Virtual is not Real

It is easy to be seduced by the similarities between Virtual and Real economies. The idea of having perfect manufacturing and consumption data on which all types of economic models can be created is somewhat intoxicating i suppose to a theoretical economist. BUT, virtual economies are NOT "real"! and a guy playing Guiter Hero is not a "real" musician. and what I mean by "Real" is quite simple: I will argue that the first medium-based manifestation of an entity is the "real" version, and that when the entity becomes manifested in a second medium, it can no longer be described as "real" or even "the same as the first" manifestation. by "medium" I am referring to a "generalized platform definition". but this is not just a game of semantics. the importance is that just because 2 things appear quite similiar, it does not mean that we extrapolate on that to rationalize or validate all kinds of other observations. and we know this to be true of just about any entity we can think of..In Virual Economies, the only real laws that the site is bound by having nothing to do with money(ie. Pornography,etc). Rulers of VE's, can and do:1. revalue currencies at will2. discriminate3. subject4. create inflation, stagnation, etc5. create scarcity and excess in milliseconds6. create and destroy vast "wealth" in milliseconds
I do believe that as time goes by, Virtual Economies will have to trend towards rules, laws, and other conventions that keep "real" economies "trust worthy". but in the meantime, do not give in to a false sense of security that comes from working through "real" models that seem to apply well to virtual economies......it does make me think however, if you could limit a model to a single Virtual World/Economy, and define all of events that could occur in VW, that could not occur in Real LIfe, and you were able to assign a probability to each of these events, you could I suppose factor in the sum of these probabilities into your real model. think of it as a Virtualized Wiener Process....
the image that just popped into my head is the TV commercial that shows an office worker strolling the photocopier to get his copy. I can model that task pretty simply(basic modal model stuff). but in teh commercial, out of nowhere, at a fantastic speed, comes a fully padded football player and absolutely levels the officeworker. That is precisely the way we need to think about Virtual Economies. Until someone guarantees that Linebackers will not be loose in the offioe, we cannot trust in real world models to describe or forecast Virtual Economies