Edward Castronova
Edward Castronova is an American Professor of Telecommunications and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. He has a background in International Studies, Economics, and Public Policy. Since the 1990s, Castronova has focused his studies to synthetic worlds and their economies.[1]
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Education and career
Castronova attended Georgetown University where he graduated with a BS in International Affairs in 1985. Following his undergraduate degree, he studied postwar reconstruction and social policy in Germany. Castronova then earned a PhD in Economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991.
Castronova began his carrer as an Assistant, and later Associate, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the University of Rochester. He was then an Associate Professor of Economics at California State University before accepting his current position as both Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the department of Telecommunications and Cognitive Science at Indiana University.
At Indiana University, Castronova teaches courses on the design of games, the gaming industry, and the management of virtual societies.[2] He is renowned for his contributions to the study of video games and virtual environments. In 2001, Castronova decided to dedicate his life to video games; after playing EverQuest, an online role-playing game with over 400,000 users, he saw value in how and why people played online games. Users take advantage of an alternate reality to provide themselves with a sense of worth that might not be possible for them in real life. Moreover, this multi-million dollar industry created what was known as the Real Money Trade, which allows players to exchange real monetary currency for in-game resources and goods.
Theoretical criticisms
Michael Thomas reviewed Castronova's Exodus to the Virtual World in the British Journal of Educational Technology in 2009. His first criticism is that Castronova's focus is particularly online gaming, not just synthetic and virtual worlds in general. Thomas argues that within online gaming worlds like World of Warcraft, the economy and culture will not reflect real world problems like unemployment and the policies of virtual worlds will not transform those of the real world as Castronova argues.
Books
- Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Games Will Change Reality
- Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Gaming
- The Welfare Cost of Income Uncertainty
References
- ↑ Edward Cstronova Wikipedia. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
- ↑ Edward Castronova's mypage at Indiana University
