Teaching Economics in World of Warcraft

Education In Virtual Worlds

Using real-world examples in an undergraduate college program frequently is pointless, as the students are usually inexperienced in the real world. It is not helpful for them to explain that understanding the elasticity of the demand curve will help them formulate the long-term pricing strategy of aluminum, as they have never faced the problem of being responsible for the long-term pricing strategy of aluminum. Social sciences attempt to explain and simplify the complex reality – but these simplifying models themselves are hard to understand without a point of reference. In graduate programs we can assume a working understanding of certain social institutions, and can base our lectures on that; but in the undergraduate setting this is not always realistic. The construction of virtual worlds can bridge this knowledge gap: using the familiar virtual setting, the teacher can introduce both the real-world problem, and the social science model designed to help deal with the problem.