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Virtual world order: the economics and organizations of virtual pirates

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Abstract

This paper investigates how order may emerge in anarchy using a novel empirical approach. It analyzes the predatory and productive interactions of 400,000 users of a virtual world. Virtual worlds are computer-created environments that visually mimic physical spaces, where people interact with each other and with virtual objects in manifold ways. Notably, the paper examines the behavior of users acting as virtual pirates. The paper finds that even in a largely anonymous and anarchic virtual world private rules of order mitigate the most destructive forms of conflict. This is true even though the virtual pirates are found to be conflict-loving rather than conflict-averse. Although the costs of conflict are dramatically reduced in virtual worlds, private rules that limit violence spontaneously emerge. An important part of the paper’s contribution is methodological. The analysis of the problem of order in anarchy serves to exemplify the power and usefulness of the new approach.

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Notes

  1. Anecdotal evidence of such effects emerge in the virtual world examined. A developer describes his first virtual kill as follows (Hreiðarsson, personal communication, 2010). “I remember when I killed another guy [online] for the first time. I sat there with my hands shaking asking myself: ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ My hair standing, I was cold, it was horrible. I was thinking I am really a bad person.”

  2. It is possible to identify worthwhile targets beforehand.

  3. Guðmundsson is CCP Games’ chief economist for EVE.

  4. For instance, in 2012 the way in which offenders in lowsec were flagged was overhauled, which made distinguishing pirates and (fighting) civilians much easier (CCP Games 2012). In 2013, an alternative way for pirates to raise their security standing was introduced (CCP Games 2013). This allowed pirates to recover their standing more quickly after an attack, and thus reduced one of the main economic drawbacks of engaging in piracy.

  5. I exclude lowsec kills that result from in-group fighting rehearsals, kills from known “thunder dome” systems to which users fly when they seek recreational fighting, and kills related to EVE’s factional warfare system (cf. EVE University 2015).

  6. The data analysis reveals that the number of users who engaged in both lowsec and extra-lowsec violence is very small.

  7. One account holds up to three characters.

  8. Only one character per account can increase his virtual skills and abilities at a time by training. Two characters on two distinct accounts can be trained simultaneously and thus be developed faster.

  9. The data on the geographic dispersal of kills on which I categorize the pirate corporations are not available for all corporations.

  10. If it were only the poor characters that engaged in piracy, one might reason that it is only users who do not take the virtual world seriously who engage in conflict. This is not the case for the comparably wealthy pirates.

  11. If asked for important unwritten laws in EVE, developers reply: “Chribba can be trusted” (Eriksen, Hreiðarsson, Kjarval, personal communication, 2010).

  12. I am notably thinking of low opportunity costs of conflict, the institutionally weak environment, and a high number of readily available young males.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Doug Allen, Simon Lapointe, Chris Mantzavinos, Antoine Pietri, Ian Smith, Leonard Randall, David Skarbek, and Petros Sekeris for many helpful comments on earlier versions. Special thanks go to three anonymous reviewers who substantially improved the quality of this paper by their intelligent and insightful comments and suggestions. Without the support of CCP Games’ chief economist Eyjólfur Guðmundsson writing this paper would have been impossible.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of St Andrews, Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL, UK

    Carl David Mildenberger

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Correspondence to Carl David Mildenberger.

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Mildenberger, C.D. Virtual world order: the economics and organizations of virtual pirates. Public Choice 164, 401–421 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-015-0284-5

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