OOC: A little light reading

If you haven't come across it before, some of you might be interested in Edward Castronova's book Synthetic Worlds. Castronova is a hard-core economist who got interested in the economies of online games when he became hooked on Everquest. The book has a lot of stuff in it designed to explain MMOGs to people who have never played it before, but it has several core chapters in the middle that discuss different economic models in MMOGs, what are the most effective design strategies for avoiding things like hyperinflation, how economic design decisions intersect with issues such as player governance and legal rights, etc.

It's a pretty interesting read for anyone interested in where games might go in the future, and especially as we watch inflation spiral out of control in Pirates!