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by Bromsius, Level 39
Last updated at January 12, 2009, 2:56 pm

WoW and Economics: A Liberal Conspiracy?
Video games are a scourge of modern society. They turn our children into homicidal maniacs, teach them that having casual sex is normal behaviour and give explicit support to deviants such as criminals and immigrants. Unsurprisingly the Liberal establishment is seeking to jump on this degenerate bandwagon by proposing an academic course on the economics of World of Warcraft (WoW), Earth’s most popular game.

For those of you who are not aware, WoW is a vile and immoral piece of entertainment that allows the player to choose one out of ten classes to battle “evil” characters across Azeroth (the setting for WoW). Of course these bosses are not malevolent at all. They are fine and upstanding figures who merely wish to spread their righteous values around the world (e.g. WoW’s latest progenitor is the Lich King, who seems to be considered worthy of assault simply because of his unwavering belief in unfettered plagues and the triumph of the Scourge – cynical substitutes for capitalism and democracy respectively).

It is disgusting that Californian taxpayers may end up funding this sinister political agenda. To indoctrinate the next generation with the idea that video games are good for one’s personal development and career plans is despicable and unjust. David Friedman, the pernicious
The Lich King
Is he really so bad?
advocate of this so-called “course”, reckons that students can learn about the theories behind supply-and-demand and arbitrage through the online world of WoW. Anyone with half a brain-cell can see that this is merely a front to instil Liberal values into America’s next generation. They won’t be learning about economics on this “course”, they’ll be having too much fun bringing down the Lich King and made to feel guilty about all the supposedly “bad” things he’s done.

We can no longer accept these blatant and politically motivated attempts to turn our youth into mindless, video game-playing zombies who constantly vote for Communists like Obama. The fight-back begins here!
     
22 comments
dub
dub Jan 12, 2009 at 3:18 pm
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"The fight-back begins here!"

Should've said: "Ab 5:45 wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!"
Yiska
Yiska Jan 12, 2009 at 3:26 pm
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Godwin'd in a first post! Well played, sir.
entrails
entrails Jan 12, 2009 at 3:41 pm
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Godsmak
Godsmak Jan 12, 2009 at 3:45 pm
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Vir
Vir Jan 12, 2009 at 3:57 pm
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Ok class, now in the news today we read that the fed is going to print money, what does that mean?

"The US found a gold dupe irl called the printing press!"
oradol
oradol Jan 12, 2009 at 5:49 pm
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Economics is one of the least Liberal subjects in existence. The WoW Economy, while it may not warrant an entire course, is actually a very reasonable subject for study.
dub
dub Jan 12, 2009 at 7:50 pm
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oradol said
Economics is one of the least Liberal subjects in existence. The WoW Economy, while it may not warrant an entire course, is actually a very reasonable subject for study.
no, because the wow economy only covers the first page of any economic book, which usually is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
kznlol
kznlol Jan 12, 2009 at 8:23 pm
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You are quite wrong. MMO Economics has a huge facet in the form of money supply, because MMO economies can actually be closed or open systems and result in very different looking flows of money, depending how the money supply in the game is created, etc.

Among other things, studying MMO economies can lead to a vastly stronger understanding of how the money supply affects the economy, and how it does so. 
dub
dub Jan 12, 2009 at 8:30 pm
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ok now you have 3 aspects: supply, demand and amount of money, we're reaching page #3 of a 500-page book about the very basic principles of economics.
kznlol
kznlol Jan 13, 2009 at 2:20 am
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Actually you're pretty much not seeing money supply at all until macro, which is dealt with after 'basic principles'

[edit] And money supply basically covers every economic phenomena you want to name. 
dub
dub Jan 13, 2009 at 9:37 am
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"Actually you're pretty much not seeing money supply at all until macro, which is dealt with after 'basic principles'"

by that logic, micro also isn't part of the basics - then what is? to me, a whole book can be an introduction (like Mankiw's) and if you want to get deeper, you pretty much can't avoid math.

"And money supply basically covers every economic phenomena you want to name."

hell no, there are different types of competition (monopoly, oligopoly, polypoly, etc.), there's analysis of production costs and optimal prices, there's the state as a huge factor, there's transportation, there's laws, ... economics isn't only about deflation and inflation

you could give examples inside wow on some topics (opportunity cost, supply & demand, money supply, production costs without factoring labor, transportation and all that, impact of competition on pricing and profit margin, ...), but to me it's too simplified to be worth a course
kznlol
kznlol Jan 13, 2009 at 3:36 pm
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Uh, micro is dealt with before macro in almost every course I've seen, and supply/demand is a singularly microeconomic concept, so I have no idea how that would fail to be basic, given it actually is on the first page.

as for the second part, the simplification is the entire reason it is a course. You cant simplify economics easily while looking at RL cases, because you cant just ignore labor, transportation, and so on. 
Bentley
Bentley Jan 12, 2009 at 6:04 pm
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C'mon man, don't blame this on him being "liberal... there's another, much better word: "insane".








And yes, I detected the sarcasm...
Kyle P.
Kyle P. Jan 12, 2009 at 6:18 pm
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A better economics course could be taught on Eve's economy. Its much cooler than WoW's and is actually regulated by a man with a PHD in economics.
Vir
Vir Jan 12, 2009 at 8:23 pm
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Kyle P. said
A better economics course could be taught on Eve's economy. Its much cooler than WoW's and is actually regulated by a man with a PHD in economics.
How much does he pay you? ;\ *

*This reply sponsored by eve online!
 
kznlol
kznlol Jan 12, 2009 at 8:24 pm
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I dont really see why it would be better, actually, except for perhaps having more supply side stuff since players make everything anyway.

I'm interested to hear Kyle's opinion on this though. 
Kyle P.
Kyle P. Jan 12, 2009 at 8:34 pm
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Its better because of the way supplies are gathered, how stuff is manufactured, and the way different areas of the Eve universe are influenced by proximity to major player manufacturers, player stations, and natural resource nodes.

It gives a better reflection of real world economy where things like shipping a load of steel is a massive undertaking and incurs tarifs and charges (represented by risk of piracy in Eve when transporting goods across long distances). Everything in WoW is sort of hamfisted economically. You gather resources from monsters and the market value of those resources is entirely dependent on the static value of how hard they are to gather. In the real world things like this can change as new resources are discovered or resource rich areas are entangled in conflict or political red tape, or other resources simply dry up. As well as the previously mentioned cost of transportation.

In Eve, the areas that are the most resource rich are also vulnerable and the value of resources can be determined by long standing conflicts, or lackthereof. Another problem with WoW's economy is that is has simplified reagents so that when new items come out there are very unnatural spikes in supply and demand. Yes, this can happen in the real world and truthfully I don't know how prevalent it is but I sincerely doubt its anywhere near WoW's economic volatility.

There are other reason, but I mostly just rambled these out.

And Vir, we're running an ad campaign for Blizzard right now, not Eve. Try six months ago :).
Vir
Vir Jan 13, 2009 at 9:59 am
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Kyle P. said
Its better because of the way supplies are gathered, how stuff is manufactured, and the way different areas of the Eve universe are influenced by proximity to major player manufacturers, player stations, and natural resource nodes.

It gives a better reflection of real world economy where things like shipping a load of steel is a massive undertaking and incurs tarifs and charges (represented by risk of piracy in Eve when transporting goods across long distances). Everything in WoW is sort of hamfisted economically. You gather resources from monsters and the market value of those resources is entirely dependent on the static value of how hard they are to gather. In the real world things like this can change as new resources are discovered or resource rich areas are entangled in conflict or political red tape, or other resources simply dry up. As well as the previously mentioned cost of transportation.

In Eve, the areas that are the most resource rich are also vulnerable and the value of resources can be determined by long standing conflicts, or lackthereof. Another problem with WoW's economy is that is has simplified reagents so that when new items come out there are very unnatural spikes in supply and demand. Yes, this can happen in the real world and truthfully I don't know how prevalent it is but I sincerely doubt its anywhere near WoW's economic volatility.

There are other reason, but I mostly just rambled these out.

And Vir, we're running an ad campaign for Blizzard right now, not Eve. Try six months ago :).
Ahh, I hadn't noticed the blizzard ad campaign.  Hell, this whole website is a blizzard ad campaign, they should be paying you.
whyisthisrequired
whyisthisrequired Jan 12, 2009 at 9:44 pm
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I would take this class if they offered it here. Not sure if WoW's economy is the best place for study however since you can get 1000000 of something and sell it to the NPCs for the same price... at least in UO the price would slowly drop depending where you were in the world (as demand dropped and supply went up).
Kahmoon
Kahmoon Jan 13, 2009 at 5:30 am
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Is this THE David Friedman giving the course? Regardless, it's pretty cool and could be a nice intro to the subject.
Alejandra
Alejandra Jan 13, 2009 at 11:48 am
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how the **** are immigrants deviants? not all immigrants are uneducated illegals you ******* piece of ****.

PS you're not cool because you act like a biggot on the net. you probably get your little white suburban ******* penetrated by big fat ****** ***** all the time.
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