Nigel Response MMORPGS

MMORPGs are only good for studying human behavior minus consequences, which is a huge problem. People randomly run around murdering each other because no one dies permanently and the most you lose is some time and maybe your 'gear'. You can unplug your internet to instantly escape bad situations, often preventing a community standard from forming against such violent and destructive behavior. There are always bugs and systemic loopholes to exploit, such as logging in as multiple characters and running scripts/macros to accomplish more than what a single player could do on their own. I am aware that game masters and administrators can work against these exploits, but for every problem player who is rooted out and banned 10 more take their place.

In theme park mmos, you don't have to meet consumer demand in order to command resources in the market, you can generate new money from monsters or NPCs. Factors of production are often highly specific (they can't be used in alternative lines of production) and have a prefabricated end (purple armors/weapons). Everything is planned out, it is a game.

What it boils down to is an MMORPG world itself is a consumer good. They are designed by entrepreneurs to satisfy the fancies of the masses, it is in effect no different than an actual theme park. When the world stops satisfying the desires of the players, they just leave, so in a statistical analysis you can run into all kinds of problems, like self-selection bias for example.

The real-life problems humans face today are very well understood: the statistical data is abundant, the historical record is clear, the causes are well known and agreed upon, and in the vast majority of cases the solutions are simple, inexpensive, and there is a consensus among scientists, engineers, economists, sociologists, etc. The only thing standing in their way are political interests, who would lose all the money, power, and security they personally have accumulated over recent decades, with the beginning of those political endeavors going back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. The interests have all the power of the government, and what comes with that support is the acquiescence of the public to their tyranny. The result is a stagnant world, where the best and brightest among us are set back time and time again as they attempt to navigate through the maze of political barriers.