A time ago, a good friend of mine said to me ‘wouldn’t it be cool if I could earn my money with Championship Manager, and actually be a championship manager?’ He was talking about a ‘soccer-manager simulation program ‘on his pc. He was so addicted to this program that he skipped his night sleep sometimes. Castronova said that it is not out of the ordinary for people to spend so much time in a virtual word. There is this case where a CM-player lost his job for playing this game at his work.

In the movie Avalon (Mamoru Ishii, 2001) the main character, Ash, actually does get her primary income, real word’s money, from playing a virtual game called Avalon. This movie is set in the future, and it is not reality yet. The question arising from all this is;

How possible is a future where the virtual and the real word are melted into one?

In Castranova’s article On Virtual Economies he sketches the possibilities. He says that we cannot see into the future, but there are some trends that point in a certain direction. First the increasing presence of virtual connections, as the internet. Lots of people already have a virtual alter ego, like a nickname. Second de development of immediate interfaces, like a VR-helmet. (Also see my text on interfaces, below. ) Third is the growing amount of virtual games. So on the physical side of the question; it looks pretty possible that the two worlds will come very close. I, for example, sometimes say; ‘I spoke my brother today’, by which I mean I chatted with him via my computer. This shows that the virtual word can replace the real word on certain points. But the big issue is ‘do we see the virtual contact with others, the same way as real contact’. A chat with my brother on the internet can be just as good as a real chat. (On the other hand, I don’t think virtual sex can be as good as the real thing.) So we can embrace the virtual word in our real word, if we allow it to.

Vogel wrote in his article Economic perspectives about virtual games and economy. In this text wee will find the answer to another question;

How will this, economically, be achieved?

He writes that it is commonly thought that we have more leisure time now, than in the past. He says that this is a wrong; he even says that the number of hours available for leisure time actually may be declining. The virtual world is now mostly present in the entertainment business. And entertainment is mostly consumed in free time. So, if the virtual word wants to grow, it has to insert itself more into other places than entertainment. Though it is already present in stock markets and net meetings, the real world is mostly used for most trades (as well goods as information). And this of course means that big media corporations need to invest in this development (more virtual trade). Which I’m sure of will happen; there’s always some organization trying to make monde of this.

Concluding; the virtual word can come very close to the real word if  the supply- and de demand-side of the virtual world agree on this.