Interview with Edward Castronova

Thanks to Dean from the University of Chicago Press, who have posted an interview with Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games.  Many will remember discussions in the past about EverQuest having an economy rivalling that of many real-world countries... this is the man who was behind those analyses.

 Edward Castronova pioneered the economic analysis of virtual worlds, when he noticed that characters and currency of online role-playing games were being sold on Ebay. That allowed him to calculate that the (virtual) GNP of the online world of EverQuest placed it on par with the 77th richest country in the (actual) world. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, is his comprehensive look at the online game industry and shows how the line between fantasy and reality blurs. Read an interview with the author:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/096262in.html

An interesting read, so hop to it, eh?  I need to get myself a copy of this book so I can continue this discussion.