Entropia, Virtual Money Exchanges, and Performance

What do Entropia, virtual world parallel economies and employee performance have in common? How about motivational models for one?


There has been some debate about Entropia Universe and it's ability for players to spend real world money to buy game artificats (weapons, armor, equipment, etc...) Interstingly, the same thing happened with Diablo II a few years back. Rare or unique items were often traded on real world exchanges for real world money.

The guys at Blizzard didn't like this practice and went through all kinds of hoops to shut down the connection to the real world economy (and lots of people got burned when they bought items that were hacked into existence and Blizzard found ways to identify and shut these down.)
In a related practice, high-level characters have been sold in real term dollars for many years across multiple platforms. Even in video games like Off Road, you can spend real world money to increase the quality of your truck or whatever. By contributing more money, you can increase in-game dollars and buy that crucial upgrade to your shocks or brakes or acceleration.

It seems from my limited experience that Entropia is just tapping into this phenomenon in a deep and pervasive way. If you want to earn your progress "old school", you can. If you want to spend a couple hundred bucks, you can accelerate that process dramatically. And maybe if the in-game economics work, maybe you also have the possibility of earning some or all of that "investment" back by virtue of winning tougher battles (and the consequent drops), mining less accessible (and therefore higher value) ore, manufacturing more exclusive items, and then trading all this back into real world money.

I think it's an interesting approach. And I think it might even be a new way to think about training and learning rewards. I think by default we all view in-game rewards or learning as a means to better job performance, but what if there was also a connection to the "real world"
economy of incentives -- a day off, a dinner gift certificate, a better parking spot, half day Fridays for a month, etc... These could be random "drops" for fighting / solving / winning / answering etc... tougher challenges. But maybe there is also an in-game "economy" that maps to real world HR incentives -- 10,000 points / dollars / coins = a 1/2 day Friday or an Amex Gift Card for $50. Points would be earned by game play -- time in game, levels achieved, (insert appropriate learning objectives) met etc... There is an excellent article about this in the current issue of Talent Management "Using Noncash Rewards to Motivate, Retain, and Engage Employees" by Edward Frost. One of the interesting statistics cited by Mr. Frost is that tangible, non-monetary awards increase performance by 38.6%. So why not tie this directly into eleanring and gaming. Games have established reward models that could be easily tied back to real world non-monetary incentives.

Think of it like a Credit Card reward program except that instead of spending money to get rewards, you spend your time learning and demonstrating increased competencies / proficiencies etc... to earn rewards. Personally, while I think in-game or in-learning motivational techniques are important, it's just as important to consider real world incentives. As much as I enjoy playing games and learning, I am the kind of learner who would be way more jazzed by an extrinsic reward of some kind -- to the point where I probably use personal time to earn them which I might not do otherwise.

Anyway, that's my two cents ... which I'm saving toward an AutoReload Plasma Cannon.

Second Life -- why and what for?

I’m still trying to figure out what all of the buzz is about with Second Life. I’ve created two different profiles and despite being active in related fields (elearning, community, and games) and a frequent speaker no less, I can find little motivation to do anything in this environment (other than, “I know I should do this because it seems like something I should know about” which is pretty lame as far as motivation goes).

The thing is, I’m pretty sure my experience is typical. When I’m in game-based artificial worlds, I have goals, I have motivation, I have reasons to be where I am and to care about the space I am in. In Second Life, I’m having trouble seeing any. Why am I in Second Life and what should I be doing? And why am I not spending this time productively in the real world? When I play God of War II, I feel some guilty pleasure in decapitating Cyclops and Gorgons and I enjoy the experience. When I “play?” Second Life, all I feel is guilty – like I’m just wasting my time completely as I try to invent reasons to be there.

It seems to me that there are some parallels to Second Life in the real world. This isn’t the first time, a new “world” has been discovered / invented. People have compared Second Life to the early stages of the internet and similar issues of “we don’t know what to do with it yet.” But it seems to me, the more apt comparison is to the colonization of the New World or the westward expansion of the US and Canada. In both of these cases, there was a new land and everyone was a new immigrant in that space (except of course the unfortunate native populations).

As we think about Second Life and critical mass and what it will be, I think we need to ask ourselves why people sailed across the oceans of the world to come to the Americas. Or why Americans and Canadians populated the West. What was that model? Simplistically, it was something like this “(perceived opportunity + available enabling technology + perceived reward) minus (perceived threat / risk + anticipated cost) = x. If people thought “x” – the return, was big enough or big enough relative to the same equation applied to their status quo, then maybe they moved their families across an ocean to try for a better a life. Or maybe they followed the gold or land rush West to seek their fortune.

I think the same reasoning applies to Second Life, but the opportunities and rewards seem low by comparison to their real world equivalents. The best analogy is probably a “land grab” similar to the western expansion – I can buy virtual land and develop it and resell it. And assuming enough other people decide to spend time in Second Life, that investment might appreciate. Then again, Linden Labs might decide to just “create” some more land on their servers or make land free. In other words, unlike real property, there is no “there” there. This is a new sort of risk in the “land grab” model. And yet, you still face the old risk of market glut or disinterested buyers. Just like any other real estate market, you face normal market fluctuations around supply and demand. So relative to real land and property, the risks for virtual land and property seem quite high.

Other possible rewards include Services – creating clothing in Second Life for Second Life participants. Or maybe artwork or pets or other Second Life artifacts. What’s unclear is whether there are enough participants to sustain a pure Services economy. So this too, seems insufficient as a motivator.

Beyond Services and Land Grab strategies that lead to economic incentives, what else is there in Second Life? What is there to do? What is there to accomplish? In what way can I entertain or enrich myself by participating? In my real life, I have real friends and do real things – play soccer, go hiking, watch movies, play card games with buddies over beer (or drink beer with buddies while using card games as a pretense), cook on the grill, do yard work, go camping or canoeing. So what’s my non-monetary incentive to give up any of this activity in my actual real life for time spent in a Second Life where there is no real value to anything, except perhaps relationships which can be had just as easily and more satisfyingly in person? Where’s the equivalent of the Gold Rush in Second Life to make me forsake time and experiences with my real friends and my real life for time spent in my Second Life?

What I’m missing?