1. On an individual level, yes. Your hard work is to help the collective thus the return on it is the same as the person who did not provide the work.

2. Nothing is necessary in WoW. It’s a game. You could make a level 1 char, play that char for 3 years, still be level one, and there are no consequences. Gold in the game is as necessary as one could make a currency in a game. If they made the game where you NEEDED it, no one would play the game (then it becomes work and not fun).

I find a lot of people who are younger not looking at money as effort. What makes this analogy work, is in WoW, the only way you acquire gold, is if you sit in front of the computer and do something to earn it. This is the same as real life money.

I am using this analogy, because I want a 15 year old to think of socialism in a game, and think “wait, I just spent 3 hours making that. Why should I just give it away to someone who didn’t put 3 hours into the game?”

There is a famous saying: “There are two kinds of money in the world. Your money, and my money”.

When talking about real life, to the young, it’s always someone else’s money. When you map the same issues into something where they have converted their own efforts into a currency, it’s now there money.

Interesting how the answers are different when it’s your effort being taken away from you.

I think it’s a great way to allow people who have yet to enter the work force to look at what money really is (effort), and who that effort should belong to.

WoW is not utopian capitalism, there is a government (developer) who sets rules, names prices, and protects lesser characters to maximize the enjoyment all people get out of the game.  Also, not everyone is a capitalism starts out on an even playing field, people with wealthy parents have a distinct advantage over people with poor parents.  If anything, WoW is socialist in that it makes everyone equal and gives them equal opportunity (and this is strictly enforced by the developer who doesnt allow players to buy items and gold with real money).

Games with 'socialism' are games where everyone is equal all the time.  Most multiplayer games (FPS, RTS) are like this.  In fact people complain if a game is not equal because someone is hacking or someone else has different weapons (BF2 comes to mind when they let people who bought the expansion pack were able to use the new weapons when playing people who just had the vanilla game).

I'm sorry, but to make WOW to show as an example of Capitalism and to say Socialism doesn't work is just, hmm... Let's just say it is way of the mark.

The closest I can give an example where both sides work very well:
Hong Kong = Capitalism at its best.  Even here there are touches of regulations that is controlled.
Sweden = Socialism at its best.   Even here there is freedom and rights of businesses.

And to say one extreme is better than another... whoa... I thought we were out of the cold war mentality...

It would be highly improbable that both extremes are equal, so please don’t imply that thinking otherwise makes me somehow less “evolved”.

I am not implying anything.  Excuse me if you believed so. 

What I am saying is in the broader text of Capitalism or Socialism, whether you believe in it or not, cannot be discounted.  So to say it doesn't work... or cannot work, well that is a very diffinitive stance.

OT: In your example of achieving gold to show capitalism in a game like WOW.  Well in topics of business, resources are limited and finite.  Games such as MMO there is a limitless amount that you can harvest so in that sense, there is an uneven level playing field when trying to explain how capitalism works and socialism cannot.

You mean that in actual capitalism, one must produce capital by depriving other people of it, whereas in WoW this is not true?

To a certain extent.  You kill a beast or finish a quest, it respawns. You go dungeon hunting into an instance where that same reward is given over and over and over again. 

However, I know its not as cut and dry as that, but its the best I can explain it as.

WoW sure does show capitalism at work. Make people continue to pay for something they already bought... well done.

How could this be an argument against WoW being capitalism?

Co-operation in itself doesn't have anything to do with socialism, forced co-op and forced division of wealth has, but none of that is in yor example.

If a bunch of strong individuals decide from their free will to co-operate and make a lot of money and wealth, then that is indeed pure capitalism.

WoW is only an analogue of a perfect capitalist system if a small group of horde players own all of the GMs, are able to influence future patches via gold payments to the GMs to buff their prefered classes, and nerf clans that don't have the capital to buy their own GMs. They also have to be powerful enough to control the supply and distribution of weapons armors and items, and prevent any items/armors/weapons that could threaten their monopoly from being distributed period. They also have to have all pervasive in game media outlets so they can convince the masses that poisoning themselves is actually a good thing, and to buy horde brand poison potions, and then pay the GMs to include this information in future patch notes, and instruction manuals, also hiring people to write faqs that include this useful information. Then maybe it would be slightly closer to an example of a perfect capitalist system. As it stands it represents a heavily regulated capitalist system.