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For The Win
''For the Win'' is the second young adult science fiction novel by Canadian author Cory Doctorow. It was released in May 2010. The novel is available free on the author's website as a Creative Commons download, and is also published in traditional paper form by Tor Books. The book is centered on massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Even though the novel is targeted toward young adults, it takes on significant concepts such as macroeconomics and labor rights. It covers the new and fast evolving concept of virtual economy. It also deals with MMORPG specific topics like gold farming and power-leveling. Plot Part 1: The gamers and their games, the workers at their work In the near future, virtual economies play a key role in geopolitics. These economies share a common virtual world known as “game-space”, essentially a more evolved form of the Internet with no borders or separate countries. However, in game-space, income inequality is staggeringly high and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labor Rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influence working conditions in the relations of employment. One of the most prominent is the right to freedom of association, otherwise known as the right to organize. Workers organized in trade unions exercise the right to collective bargaining to improve working conditions. Labor background Throughout history, workers claiming some sort of right have attempted to pursue their interests. During the Middle Ages, the Peasants' Revolt in England expressed demand for better wages and working conditions. One of the leaders of the revolt, John Ball (priest), John Ball, famously argued that people were born equal saying, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" Laborers often appealed to traditional rights. For i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dungeon Crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games and board games which predominantly feature dungeon crawl elements are considered to be a genre. Board games Dungeon crawling in board games dates to the 1975 release of '' Dungeon!''. Over the years, many games built on that concept. One of the most acclaimed board games of the late 2010s, '' Gloomhaven'', is a dungeon crawler. Video games The first computer-based dungeon crawl was '' pedit5'', developed in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford on the PLATO interactive education system based in Urbana, Illinois. Although this game was quickly deleted from the system, several more like it appeared, including '' dnd'' and '' Moria''. Computer games and series from the 1980s, such as '' Rogue'', '' The Bard's Tale'', '' Cosmic Soldier'', '' D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Economy
A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergence, emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter these virtual economies for recreation and entertainment rather than necessity, which means that virtual economies lack the aspects of a real economy that are not considered to be "fun" (for instance, avatars in a virtual economy often do not need to buy food in order to survive, and usually do not have any biological needs at all). However, some people do interact with virtual economies for "real" economic benefit. Despite primarily dealing with in-game currencies, this term also encompasses the selling of virtual currency for real money, in what is sometimes called "open centralised marketplaces". Overview Virtual economies are observed in Multi-user dungeon, MUDs and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold-farming
Gold farming is the practice of playing a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) to acquire in-game currency, later selling it for real-world money.The business end of playing games bbc.com, Wednesday, 25 April 2007, 14:55 GMT Gold farming is distinct from other practices in online multiplayer games, such as , as gold farming refers specifically to harvesting in-game currency, not rank or experience points. The actual labor mechanics of these practices may be similar, and those who hold employment as gold farmers may also work as power levelers. While most game operators ban the practice of selling in-game currency for real-world cash, gold farming is lucrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong to the south, Dongguan to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, and Macau to the southwest. With a population of 17.5 million in 2020, Shenzhen is the List of cities in China by population, third most populous city by urban population in China after Shanghai and Beijing. The Port of Shenzhen is the List of busiest container ports, world's fourth busiest container port. Shenzhen roughly follows the administrative boundaries of Bao'an County, which was established in imperial times. After the Opium Wars, the southern portion of Bao'an County was occupied by the British and became part of British Hong Kong, while the village of Shenzhen was next to the border. Shenzhen turned into a city in 1979. In the early 1980s, Chine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robber Baron (industrialist)
Robber baron is a term first applied by 19th century muckrakers and others as social criticism to certain wealthy, powerful, and unethical 19th-century American businessmen. The term appeared in that use as early as the August 1870 issue of ''The Atlantic Monthly'' magazine. By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. Those practices included Exploitation of natural resources, unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, Crony capitalism, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, Anti-competitive practices, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors, and to create Monopoly, monopolies and/or Trust (business), trusts that control Market (economics), the market. The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (“baron”) in a republic.Worth Robert Miller, ''Populist cartoons: an illustrated history of the third-party movement in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks that consists of Private network, private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, Wireless network, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and Web application, applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), email, electronic mail, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing. The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual World
A virtual world (also called a virtual space or spaces) is a Computer simulation, computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many simultaneous users who can create a personal Avatar (computing), avatar and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities, and communicate with others. These avatars can be textual, graphical representations, or live video avatars with auditory and touch sensations. Virtual worlds are closely related to mirror worlds. In a virtual world, the User (computing), user accesses a computer-simulated world which presents Perception, perceptual stimuli to the user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experience a degree of Immersion (virtual reality)#Presence, presence. Such modeled worlds and their rules may draw from reality or fantasy worlds. Example rules are gravity, topography, animal locomotion, locomotion, real-time computer graphics, real-time actions, and communication. Communicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Economies
A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergence, emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter these virtual economies for recreation and entertainment rather than necessity, which means that virtual economies lack the aspects of a real economy that are not considered to be "fun" (for instance, avatars in a virtual economy often do not need to buy food in order to survive, and usually do not have any biological needs at all). However, some people do interact with virtual economies for "real" economic benefit. Despite primarily dealing with in-game currencies, this term also encompasses the selling of virtual currency for real money, in what is sometimes called "open centralised marketplaces". Overview Virtual economies are observed in Multi-user dungeon, MUDs and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Powerleveling
An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experience points are generally awarded for the completion of objectives, overcoming obstacles and opponents, and successful role-playing. In many RPGs, characters start as fairly weak and untrained. When a sufficient amount of experience is obtained, the character "levels up", achieving the next stage of character development. Such an event usually increases the character's statistics, such as maximum health, magic and strength, and may permit the character to acquire new abilities or improve existing ones. Levelling up may also give the character access to more challenging areas or items. In some role-playing games, particularly those derived from ''Dungeons & Dragons'', experience points are used to improve characters in discrete experience l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
