Edward Castronova
Biographic Data
| ID | 167879 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edward Castronova |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edward |
| FAMILY NAME | Castronova |
| SIGNATURE | CASTRONOVA E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7517-5604 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Preference evolution, attention, and happiness
We present the first model of preference evolution in an environment where the fame of an agent affects selection. Specifically, agents who are famous are more likely to be selected for comparison by other agents. Agents compare happiness, and then switch preferences if the other agent is happier. Without the attention economy, only ‘happy’ preferences survive – happy preferences being those which, when followed, give agents maximal subjective we…
Life Is a Game: What Game Design Says about the Human Condition
What if life is a game? Are you winning? Have you even decided what ‘winning’ is?
Virtual Worlds as Laboratories
A virtual world is a persistent space where tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of users interact with each other and a mediated environment defined as a physical space through rules created by designers and enforced by computer code. Researchers have argued that these characteristics make virtual worlds particularly well suited for conducting parallel experiments to test macro‐level social theory. The purpose of this essay is to provide …
Down with Dullness: Gaming the Academic Conference
It is a truism among academics that most of the creative work at a conference happens outside the formal sessions, at social gatherings. If this is so, why not drop the formal sessions entirely? In this article, I propose a method for making an entire conference into a formalized social gathering, with a structure that both encourages the exchange of ideas and also records the evolution of thought. In this method, named "Ludium," games replace pr…
Virtual Assisted Self Interviewing (Vasi): An Expansion of Survey Data Collection Methods to Virtual Worlds by Means of VDCI
Changes in communication technology have allowed for the expansion of data collection modes in survey research. The proliferation of the computer has allowed the creation of web and computer assisted auto-interview data collection modes. Virtual worlds are a new application of computer technology that once again expands the data collection modes by VASI (Virtual Assisted Self Interviewing). The Virtual Data Collection Interface (VDCI) developed a…
As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. T…
Virtual Worlds: Petri Dishes, Rat Mazes, and Supercolliders
This article argues for using virtual worlds as experimental environments for social science questions at the macro level. The authors can foresee two major objections to this approach and will address them as to show why they do not prove to be significant. The first being that virtual worlds are not like the real world; therefore, one cannot generalize from events within them. The second of these foreseeable objections states that human society…
Synthetic Worlds as Experimental Instruments
The reasoning is simple: a virtual world can be used to replicate research. It is like a Petri dish. It can be made the same way by anybody. If I build a virtual world and run it on a computer, then send you the code and the machine, you can run the same world. You may have different people in yours, but (a) it is easy to determine whether that matters, and (b) there are methods for reducing differences. It is easy to measure differences across p…
Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
Synthetic Economies and the Social Question
The Social Question, formulated originally by German thinkers such as Gustav von Schmoller, asks what should be done about those who receive relatively fewer material benefits from the current set of economic institutions in society. The answer to the Social Question seems to have been, broadly speaking, social insurance and limited redistribution by the state. And yet a new technology has emerged that may change things. Avatar–mediated communica…
On the Research Value of Large Games: Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot
Coordination game theory is quite important to a number of literatures but has had very few direct empirical tests because that would require experimental participation by large numbers of people. Large games however can produce natural experiments: situations that through no intent of the designer offer controlled variations on a phenomenon of theoretical interest. Unlike any other social science research technology, such games provide for both …
Immigrants, Natives and Social Assistance: Comparable Take-Up under Comparable Circumstances
Are immigrants on welfare because they are more likely to be eligible or because they are more likely to claim benefits for which they are eligible? The answer is politically important, but because most current research on immigration and welfare is based on data from the United States, the answer is difficult due to the complexities of the transfer system which make eligibility determinations difficult. In Germany, by contrast, eligibility for t…
On Money and Magic
This is an invited paper
As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. T…
On the Research Value of Large Games: Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot
Coordination game theory is quite important to a number of literatures but has had very few direct empirical tests because that would require experimental participation by large numbers of people. Large games however can produce natural experiments: situations that through no intent of the designer offer controlled variations on a phenomenon of theoretical interest. Unlike any other social science research technology, such games provide for both …
Immigrants, Natives and Social Assistance: Comparable Take-Up under Comparable Circumstances
Are immigrants on welfare because they are more likely to be eligible or because they are more likely to claim benefits for which they are eligible? The answer is politically important, but because most current research on immigration and welfare is based on data from the United States, the answer is difficult due to the complexities of the transfer system which make eligibility determinations difficult. In Germany, by contrast, eligibility for t…
Down with Dullness: Gaming the Academic Conference
It is a truism among academics that most of the creative work at a conference happens outside the formal sessions, at social gatherings. If this is so, why not drop the formal sessions entirely? In this article, I propose a method for making an entire conference into a formalized social gathering, with a structure that both encourages the exchange of ideas and also records the evolution of thought. In this method, named "Ludium," games replace pr…
Virtual Worlds: Petri Dishes, Rat Mazes, and Supercolliders
This article argues for using virtual worlds as experimental environments for social science questions at the macro level. The authors can foresee two major objections to this approach and will address them as to show why they do not prove to be significant. The first being that virtual worlds are not like the real world; therefore, one cannot generalize from events within them. The second of these foreseeable objections states that human society…
On Money and Magic
This is an invited paper
Immigrants, Natives and Social Assistance: Comparable Take-Up under Comparable Circumstances
Are immigrants on welfare because they are more likely to be eligible or because they are more likely to claim benefits for which they are eligible? The answer is politically important, but because most current research on immigration and welfare is based on data from the United States, the answer is difficult due to the complexities of the transfer system which make eligibility determinations difficult. In Germany, by contrast, eligibility for t…
Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
Synthetic Economies and the Social Question
The Social Question, formulated originally by German thinkers such as Gustav von Schmoller, asks what should be done about those who receive relatively fewer material benefits from the current set of economic institutions in society. The answer to the Social Question seems to have been, broadly speaking, social insurance and limited redistribution by the state. And yet a new technology has emerged that may change things. Avatar–mediated communica…
On the Research Value of Large Games: Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot
Coordination game theory is quite important to a number of literatures but has had very few direct empirical tests because that would require experimental participation by large numbers of people. Large games however can produce natural experiments: situations that through no intent of the designer offer controlled variations on a phenomenon of theoretical interest. Unlike any other social science research technology, such games provide for both …
Synthetic Worlds as Experimental Instruments
The reasoning is simple: a virtual world can be used to replicate research. It is like a Petri dish. It can be made the same way by anybody. If I build a virtual world and run it on a computer, then send you the code and the machine, you can run the same world. You may have different people in yours, but (a) it is easy to determine whether that matters, and (b) there are methods for reducing differences. It is easy to measure differences across p…
As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. T…
Virtual Worlds: Petri Dishes, Rat Mazes, and Supercolliders
This article argues for using virtual worlds as experimental environments for social science questions at the macro level. The authors can foresee two major objections to this approach and will address them as to show why they do not prove to be significant. The first being that virtual worlds are not like the real world; therefore, one cannot generalize from events within them. The second of these foreseeable objections states that human society…
Virtual Assisted Self Interviewing (Vasi): An Expansion of Survey Data Collection Methods to Virtual Worlds by Means of VDCI
Changes in communication technology have allowed for the expansion of data collection modes in survey research. The proliferation of the computer has allowed the creation of web and computer assisted auto-interview data collection modes. Virtual worlds are a new application of computer technology that once again expands the data collection modes by VASI (Virtual Assisted Self Interviewing). The Virtual Data Collection Interface (VDCI) developed a…
Down with Dullness: Gaming the Academic Conference
It is a truism among academics that most of the creative work at a conference happens outside the formal sessions, at social gatherings. If this is so, why not drop the formal sessions entirely? In this article, I propose a method for making an entire conference into a formalized social gathering, with a structure that both encourages the exchange of ideas and also records the evolution of thought. In this method, named "Ludium," games replace pr…
Virtual Worlds as Laboratories
A virtual world is a persistent space where tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of users interact with each other and a mediated environment defined as a physical space through rules created by designers and enforced by computer code. Researchers have argued that these characteristics make virtual worlds particularly well suited for conducting parallel experiments to test macro‐level social theory. The purpose of this essay is to provide …
Life Is a Game: What Game Design Says about the Human Condition
What if life is a game? Are you winning? Have you even decided what ‘winning’ is?
Preference evolution, attention, and happiness
We present the first model of preference evolution in an environment where the fame of an agent affects selection. Specifically, agents who are famous are more likely to be selected for comparison by other agents. Agents compare happiness, and then switch preferences if the other agent is happier. Without the attention economy, only ‘happy’ preferences survive – happy preferences being those which, when followed, give agents maximal subjective we…
Computer Science (9 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Digital Games and Media (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Data science (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Human–computer interaction (4 works) · Metaverse (4 works) · Virtual reality (4 works) · World Wide Web (4 works)