That's correct. I've known the old lad in decades past...
Alastair
And I believe that David Friedman is known in the SCA as Duke Cariadoc of the Bow
--- In World_of_Warcraft_List@yahoogroups.com, Shane B <shaneb@...> wrote:
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/156981/could_world_of_warcraft_be_a_college_class.html
>
>
> Could World of Warcraft be a College Class?
>
>
> By
> < http://www.pcworld.com/article/156981//author/Matt-Peckham>Matt
> Peckham, < http://www.pcworld.com/>PCWorld Jan 13, 2009 2:45 AM
>
> []
>
>
> If < http://www.worldofwarcraft.com>World of
> Warcraft were a college course, would you enroll?
> David Friedman, an academic economist "who
> teaches at a law school and has never taken a
> course for credit in either field" hopes so.
> < http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2009/01/world-of-warcraft-course-proposal.html>He's
> laid out a few reasons why he thinks all that
> copper and iron and mithril and thorium mining
> you've been grinding into virtual booty might be
> worth an elective credit or two.
>
> Says Friedman:
>
> WoW has markets and prices, including an auction
> house with many buyers, many sellers, and a wide
> range of products for sale. Prices are readily
> observedstarting prices, buyout prices, relative
> prices at one time, changes over time. Actual
> sales prices are a bit harder, but if your
> students are active players they are probably
> buying and selling things and could be persuaded
> to keep track of prices paid and received and
> make the information available to the rest of the class.
>
> Check that last sentence. I wonder if Friedman
> realizes he's essentially just made a case for
> education-funded pro bono tip-sharing. "Here's
> how you turn a Libram of Constituion, a Black
> Diamond, a Lung Juice Cocktail, and 4 Dragon's
> Breath into a Lesser Arcanum of Constitution,
> then sell it for a mint." Which creates a natural
> disincentive to purchase all those
> tree-slaughtering strategy guides, in turn
> attenuating real-world publisher strategy guide sales.
>
> Put the corporate strategy-guide publishers out
> of business? Stick it to all those shameless
> aftermarket retail strategy guide peddlers? With
> (if the university's public) taxpayer dollars?
> Well there you go, now you know why
> < http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Europe-America/Liberal-College-Professor-goes-too-far-A-WoW-economics-course >these
> guys think Friedman's a flaming liberal!
>
> In all seriousness, Friedman's points are
> actually pretty compelling, even if
> < http://terranova.blogs.com/>guys like Edward
> Castranova and others have long since tilled this
> turf. Using popular media to convey important,
> nuanced concepts like "arbitrage, collusive
> behavior, and predatory pricing"? Sounds like a win-win to me.
>
> Would you enroll in World of Warcraft 101?
>
> Hey, what self-respecting gamer wouldn't? After
> all, it's a chance to legitimize all that time
> you're planning to spend holed up in your dorm
> slaughtering Bloodfen Scytheclaws and Ragged
> Young Wolves and launching company-sized
> all-nighter raids to -- err, excuse me, I meant
> transacting individualist socio-economic rhetoric
> that transgresses marginalizing objective
> superstructures and re-conceptualizes the spatial
> aesthetics of color, animation, and architecture.
>
> Right?
> * See more like this:
> *
> < http://www.pcworld.com/article/156981//search.html?qt=games&s=d#tk.srch_art_tag >games
>
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