RE: [MLUG] Re: linux game information...

[Rick <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 2007-10-10 at 17:31 -0500, Mike Miller wrote:
> Computer skills definitely are important.  I wonder how much your computer 
> skills are helped by playing the game (especially when compared with 
> studying some sort of computer tutorial).  I'm sure we all agree that 
> there is some vague upper limit on how much time one ought to spend on 
> this kind of thing.  We know it can get out of control for some people.
> 

Addictive personalities are going to tend to become addicted to
something. It doesn't take computers for that...

> Maybe you can do something in the real world with things you build in the 
> virtual world.  I wouldn't know.  With day trading, you can use the 
> computer get more money that can be held in your hand and then spent on 
> things like food and cars.

Theoretically, so can gaming. I've read several interviews with people
playing poker on the internet and supplementing, or replacing entirely,
their "real job" income.

> How do they figure out the value?  Is it in terms of the amount of real 
> human effort that it took to generate the $30 billion virtual dollars? 
> For example, of the effort was worth $5/man-hour and it took 3300 
> man-hours to accumulate $30 billion, then we might say that the $30 
> billion was worth $16,500 (or maybe it was more money per hour and fewer 
> hours).  Anyway, that doesn't mean that the virtual money has a real-world 
> value, just that it had a real-world cost.  Value means that someone will 
> buy it, cost means that it was hard to make.  Something could have a great 
> cost and no value.

Eve is somewhat unique in that they actually support a certain kind of
in-game/real-world monetary conversion. You can buy a code good for from
30-90 days of play time instead of using your credit card. These can be
sold for X amount of in-game money using a special forum for
advertising, and a special method of transferal to maximize safety for
both the buyer and seller. Therefore, while the rate is probably
different today than it was when that article was published, a real
conversion rate can be calculated.

Currently, a 30 day GTC can be bought for roughly $14, and sold for 200
million, yielding a conversion rate of approximately $0.00000007/ISK or
$0.07/million ISK. Actually, to my mind anyway, not a bad conversion...

> I agree that too much of nearly anything is bad.  If you spend 12-15 hours 
> per week on a game, think about what you could do with 5 hours per week if 
> you could cut back to 7-10 hours -- that would be a savings of 260 hours 
> per year which is equivalent to more than one month of full-time work. 
> In 8 years, the savings of 5 hours per week would add up to one full year 
> of full-time work.  If you could have someone work for you full-time for 
> one year, don't you think you could get a lot of value out of his work?
> 
> I'm not saying that you shouldn't play it, or even that you shouldn't play 
> it more than you play it now.  I'm just pointing out that what we choose 
> to spend our time on has major effects in the long term.  If you spend 15 
> hours per week on something, and you do that for 40 years, you've expended 
> 15 years of full-time work on that thing.  That is a lot of effort.  Will 
> it be worth it?

I would agree with this, and as history has shown, if something around
the house has to get done, then it will most likely be my game time that
doesn't get done.

> So it might be really bad for people to play this game because it 
> encourages exploitative behavior?
> 

I treat it as an opportunity to discuss it with my boys. They will
always have the choice to be smacktards, it's my job to make sure that
they know the consequences both at home and out in the real world.

> Mike

Rick
-- 
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could
believe in them. 
George Orwell


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