When I first read over on Raph Koster’s blog (Link) about Terra Novan and virtual world economics-meister Edward Castranova’s effort to create a virtual world based on Shakespeare’s work, something seemed… odd. I caught a few other stories on the topic; the original C|Net article (Link) to which Koster linked, mention of it on a few blogs, and now an update on Reuters (Link). It took a bit of thinking to realize something: if Castronova is using Multiverse – a virtual world kit, if you will – to build his world, and if Multiverse’s licensing fees are based on each particular world’s real world income, and if this is an academic effort that I assume will not generate any income (either from advertising or subscriptions), then why does it require a grant of $240,000 for the year? Why does he need three or four employees at all? He already expects plenty of volunteers. Shouldn’t this be an open source effort free of any and all financial ties such that the world is properly framed for whatever social and economic experiments he wishes to conduct? As someone who is against secondary markets for virtual worlds/videogames, isn’t he creating the very first link to real world money by merely accepting a grant that he arguably doesn’t really need?
I don’t know. Maybe I’m asking too much. As someone working on a virtual property, I certainly understand the costs and the effort, but it still just seems to me as if this project and this person – more than anyone – would want to use Multiverse in the same way modders use videogames: all volunteer with no real money entanglements of any kind.
