Virtual Economies – How Online Games Are Changing Finance
About 2.5 billion people are actively accruing virtual assets. They invest their time and money acquiring assets that are useful to them and millions of others within specific virtual domains, primarily massively multiplayer online role-playing games (UFA777) such as World of Warcraft & Guild Wars. Virtual Economies are a new type of digital asset class and are growing at an extraordinary rate.
The emergence of these economies is transforming our relationship with money. They are a new medium for wealth creation and accumulation, enabling people to create and control an alternative economic reality that circumvents real-world barriers such as geography, gender, disability or wealth. For some, this represents a chance to escape an unfulfilling real-world economic existence and for others, it’s a way to craft their own future.
Virtual Economies: How Online Games are Changing Finance
This new relationship with money is creating a series of profound changes across the virtual economy and is opening up new opportunities for both real-world and digital entrepreneurs. This includes everything from gaming and virtual simulation platforms to microwork and sharing economies. Many of these new ventures are inspired by decentralized projects such as Ethereum and Decentraland.
These new models are causing some of the largest shifts in global finance since the invention of money. They have created an entire new category of financial assets that are being embraced by investors and have grown into a multibillion dollar industry. They also represent a major new opportunity for banks and other traditional institutions to innovate.