2. The Elevator Pitch A multiplayer investment game designed to aid the academic study of virtual economies

3. What Already Exists? Goods Markets: EverQuest WoW Star Wars Galaxies Toontown Online etc….

4. What Already Exists? Money Markets: Hollywood Stock Exchange Yahoo Investment Challenge TVA Investment Challenge Simvest Investment Simulation

5. What’s Lacking Two sides of economy are disconnected No investment meaningful to gameplay No bankers Saving money is useless

6. Proposed Solution Turn-based investment game –24 hour turns –Geared towards 15 minutes of play per day

7. Proposed Solution Player-owned corporations –Venture capitalists –Hire players –Make contracts –Research new technologies

8. But will it be fun? Two target audiences: –Players –Economists Very challenging!

9. 1929 Stock Market Crash Global mobilization for World War II Possible themes to attract players

10. Futuristic space race to colonize new planets Present-day

11. To attract economists Work with Tepper School of Business Work with Leading Economists Accurate economic models Produce desired data

12. “I can't help but offer you encouragement. This is a growing area. In only a few generations, this technology will be as deeply integrated in daily life as the telephone is.” -Edward Castronova, author of “Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games” (taken from an email to Howard)

13. Questions?

14. “As for bankers in virtual worlds -- I see potential there but no movement, and I think largely it is a matter of world design. There are no courts and enforcement of asynchronous transactions is a cultural problem. By 'cultural' I mean, the whole culture of players is not used to the idea of loans and securities, and there is no court system in place to nudge them to adopt this kind of business. Maybe there's just too much impermanence in the population, I don't know. Again, there is potential for finance (insurance too), but it is not realizable yet.” -Edward Castronova, author of “Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games” (taken from an email to Howard)