Although I gave up playing World of Warcraft several months ago, after several years of on-again, off-again play (mostly off, lately), I still follow some of the news.

Of particular interest to me is Gevlon’s blog, Greedy Goblin.  Like The Last Psychiatrist, he’s another anonymous blogger that extrapolates from his source material to greater philosophical and, in this case, economic issues.  In Gevlon’s case, the purpose is straightforward and unhidden:  he’s in it to spread his personal philosophy, a form of Objectivism/libertarianism, to as many folks as he can reach.

It’s surprising at first that he chooses World of Warcraft players to target, but after you do some reading at least one of the reasons becomes quickly apparent, and that reason is that it is very easy to hypothesis-test economic philosophy in the context of a MMORPG.  Although some of the standard economic assumptions aren’t valid within the game, others hold fairly well, and the simplified economy in-game lets him do some very interesting and entertaining analyses.

If you follow his blog, you will quickly learn “Goblinese”, the peculiar dialect of English in use on his blog.  Gevlon is not a native English speaker (I’m guessing he’s Hungarian based on some of the things he’s let slip), and his English, while quite good and always improving, is not perfect.  In addition, he uses a heavy seasoning of WoW jargon and a set of his own stock phrases – including several epithets for the unskilled player contingent, such as “Morons and Slackers”, (M+S), “Friendly helpful ppl”, etc.

It’s very entertaining reading by a guy that is obviously working diligently to secure a readership.  I highly recommend it if you have any interest in economics or gaming.

Tags: Cool Link