We’ve been reading “Synthetic Worlds”, by the economist and MMORPG-enthusiast Edward Castronova, and it’s really a must read for anyone overseeing an online community. Synthetic Worlds wastes no time trying to explain why games exist, why they or popular or what Virtual Reality really means. Instead Castronova analyses what exactly is going on around these ‘virtual’ worlds, why a ‘virtual’ item or currency has very real values and why ‘virtual’ relations can be just as real as anything face to face. The reason I quoted virtual in the above sentence is that though we are talking about non-physical goods and entities, the millions of humans who interact with them take them so seriously they could just as easily be described as real.

What we’ve taken away from the book are the definitions and concepts that we see happening in our own virtual communities Dogster and Catster. Check out the diaries and forums. You’ll see thousands of pages of grown adults communicating through of the voice of their pet. In gamer parlance this would be their avatar or character. All our users know this isn’t ‘real’, but in a way prefer it to the real world, probably for the same reasons gamers like role playing games, which is a temporary escape from the rigors and boredom of everyday life. You’ll even see members trading items. If you befriend me I’ll give you 25 bones or prizes for user generated constests are a coveted Rosette. Our ‘virtual’ items oftentimes seem to have more value than anything ‘real.’

Here are a list of terms and concepts that have really stuck with me:

Coding Authority.
The product builders who also be default become the head of state, the final arbitrator about what can and can’t and should and shouldn’t happen in the realm they have created.

The Membrane.
The imperceptible line that divides thinking about the world as summed up as ‘real life’ and thinking about the world as exists within the terms and ‘realities’ of the synthetic world.

The Almost-Magic Circle.
This one is my favorite. For the fantasy of the virtual world to stay intact and shielded by the membrane. This means the experience of the digital world need to remain reinforced at all times. Even though it’s all fantasy no one in Dogster wants to see some evil kitty hissing and spitting, for the same reason they don’t want to see spammers or the evening news. The ‘players’ of Dogster are neither hiding out or avoiding reality, they simply are taking a break from it. They know when they log-off they have to still make the school lunches or pay the bills or get back to work, which also means while they are in Dogsterland and Catsterland they’d rather not have the Magic Circle breached by human society issues.

The removal of rules and norms leads to extended and hopeless anarchy.
Catstranova shows case-studies that every time a community has the rules removed, online players never chose to make the world a better place, it always becomes a free for all riot-like environment. My suspicion is that means online relationships have so little real trust that for the most part no one has the strength to stick together for long.

‘Virtually’ real is in actuality ‘Really’ real.
In South Korea it’s already common law that thefts and crimes committed in virtual realms are the same as the real world. Currency markets for buying and selling virtual world currencies and goods are well established and quickly maturing markets. Significant losses suffered by your virtual character can feel just as bad as losses suffered in the real world.

Castranova also pays to his strong suit and does some excellent econimic anylisis of the markets, values and economies to devine what makes they complete and suceed. Dogster and Catster already have a temporal virtual gifts that are displayed as icons on recipients pages and will soon be offerings our first fixed-value permanent virtual items, so this was very interesting to us. Thanks to Byron Deeter and James Cham of Bessemer VP for the suggested read.

There’s lots more on the topic in the interwebs.