A World Bank study titled “Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy” has been released. The study was commissioned to showcase the impact of online games and social networks in developing countries. That impact happens to be significant, since it is a business worth $3 billion to migrant, poor, and unskilled workers in developing countries.
Specifically, these forms of industry involve categorizing content in shops, posting and managing content on social media sites and forums, and gold farming (playing a game with the explicit purpose of earning virtual currency in the games, which will be re-sold at higher value to wealthier players).
Even though the game industry is small compared to many industries in the developing world, the report suggests that because 70 percent of the income remains in the gaming countries studied, with the majority of the money going to the studios.
“Previous studies presumed that the players sold the goods, but that’s not true,” said Vili Lehdonvirta, a study co-author. “If you’re a rural online game player in China, you have no way of setting up a website and developing a customer database, and maintaining customer relations.”
Compared with the enormous $70 billion coffee market, where a small fraction of the revenues remain in the bean-growing countries, gaming has a much larger positive footprint, according to the study.
The report was created by InfoDev, a donor-funded extension of the World Bank. Lehdonvirta warned the bank shouldn’t bet too heavily into gold farming, since that sort of deal-making has long been considered unacceptable by many developers and publishers due to violations of games’ terms of service.
There are other potential downsides to the emerging opportunities online and in social spaces, according to InfoDev’s study. Gold farming, spamming Twitter and Facebook with followers, and “likes” dilute the value of social contributions from users and gameplay.
[Source: Washington Post]
[Source: Business Daily Africa]
