Castronova

Although I found multiple aspects of Jane McGonigal’s lecture to be discussion worthy, her reference to economist Edward Castronova jumped out at me-mainly because he was briefly mentioned in last Tuesday’s class, but also because I just find the concept of a virtual economist to be interesting.  McGonigal’s mentioning of Castronova also stood out to me, because the quote that she offered made a logical point.  She quoted Castronova’s point that “we’re witnessing what amounts to no less than a mass exodus to virtual worlds and online game environment.”  Basically, Castronova explains that  it makes sense for gamers to spend more time in games, because virtual reality provides an all-around better experience than the real world.  I personally don’t agree with that statement, but I think I can understand how some gamers could come to feel that way…life throws many difficult challenges at us, and I think games help provide a good mental escape.  Anyways, I was intrigued by Castronova, so I tried to find a lecture or something by him.  I found one on youtube, but the quality was bad and it honestly wasn’t too interesting. So instead, here is the link to his webpage..if you’re at all interested.

http://mypage.iu.edu/~castro/