Some of the first MMO’s I can recall playing as a kid were some of the more popular ones like World of Warcraft, Runescape, Maple Story and a few others I cannot remember the name of, but, to me they just seemed to be something I did in past time and played for fun. Runescape in particular i think I ran through multiple accounts to do the free-to-play quests over and over again and each time I created a new avatar that I felt would represent me in those certain worlds.
In these games I remember being so tied up in logging in at a certain time just to play with friends and even to this day I do the same with other online games as they get off work or out of class and as we saw in class most of us play games or have played excessively in the past. So, I think for Castronova’s first question of online games being a part of social life is easily answered with yes. Also, with the statistic of the average age of gamers being around 40, I feel as if that it has become a part of everyday life.
But, with the aspect of a market structure, I think at the time this was written they did not anticipate world of micro-transactions and loot boxes (in more popular games). Though, I ran across some interesting stuff based around Old School RuneScape as you can sell the in game currency for money -then learning more about the gold farming in WoW was also eye opening. As I’ve come to learn more, focusing on RuneScape, at the Grand Exchange (online selling of materials, tools, runes, etc. from player to player) players can set a price for certain materials and sell for profits in game then turn around and sell the gold for cash. By doing this, they have created a virtual stock market, in essence. You can even track the volatility of items online and play your cards right to sell high and buy low -which adds to the supply and demand in game.
So with that, I think Castronova was right with not seeing what type of market structure we might see today. However, I think the last part Castronova asks about how a large emigration of work and play time to these virtual worlds affect the economy of the real world is a bit too grand of a question to ask since it would take more hours in a day to generate enough in game currency to dramatically make an effect in the economy. Though, micro-transactions however, have made a world of difference to income to the developers but also makes the largest impact economically -even if one person might spend $9.99 once.
With all of the talk about micro-transactions being banned since they’re looked at as an exploitation of a younger audience, what might be the next move developers make to benefit them economically?
Game Studies 
One of the weaknesses of Castronova’s article is that it conceives of a world in which a handful of virtual worlds become the primary way that people interact with the internet–he’s extrapolating out from the rise in virtual worlds he was seeing in the early 2000s. Of course, when World of Warcraft came along it fit very neatly into his concerns, but what he couldn’t count on was that virtual worlds was a game genre, and genres come and go. We are far, far less interested in virtual worlds as a player base than we were in 2008. VR Chat is a thing, sure, but games like Fortnite are far more popular–online play, but not a consistent world to stand around, work in, and socialize in.
However, his work on digital economies is spot on and has been proven out. Loot Boxes weren’t something he conceived of, but you can see how they are a natural outgrowth of his basic points: virtual economies function exactly like analog economies, except that the ‘coding class’ have the kind of control that governments could only dream of. And so manipulating the levers to produce positive effects for that class becomes even easier. Even virtually the rich stay rich and the poor get poorer. Final-dollar cost to play games is skyrocketing, while player labor is also rising. Players are getting burned at both ends.
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I consider myself a player that doesnt allow games to burn me on both ends. Meaning I always refused to purchase add on’s on top of the price I’ve paid for the game, yet the system. But to answer your question, “what might be the next move developers make to benefit them economically?” I believe the gaming industry will come up with different ways to extract more money out the player. Anything from having to pay to play users in your region, the time you can play, or any other unreasonable limitations.
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