November 21, 2006
Virtual laws for virtual worlds
The increasingly popular game Second Life is running into problems. Unlike, for example, World of Warcraft, Everquest, and such like, SL actively promotes the interaction of its online currency with real currency. So if you run into a griefer or cheater in WoW, you contact the admins, and they may ban the guy, but even if they don't, the worst you suffer is annoyance. But if you're selling $500 a day in virtual goods, this becomes a bit more important.
The world is also plagued by organized groups of anti-social types, which are taking on many of the characteristics of gangs and mafias from the real world. What do you do if a group of people prevent you from accessing a public area? In the real world, you sue the bastards, but in the virtual world? It's pretty clear that state and federal laws aren't going to help you at all.
So we turn to the problem that faces all human societies, real or virtual: a society not governed by laws is no society at all, and such groupings can only survive for a very limited period of time. The virtual world has two things going for it that the real world does not. First, being virtual, the imposition of remedies and penalties is straightforward, non-negotiable, and absolutely enforceable. If you ban someone, they're done. Second, it's possible to create a world which restricts human interaction to the point that serious offenses are simply not possible. Most games go this latter route. But if you're trying to make a world as ambitious as Second Life - note the title - you're going to run into many of the same problems that face "first life", i.e. people.
You're also probably running into what may as well be the zeroth law of economics: a good or service is worth exactly as much as you can find someone willing to pay for it. So the devaluation of SL goods and property by copying programs does pose a significant threat to the viability of the economy as such. This is definitely a problem the real world doesn't have: physical goods are not reproducible. They can be counterfeited, but not duplicated.
