Re: [ox-en] Second life and the virtual property boom

• From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
• Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 11:32:54 +0200

Hi!

I agree very much with what Tormod said. One additional thought.

3 months (109 days) ago Thomas Berker wrote:

A link to this interview was postet on /. today:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/06/14/second_life_and_the_virtual_property_boom.html

How is value realised in the game?
 One of the things that's been underscored is the degree to which we value
 objects to the extent of seeing the amount of creative energies that have
 gone into them.

It has been said often, but it probably can not be repeated often
enough: Exchange value is different from the moral value. There are
ways to transform moral value into exchange value but this is not
generally possible. If we try to look at economy in a scientific way
this needs to be kept in mind.

 A Mercedes is valued because of intangibles, not the number
 of screws and the technology used to put it together. It's its service
 record. If things have that associated with them, they are real. They don't
 need to be physically tangible to be real.
Scarcity is another way of creating value, but brand, lifestyle and meaning
are important as well. Clothing from [in-game clothing designer] Nephilaine
Protagonist is highly valued because it's her stuff. I talked with a head
guy at Vercace who said to me, "I sell jeans for $5,000. There's no reason
for that, but people will pay that much for the pleasure of wearing the
brand."
Should virtual property be treated as real? It's moot; what's happened in
common law is that it's been determined to be real. Case closed.

It seems to me that this kind of cross-over economies is a serious threat to
hopes about the digital copy overthrowing capitalism as we know it.

May be the contrary is true.

Because this kind of sexiness of a product is not bound to the
exchange value of a product this sexiness can apply to every product -
whether it contains exchange value or not. In particular Free Software
can become sexy to people regardless of the price they need to pay for
it.

Indeed I think Free Software has been sexy to the early adaptors and
this type of sexiness slowly moves over to other people. As I see it
today it is more sexy to tell someone "I run Linux on my computer"
than "I run Windows".


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

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• References:
  • [ox-en] Second life and the virtual property boom
    • From: Thomas Berker

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