First post by Valve’s new “economist-in-residence”.
In sharp contrast to our incapacity to perform truly scientific tests in ‘normal’ economic settings, Valve’s digital economies are a marvelous test-bed for meaningful experimentation. Not only do we have a full-information set (making sampling superfluous) but, more importantly, we can change the economy’s underlying values, rules and settings, and then sit back to observe how the community responds, how relative prices change, the new behavioural patterns that evolve. An economist’s paradise indeed…
Starting from today, I shall be committing to this blog weekly reports on our projects, experiences and ideas regarding Valve’s various social ‘economies’.