game to play. But the opportunity cost would be too high.
Regarding Ethics: The design team for all of these games already tweaks and toys with their worlds to a huge degree. This is no different than the tweaks that would be made for an experiment. There are certainly some problems, which a few people brought up. First, is the sample of virtual world players representative of the real world enough that we can make inferences about it? Consider one possibility: Poor people are perhaps unlikely to pay $15 a month to play some of these games, let alone own computers , etc. Thus our results might not be relevant.
On the other hand, this might not matter. We might not need a representative sample to make useful inferences. No research has been done on this at all, so we just don’t know. As far as Randy’s comment on entrepreneuers: There are entrepreneurs left & right in these worlds. Everyone wants to make money, just like the real world. Everyone is searching for the quickest, cheapest, and best way to do it. It’s only what we expect from the human spirit.
Another comment regarding ethics: Some people might be upset if they feel they are being “experimented with.” But this is really just an issue of perception. Like I said before, they already are being experimented with, only not with academic research in mind.
I believe this speaks to tom & randy’s posts. Again, these worlds are not agent-based simulations, which are nowhere near complex enough to useful.
No offense to Tyler & Alex, but it is difficult for anyone to make a game people want to play. This includes people with years of experience in the video game industry. My opinion: Academics should NOT try and make their own worlds. Instead, academia needs to team up with the commercial producers for research. This is my best case scenario.
Randy also brings up a good point, which is highly relevant to developers: the game must be fun, the economy must be fun, or else people will leave. This will definitely be the major constraint when performing experiments. But also, consider the implications of what it means to have a “fun” economy. Think about it.
And finally, in response to Johnny: Second Life is a frequent topic at Castronova’s blog, Terra Nova, it has not gone unnoticed. This is because of the points your brought up of course, it is an extremely flexible and free virtual economy. The study of virtual worlds is not restricted merely to games, but it includes worlds like Second Life, and a few other social worlds.
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houyuping 07年8月16日
wow gold
wow gold
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wow power leveling
wow powerleveling
wow powerleveling
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft power leveling
world of warcraft power leveling
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powerleveling
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wow powerleveling
wow power leveling
wow power leveling
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power leveling
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wow power level
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china tour
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翻译公å¸
上海翻译公å¸
上海翻译公å¸
北京翻译公å¸
北京翻译公å¸
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鼓风机
风机
风机
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涂层测厚仪
红外测温仪
红外测温仪
超声波测厚仪
超声波测厚仪
超声波探伤仪
超声波探伤仪
频闪仪
频闪仪
涂层测厚仪
涂层测厚仪
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电ç«èŠ±æ£€æµ‹ä»ª
google排å
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光盘制作
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hongkong hotel
hongkong hotel
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beijing tour
集团电è¯
集团电è¯
china tour
china tour
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é’春痘
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