BLURRING OF REAL AND VIRTUAL MARKETS-THE RSPS WAY
The great Peter Drucker wrote in his celebrated piece “The new society of organizations” (HBR 1992) that the world is in the midst of transformation. It was transforming itself into a knowledge society. Here knowledge was the primary resource for an individual and the economy overall. All other resources like land, capital and labor could be obtained if there was specialized knowledge. Such specialized knowledge was of no use if it was not linked to a task. This linking of knowledge through organizations or firms has greatly benefitted from an extensive use of information and communication technologies.
Today countries and regions of the world are more integrated than ever before in mankind’s history. An example of this phenomenon of linking the task to information through a globalized network is the Gaming industry. A prime example is Runescape-a very popular game. It is being run, on either Runescape private server-RSPS or multitude of Runescape private servers and company’s own servers. It has in fact blurred the distinction between tasks in a virtual and real world. Why do we say this?
- REAL VS VIRTUAL:
Work is an inalienable fact. The concept of livelihood –meaning working to earn to sustain oneself and his family- is an accepted truism of any society. However, till the advent of the information society of the twenty-first century, work was linked to a physical real world output which when consumed generated earnings for the worker. Even in this real world, there was virtualization, which was in the mind of the worker through the gathering of knowledge. Today in the Gaming industry, the work environment itself is in the virtual world. Games like Runescape have created revenue-generating opportunities in the form of advertising, markets for the trading of virtual products and game linked mementos.
There is also potential for the actual sale of such games as instruments to develop skills of collaboration, adaptation, and development of social self-esteem. The trading activities are between gaming firms and their users. More importantly, they are between users of the games themselves. This user-to-user transactions involving real currency for virtual products and mementos is a growing economic arena. Markets for such activities can only develop when such a game is allowed to be hosted on Runescape private server-RSPS by geographically localized hosts or at a national level by a constellation of Runescape private servers. These, serve to spread the market size geographically, thereby improving revenue generation. Here we see a linkage between real world economics and virtual marketplace. Yet there can be a downside to this blurring of real and virtual worlds.
THE DOWNSIDE: Studies on the gaming industry have shown that communities do desire to have revenue streams to support and enlarge their industry with updated and new games. However, it has been observed that the spread of user to user transaction-based commerce leads to people using unethical means to corner the share of the market or do business outside the law i.e. without licensing. Therefore, it is possible that many Runescape private server-RSPS numbers are illegal which then tend to create a risk for businesses of genuine Runescape private servers or similar gaming hosts. What is the solution? Should gaming user to user economic transactions in a virtual market be controlled or even totally banned?
CONCLUSION: Economic activity of any nature, in real or virtual markets, is welcome as it enables redistribution of wealth. Frauds would be a part of both types of markets. The use of Information and communication technologies, which enabled generation of this admixture of real and virtual markets, is also the tool to be used for controlling such frauds. There is a genuine need to increase examples of such RSPS-Runescape private server numbers as individuals or as constellations of Runescape private servers.
