Very interesting find by Topper (look at his post and the linked article).
For me it shows yet one more time how bold and decisive Jagex's move against RWT was. They passed on a huge market opportunity in a successful effort to keep the game clean, playable and under control.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
How big is Runescape Economy?
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The report is at http://www.virtualeconomics.info/MMORPG%20Economics.pdf
Here is URL: link
Thanks for showing the source, I was at first frustrated that the blog link lead to a blog link to an article that mentioned a "study" - nice to see the "study". The author is Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester. The PDF was created in August of 2007 (Using Microsoft Word and PDFMaker, as if your interested).
The author seems like a pretty serious guy but the study is very light weight. He admits it is based on guesswork and assumptions. Also a lot has changed since it was written - RWT crackdown, the GE and so on. We can brush the numbers aside and keep the real point here: Real World Trading involved a lot of money!
Might be why some Jagex people have made noises about them making a micropayment game in the future.
Wait a minute, Gielinor is much like Gambia.
GDP: Gambia $2.1 billion (IMF 2007 estimate), Gielinor also $2.1 billion
Population: Gambia 1.7 million, Gielinor 1 million members, ~4 million free (?)
Internet Connectivity: Gambia "Internet access is relatively widespread as the UNDP's Internet Initiative for Africa programme helped establish national coverage and web sites are springing up fast."(from the All Africa Internet Guide), Gielinor 100%
Median Age: Gambia - Under 18, Gielinor also under 18
Why does this make me so sad.
I'll add the link to the post... Sorry about that. I just found the article, and thought it was interesting, but didn't think to include the link to the study.
Yes, Knifestorm, it is sad.
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