Wow You're Doing it Wrong An Examination of Secondary RMT, External Costs, and Profit Maximization in World of Warcraft

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Coe, Richard

Keywords

World of Warcraft, Real Money Trade, Virtual Economics

Area of Concentration

Economics

Abstract

The ever growing popularity and population of virtual spaces has produced a new industry known as the real money trade. Real money trade (RMT) concerns the trade of virtual assets for real world cash, and the practice has managed to thrive in Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games such as World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW's parent company, Blizzard Entertainment, has decided to outlaw RMT in its virtual world. This action has resulted in 3rd parties stepping in to supply RMT services for eager players, which has come to be known as secondary RMT. These are black market businesses, but they do provide jobs and satisfy consumers. It is the goal of this paper to explore the different forms of RMT and who respectively operates them. By examining how RMT can impose external costs to player and entertainment company alike, this paper will attempt to determine whether or not it would be better business for Blizzard to drop its sanctions on the virtual exchange rate.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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