On Policy Issues 'in' Virtual Worlds : Beyond the 'Seniority-Based Dragonball Economy'

This paper discusses policy issues "in" cyberworlds, rather than "on" them. Many virtual worlds, online games and other online communities, develop their own exchange system, and the virtual economies have become increasingly important to our real lives. But since virtual economies have different characteristics from the real ones, we need to think about how to manage these economies accordingly. In this paper the author analyzes the basic structure of these games and proposes policy measures to counter important in-game problems. In addition, a growing trend toward interaction among virtual worlds is viewed as emergence of "international economy."