Code Rules: Virtual World Adaptation in Co-evolutionary EnvironmentCode Rules: Virtual World Adaptation in Co-evolutionary Environment

What is a Virtual World ? An Organization Instead of a “nexus of contracts” we suggest it is a nexus of actors and codes.Actors: Operate at three levels

• Player/User (micrological)• World social complexity (mesological)• Field of Virtual worlds (macrological)Codes: “Lex Informatica”5 and much more• Law Studies and Institutional Theory converge: it is about rules.• In VWs, we have code as software and the worlds-within-worlds of three levels of actors.

Offering a “natural history of the changing institutions of contemporary capitalism”1Offering a “natural history of the changing institutions of contemporary capitalism”1

Adaptation is outcome of 2 co-evolutionary dynamics above.

1.Virtual world- field. Adaptive capacities will be robust designs, institutional entrepreneurship.

2.Virtual world-communities of practice. Adaptive capacities will be negotiating with users and communities of users.

Why Study Virtual Worlds?• 20-30 million unique users2

• $580 million Invested in 63 Virtual Worlds-Related Companies in 20083

• 80% of Internet Users will have virtual world presence by 2011 (maybe)4

• Possible essential form of future of Internet and cyberspace.

Three experiences powered by technological factors define a virtual world:1.Immersion in a persistent world2.Interactivity with other users and the world3.Identity coupling is variable between the real self and the constructed virtual self.

IdentityCoupling

Immersion

Sense of others (Co-presence)

Sense of Place (Geography)

Sense of Body (Avatar)

Real

Constructed

Promotes

Facilitates

Playing Socializing Collaborating Transacting

Mediates

Jordi Comas, Bucknell University and F. Ted Tschang, Singapore Management University, OSWC XV, February 2009

1Davis, G. F., Marquis, C. (2005). “Prospects for Organization Theory in the Early Twenty-First Century: Institutional Fields and Mechanisms”, Organization Science, 16(4): 332-343; 2 Castronova, E. 2007. Exodus to the virtual world : How online fun is changing reality (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan; 3 Virtual World News. Feb 2, 2009. “Over $580 Million Invested in 41 Virtual Goods-Related Businesses in 2008” http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/02/over-580-million-invested-in-41-virtual-goodsrelated-businesses-in-2008.html; 4 Gartner Research. April 2007. “Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011.” http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861 ; 5 Lessig, L. (2006). Code Version 2.0, Basic Books.

What is a Virtual World? A Technology

What type of interoperablity?Coded for Play or for Commerce?

Habitat 1986Habitat 1986 Everquest 1999Everquest 1999Cybertown 1993Cybertown 1993 World of Warcraft 2004World of Warcraft 2004

There.com 2003There.com 2003 Second Life 2003Second Life 2003

Examples from Case Studies [Co-Evolutionary Dynamic]Linden Lab’s Second Life implements land-based economy and unique IP regime.

Codes for enormous increase in creative activity and blended space [1, 2]The Sims Online opens and closes and… The firm was unwilling to enable user-generated content [2].Design of the economy stifled growth [1] EA pursued “a safe” label to attract teens. [1]Uru live players migrate off of the closed game and reform enclaves in other VWs. Durability of player codes and communities across worlds