Ok, so my guess is this has been done before, but I have not seen it, and might have a new twist on a played out argument, so I thought I would post this.

Let's look at WoW, WoW is a game where everyone starts out with nothing, is on an even playing field, and are equally rewarded for the same efforts.

If you do nothing, you get nothing. If you apply a level of effort into the game, you are rewarded. In the end WoW (and any MMO) is nothing more then a fancy achievement system.

WoW is the perfect example of a utopian Capitalist society. perfect in execution. 

What makes it fun, is what makes Capitalism work, people are willing to put forth a great amount of effort if in return they are rewarded appropriately.

Now, here is my question. How would you model a game that was an example of utopian Socialism? What would make people play it?

If you, for example, added up all the gold earned in a day of playing WoW, and called that your collective success as a society, how would you model a socialistic style game that would achieve equal gold to a game setup like WoW?

I claim you can't, and this is an example of why socialism doesn't work.

Discuss :)

Nice thread.

I agree. It's impossible.

What about a Co-op game like NCAA Basketball.

My girlfriend and I play it together. We both win even though I do much better.

Capitalism 4 lyfe

Kind of hard to map that game into one or the other.

I would say however that the game is more an example of Capitalism then Socialism. You teamed up to partake in an activity where the goal was to outperform the next guy (the team you were playing against).

If the way the Basketball game was played, was in the end you totaled up all the points from your team and your opponents team, and then divided equally resulting in always a tie, then that would be a good example of Socialism.

I would guess however, that you and your opponent would score less total points if that were the rules.

your wow comment makes no sense, wow doens't have discapacitated people, people in wow don't rape, don't steal and don't kill familys with a kitchen knife. capitalism can't be perfect stop fooling yourself, comunism either, the only system that is truly utopic is anarchism, yet for it to work, all humans beings have to be in a higher level of understandance and realism, and at this point, god has made it imposible.

There's no such thing as a utopian Capitalist society. Unless you mean that it's the epitome of capitalism, but still flawed. I'd agree with you there, but Runescape is a far better example of what you're talking about anyways. Many many hours of tedious work, it's not fun whatsoever, and then you're rich. After you're rich, you can use your money to buy lots of pointless crap.

So you say my system can't be utopic, because people are people, and the only system that is truly utopic is anarchism, but can't because people are people.

And you say my comment makes no sense :p

What I mean by Utopian Capitalism, is the perfect system. So for example, in WoW:

• if you want to achieve wealth, you can just go do it. There is enough for everyone
• the same effort yields the same rewards
• there is no prejudice. If your short/tall, fat/skinny, any race, man/woman, young/old it does not matter. Everyone is on an even playing field
• everyone is treated the say (by the game, not so much the players)
• the system does not get in your way. For example, if you mapped WoW to real life, as you gained more XP/Gold, the game would take it away from you and give it to those who have yet to earn it on there own (progressive taxation). WoW does not do this.

Nothing is perfect, but what we tend to do when things fail, is give up on capitalism, and not try and make capitalism better.

A good example, is if people are too uneducated to earn a living, we pass laws to make sure they are taken care of off the labor of others. What we should do, is insure that they have better options for education.

The goal should be to make sure everyone is on an even playing field, and that everyones efforts are rewarded. We will never get there, but that's what we should be striving to become. Not striving to generate a system where the effort no longer matters.

I'll take you up on your offer.

Rock Band.

Everyone works together in order to finish the song and get the highest score possible. You get extra points for unison bonus.

QED.

in paper it sounds perfect indeed, but remember what is the capitalism? capitalism is the feeding of the human ego, my effort, my reward, my money, my food, my everything. humans want to be superior, i'll put it this way, lets say that system comes in effect, so you mister triumph above all humans, then we the ones starving since you have a super monopoly on food(all gained through your effort of course) make a riot and kill you, then we take your money, one of us goes richer than the other again, we kill him again and the cycle repeats over and over. also not all humans have the capabilities to triumph, and yet they have their own special abilitie that is perhaps not as useful(profitable) as other abilities, therefore capitalism leaves this people in ruin, without giving them a chance to exploit their abilities and at the same time win as much as other people with more profitable abilities(abilitie=abilitie help=help)