Paradigm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

In science and philosophy, a paradigm (/ˈpærədaɪm/) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field.

Etymology

See also: Paradeigma

Paradigm comes from Greek παράδειγμα (paradeigma), "pattern, example, sample" from the verb παραδείκνυμι (paradeiknumi), "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from παρά (para), "beside, beyond" and δείκνυμι (deiknumi), "to show, to point out".

In classical (Greek-based) rhetoric, a paradeigma aims to provide an audience with an illustration of a similar occurrence. This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion, however it is used to help guide them there.

One way of how a paradeigma is meant to guide an audience would be exemplified by the role of a personal accountant. It is not the job of a personal accountant to tell a client exactly what (and what not) to spend money on, but to aid in guiding a client as to how money should be spent based on client financial goals. Anaximenes defined paradeigma as "actions that have occurred previously and are similar to, or the opposite of, those which we are now discussing."

The original Greek term παράδειγμα (paradeigma) was used by scribes in Greek texts (such as Plato's dialogues Timaeus (c. 360 BCE) and Parmenides) as one possibility for the model or the pattern that the demiurge supposedly used to create the cosmos.

The English-language term paradigm has technical meanings in the fields of grammar (as applied, for example, to declension and conjugation - the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the technical use of paradigm only in the context of grammar) and of rhetoric (as a term for an illustrative parable or fable). In linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities (as opposed to syntagma - a class of elements expressing relationship.).

The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines one usage of paradigm as "a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind."

The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2008) attributes the following description of the term in the history and philosophy of science to Thomas Kuhn's 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

Kuhn suggests that certain scientific works, such as Newton's Principia or John Dalton's New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), provide an open-ended resource: a framework of concepts, results, and procedures within which subsequent work is structured. Normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, but can be taken more or less creatively and flexibly.

Scientific paradigm

Main articles: Paradigm shift, Sociology of knowledge, Systemics, Commensurability (philosophy of science), and Confirmation holism

See also: Paradigm (experimental) and Scientific consensus

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradigm as "a pattern or model, an exemplar; a typical instance of something, an example". The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave it its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time. In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (first published in 1962), Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners, i.e.,

• what is to be observed and scrutinized
• the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject
• how these questions are to be structured
• what predictions made by the primary theory within the discipline
• how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted
• how an experiment is to be conducted, and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn saw the sciences as going through alternating periods of normal science, when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle-solving, and revolution, when the model of reality itself undergoes sudden drastic change. Paradigms have two aspects. Firstly, within normal science, the term refers to the set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated. Secondly, underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions, made prior to – and conditioning – the collection of evidence. These preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that he describes as quasi-metaphysical; the interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists.

Kuhn was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a specific way of viewing reality: that view and the status of "exemplar" are mutually reinforcing. For well-integrated members of a particular discipline, its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing and counter-intuitive. Such a paradigm is opaque, appearing to be a direct view of the bedrock of reality itself, and obscuring the possibility that there might be other, alternative imageries hidden behind it. The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself; this in turn leads to a build-up of unreconciled anomalies. It is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the incumbent paradigm, and its replacement by a new one. Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift (see below) for this process, and likened it to the perceptual change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image "flips over" from one state to another. (The rabbit-duck illusion is an example: it is not possible to see both the rabbit and the duck simultaneously.) This is significant in relation to the issue of incommensurability (see below).

An example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. The scientific method allows for orthodox scientific investigations into phenomena that might contradict or disprove the standard model; however grant funding would be proportionately more difficult to obtain for such experiments, depending on the degree of deviation from the accepted standard model theory the experiment would test for. To illustrate the point, an experiment to test for the mass of neutrinos or the decay of protons (small departures from the model) is more likely to receive money than experiments that look for the violation of the conservation of momentum, or ways to engineer reverse time travel.

Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than the philosophy of science. These include: the idea of major cultural themes, worldviews (and see below), ideologies, and mindsets. They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought. In addition, Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse, mathesis, and taxinomia, for aspects of a "paradigm" in Kuhn's original sense.

Paradigm shifts

Main article: Paradigm shift

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote that "the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science" (p. 12).

Paradigm shifts tend to appear in response to the accumulation of critical anomalies as well as the proposal of a new theory with the power to encompass both older relevant data and explain relevant anomalies. New paradigms tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, as in physics at the end of the 19th century. At that time, a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which challenged the set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics, which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years. In this case, the new paradigm reduces the old to a special case in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is still a good model for approximation for speeds that are slow compared to the speed of light. Many philosophers and historians of science, including Kuhn himself, ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn's model, which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it. Kuhn's original model is now generally seen as too limited.

Some examples of contemporary paradigm shifts include:

• In medicine, the transition from "clinical judgment" to evidence-based medicine
• In social psychology, the transition from p-hacking to replication
• In software engineering, the transition from the Rational Paradigm to the Empirical Paradigm 
• In artificial intelligence, the transition from classical AI to data-driven AI 

Kuhn's idea was, itself, revolutionary in its time. It caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science; and, so, it may be that it caused (or was part of) a "paradigm shift" in the history and sociology of science. However, Kuhn would not recognize such a paradigm shift. Being in the social sciences, people can still use earlier ideas to discuss the history of science.

Paradigm paralysis

Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift, in some cases, is the reality of paradigm paralysis: the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. This is similar to what psychologists term confirmation bias and the Semmelweis reflex. Examples include rejection of Aristarchus of Samos', Copernicus', and Galileo's theory of a heliocentric solar system, the discovery of electrostatic photography, xerography and the quartz clock.

Incommensurability

Kuhn pointed out that it could be difficult to assess whether a particular paradigm shift had actually led to progress, in the sense of explaining more facts, explaining more important facts, or providing better explanations, because the understanding of "more important", "better", etc. changed with the paradigm. The two versions of reality are thus incommensurable. Kuhn's version of incommensurability has an important psychological dimension; this is apparent from his analogy between a paradigm shift and the flip-over involved in some optical illusions. However, he subsequently diluted his commitment to incommensurability considerably, partly in the light of other studies of scientific development that did not involve revolutionary change. One of the examples of incommensurability that Kuhn used was the change in the style of chemical investigations that followed the work of Lavoisier on atomic theory in the late 18th Century. In this change, the focus had shifted from the bulk properties of matter (such as hardness, colour, reactivity, etc.) to studies of atomic weights and quantitative studies of reactions. He suggested that it was impossible to make the comparison needed to judge which body of knowledge was better or more advanced. However, this change in research style (and paradigm) eventually (after more than a century) led to a theory of atomic structure that accounts well for the bulk properties of matter; see, for example, Brady's General Chemistry. According to P J Smith, this ability of science to back off, move sideways, and then advance is characteristic of the natural sciences, but contrasts with the position in some social sciences, notably economics.

This apparent ability does not guarantee that the account is veridical at any one time, of course, and most modern philosophers of science are fallibilists. However, members of other disciplines do see the issue of incommensurability as a much greater obstacle to evaluations of "progress"; see, for example, Martin Slattery's Key Ideas in Sociology.

Subsequent developments

Opaque Kuhnian paradigms and paradigm shifts do exist. A few years after the discovery of the mirror-neurons that provide a hard-wired basis for the human capacity for empathy, the scientists involved were unable to identify the incidents that had directed their attention to the issue. Over the course of the investigation, their language and metaphors had changed so that they themselves could no longer interpret all of their own earlier laboratory notes and records.

Imre Lakatos and research programmes

However, many instances exist in which change in a discipline's core model of reality has happened in a more evolutionary manner, with individual scientists exploring the usefulness of alternatives in a way that would not be possible if they were constrained by a paradigm. Imre Lakatos suggested (as an alternative to Kuhn's formulation) that scientists actually work within research programmes. In Lakatos' sense, a research programme is a sequence of problems, placed in order of priority. This set of priorities, and the associated set of preferred techniques, is the positive heuristic of a programme. Each programme also has a negative heuristic; this consists of a set of fundamental assumptions that – temporarily, at least – takes priority over observational evidence when the two appear to conflict.

This latter aspect of research programmes is inherited from Kuhn's work on paradigms, and represents an important departure from the elementary account of how science works. According to this, science proceeds through repeated cycles of observation, induction, hypothesis-testing, etc., with the test of consistency with empirical evidence being imposed at each stage. Paradigms and research programmes allow anomalies to be set aside, where there is reason to believe that they arise from incomplete knowledge (about either the substantive topic, or some aspect of the theories implicitly used in making observations.

Larry Laudan: Dormant anomalies, fading credibility, and research traditions

Larry Laudan has also made two important contributions to the debate. Laudan believed that something akin to paradigms exist in the social sciences (Kuhn had contested this, see below); he referred to these as research traditions. Laudan noted that some anomalies become "dormant", if they survive a long period during which no competing alternative has shown itself capable of resolving the anomaly. He also presented cases in which a dominant paradigm had withered away because its lost credibility when viewed against changes in the wider intellectual milieu.

In social sciences

Kuhn himself did not consider the concept of paradigm as appropriate for the social sciences. He explains in his preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that he developed the concept of paradigm precisely to distinguish the social from the natural sciences. While visiting the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1958 and 1959, surrounded by social scientists, he observed that they were never in agreement about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods. He explains that he wrote this book precisely to show that there can never be any paradigms in the social sciences. Mattei Dogan, a French sociologist, in his article "Paradigms in the Social Sciences," develops Kuhn's original thesis that there are no paradigms at all in the social sciences since the concepts are polysemic, involving the deliberate mutual ignorance between scholars and the proliferation of schools in these disciplines. Dogan provides many examples of the non-existence of paradigms in the social sciences in his essay, particularly in sociology, political science and political anthropology.

However, both Kuhn's original work and Dogan's commentary are directed at disciplines that are defined by conventional labels (such as "sociology"). While it is true that such broad groupings in the social sciences are usually not based on a Kuhnian paradigm, each of the competing sub-disciplines may still be underpinned by a paradigm, research programme, research tradition, and/ or professional imagery. These structures will be motivating research, providing it with an agenda, defining what is and is not anomalous evidence, and inhibiting debate with other groups that fall under the same broad disciplinary label. (A good example is provided by the contrast between Skinnerian radical behaviourism and personal construct theory (PCT) within psychology. The most significant of the many ways these two sub-disciplines of psychology differ concerns meanings and intentions. In PCT, they are seen as the central concern of psychology; in radical behaviourism, they are not scientific evidence at all, as they cannot be directly observed.)

Such considerations explain the conflict between the Kuhn/ Dogan view, and the views of others (including Larry Laudan, see above), who do apply these concepts to social sciences.

Handa, M.L. (1986) introduced the idea of "social paradigm" in the context of social sciences. He identified the basic components of a social paradigm. Like Kuhn, Handa addressed the issue of changing paradigm; the process popularly known as "paradigm shift". In this respect, he focused on social circumstances that precipitate such a shift and the effects of the shift on social institutions, including the institution of education. This broad shift in the social arena, in turn, changes the way the individual perceives reality.

Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of "worldview". For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A "dominant paradigm" refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community's cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. Hutchin  outlines some conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm:

• Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm
• Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm
• Journals and editors who write about the system of thought. They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy
• Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm
• Educators who propagate the paradigm's ideas by teaching it to students
• Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm
• Media coverage
• Lay groups, or groups based around the concerns of lay persons, that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm
• Sources of funding to further research on the paradigm

Other uses

The word paradigm is also still used to indicate a pattern or model or an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype. The term is frequently used in this sense in the design professions. Design Paradigms or archetypes comprise functional precedents for design solutions. The best known references on design paradigms are Design Paradigms: A Sourcebook for Creative Visualization, by Wake, and Design Paradigms by Petroski.

This term is also used in cybernetics. Here it means (in a very wide sense) a (conceptual) protoprogram for reducing the chaotic mass to some form of order. Note the similarities to the concept of entropy in chemistry and physics. A paradigm there would be a sort of prohibition to proceed with any action that would increase the total entropy of the system. To create a paradigm requires a closed system that accepts changes. Thus a paradigm can only apply to a system that is not in its final stage.

Beyond its use in the physical and social sciences, Kuhn's paradigm concept has been analysed in relation to its applicability in identifying 'paradigms' with respect to worldviews at specific points in history. One example is Matthew Edward Harris' book The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Idea of Paradigm in Church History. Harris stresses the primarily sociological importance of paradigms, pointing towards Kuhn's second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Although obedience to popes such as Innocent III and Boniface VIII was widespread, even written testimony from the time showing loyalty to the pope does not demonstrate that the writer had the same worldview as the Church, and therefore pope, at the centre. The difference between paradigms in the physical sciences and in historical organisations such as the Church is that the former, unlike the latter, requires technical expertise rather than repeating statements. In other words, after scientific training through what Kuhn calls 'exemplars', one could not genuinely believe that, to take a trivial example, the earth is flat, whereas thinkers such as Giles of Rome in the thirteenth century wrote in favour of the pope, then could easily write similarly glowing things about the king. A writer such as Giles would have wanted a good job from the pope; he was a papal publicist. However, Harris writes that 'scientific group membership is not concerned with desire, emotions, gain, loss and any idealistic notions concerning the nature and destiny of humankind...but simply to do with aptitude, explanation, [and] cold description of the facts of the world and the universe from within a paradigm'.

Autism-friendly

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism-friendly 

Autism-friendly means being aware of social engagement and environmental factors affecting people on the autism spectrum, with modifications to communication methods and physical space to better suit individual's unique and special needs.

Overview

"Opening a window to the autistic brain." An autistic three-year-old pointing to the fish in an aquarium.

Individuals on the autism spectrum take in information from their senses as do neurotypical (non-autistic) people. The difference is they are not able to process it in the same manner as their neurotypical peers and can become overwhelmed by the amount of information that they are receiving and withdraw as a coping mechanism. Additionally, it may be that an autistic person is actually taking in more sensory information and is merely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of input. As such, they may experience difficulty in public settings due to inhibited communication, social interaction or flexibility of thought development. Knowing about these differences and how to react effectively helps to create a more inclusive society. It also better suits the needs of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Being autism friendly means being understanding and flexible in interpersonal conversation, public programs and public settings. For example, a person might think that someone is being rude if they will not look them in the eyes or does not understand cliches like "it's a piece of cake", when in fact there may be a reason for this. Depending upon the individual's level of functioning, a person who hears "it's a piece of cake" may take that literally and not understand that what is really meant is "it will be easy". For someone on the autism spectrum, being in an autism-friendly environment means they will have a manageable degree of sensory stimuli, which will make them calmer, better able to process the sensory stimulation they receive, and better able to relate to others.

Communication and social interaction

See also: Societal and cultural aspects of autism

Organizations interested in spreading awareness about autism and how to be autism friendly, such as The Autism Directory, have created training programs for communities to illustrate how people with autism may communicate or interact differently from neurotypical people, or people without autism. There are also suggestions for how to modify one's reaction to improve communication. Some training examples are:

• When one finds out that someone may not be able to look them in their eyes, one should realize that they are not trying to be rude, and it is uncomfortable for them to do so.
• A person may have difficulty understanding clichés or figurative expressions and interpret a phrase literally. By speaking directly and factually, like saying "It's easy" as compared to "It's a piece of cake", one is more likely to understand the line.
• Body language, facial expressions, gestures, and turning away from someone may be cues that are missed by an autistic person. This is another opportunity for one to be direct and factual, realizing that their body language or social cues may not be picked up.
• The person may have limited vocabulary or speech perception. Patience is helpful here. Allow time for the person to comprehend what was said. Ask how you can help. If they use sign language or a symbol set to communicate, adapt as you are able.

Other pointers are: avoid making loud sounds; do not surprise them, let them know your plans; limit or avoid vigorous activities; and talk or engage in activities that they care about.

Environment

Some people with autism may be hypersensitive to changes in sight, touch, smell, taste and sound; The sensory stimulus could be very distracting or they could result in pain or anxiety. There are other people who are hyposensitive and may not feel extreme changes in temperature or pain. Each of these has implications for making an autism-friendly environment.

Social factors

There are several factors in creating a supportive environment. One of them is adherence to a standard routine and structure. Since change of routine can be quite anxiety-producing for many autistic people, a structured, predictable routine makes for calmer and happier transitions during the day. Another important factor is creating a low-arousal space. Environments with the least amount of disruption will help autistic people remain calm. It is important to speak in quiet, non-disruptive tones and to use a physical space that has a low level of disruption. Having a positive, empathetic attitude and ensuring consistent habits in work, school and recreational activities also help to minimize anxiety and distress and help an autistic person succeed. This is the SPELL approach: Structure – Positive – Empathy – Low arousal – Links. Social stories can be used to communicate ways in which an autistic person can prepare themselves for social interaction.

Physical space

Newport Ty Nant uses modern SMART technology, autism-friendly design features and an autism-specific model of care to allow tenants to have more control over their lives.

There are several ways that the physical space can be designed and organized to be autism friendly. It is important for rooms to be decorated with serenity in mind, like painting the walls with calming colors. Thick carpeting and double-paned glass help to minimize distracting noise (e.g. noise pollution). Materials within the rooms may be organized, grouped and labeled with words or symbols to make items easier to locate.

Topics

Daily life

Autism friendliness can have a significant impact on an individual's interpersonal life and work life, benefited by consistency across all areas of one's life.

Vacations

As the break of routine in family vacations causes distress to some autistic people, many families may avoid taking vacations. Steps can be taken to help make for a successful family vacation. One is sharing information like pictures or internet web pages. There are organizations that will make accommodations, if requested, to better manage common stressors such as uncertainty, crowds and noise disruption. This includes theme parks that allow people with autism to skip long lines and airlines or airports that may allow for a dry-run prior to the trip. Another tip is to prepare prior to the trip so that there is a plan for managing boredom.

Entertainment

Theatre

In the United States, the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) created a program in 2011 to "make theatre accessible to children and adults on the autism spectrum". Called the Autism Theatre Initiative, it is part of their Accessibility Programs, and was done in conjunction with Autism Speaks, Disney and experts who reviewed the performance for areas of modification. Adjustments that have been named for the initiative include: quiet areas in theatre lobby, performance changes that reduced strobe light use and noise, and areas where people can go perform an activity if they leave the theatre. Social stories, which explain what the experience will be like (such as loud noises, needing a break and moving through a crowd), were made available prior to the performance. These performances included Lion King and Mary Poppins.

On London's West End was the premiere of the first autism-friendly performance of Wicked, on 14 May 2016.

Movie cinema

Going to a movie theater can be an overwhelming experience for someone on the autism spectrum. Crowding as people queue up to buy tickets, loud movie volume, and dark theater lighting can all be sensory overload triggers that keep some autistic people from ever seeing movies at the cinema. Some movie theaters are becoming more autism friendly: the lighting is adjusted so it is not so dark, the volume is reduced and queues are managed to prevent crowding. Odeon Cinemas in London has implemented such "sensory-friendly" nights.

In the United States there are also "sensory-friendly" moviegoing experiences to be had through collaboration with the Autism Society of America. Monthly, AMC Theatres (AMC) will provide nights when people on the autism spectrum and their families may experience an autism-friendly movie night. The program is also intended for people with other disabilities whose moviegoing experience will also be improved in such a setting.

Santa Claus

In Canada, malls operated by Oxford Properties established a process by which autistic children could visit Santa Claus at the mall without having to contend with crowds. The malls open early to allow entry only to families with autistic children, who have a private visit with Santa Claus. In 2012, the Southcentre Mall in Calgary was the first mall to offer this service. The children are given a booklet explaining the process, and upon arrival at the mall are placed in a waiting area near Santa Claus before their visit "to ensure their comfort".

Education

Providing the best outcomes for a child on the autism spectrum may be difficult, complicated by each child's unique way of managing communication and interaction with others, associated disorders that make each child's situation unique, and emerging understandings of neurodiversity. Teacher effectiveness can be optimized based upon their awareness of the differences along the autism spectrum, acceptance that each child is unique, engagement of the child in social and educational activities and employment of teaching methods that are found to be helpful with people with developmental disability.

Teachers play a key role in the success of a student on the autism spectrum by helping them to understand directions, organize tasks and support their achievements. One example is organizing and grouping materials together for activities in specific ways.

Teachers give students with autism extra time to answer when they ask them a question. Children with autism take time to process information but they are listening and will respond.

Schools dedicated to being autism friendly, like Pathlight School in Singapore, designed their campus to offer students "dignity" in an autism-friendly environment. There the campus was architecturally designed, landscaped and the interior created with a simple color scheme. All of this helps to avoid triggering sensory overload. There is a high teacher to student ratio, a focus on nurturing, and a comprehensive life-skills training and education program.

In regards to students who show a significant delay in acquiring academic and verbal communication skills, a parent may want to look into an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)-style placement for their child. According to Autism Speaks, ABA can be defined as: behavior analysis focuses on the principles that explain how learning takes place. Positive reinforcement is one such principle. When a behavior is followed by some sort of reward, the behavior is more likely to be repeated. Through decades of research, the field of behavior analysis has developed many techniques for increasing useful behaviors and reducing those that may cause harm or interfere with learning. This is just one example of programming for students with ASD. However, ABA has been classed as abusive to autistics by the autistic community on many occasions and has led to many autistics developing PTSD.

Empathizing-systemizing theory

Empathizing-systemizing theory with video technology can be used to present information in an autism-friendly way that promotes understanding. For instance, computer applications or DVDs of actors making facial expressions to inform how body language provides clues about how someone might be feeling. Or, in the case of The Transporters, interesting items like trains are used to wear faces, drawing in the viewer into the faces.

Justice and law

Being met with an individual in a dark uniform can be intimidating to a person with autism, particularly when they have been a crime victim or are injured. Police and emergency responders may become frustrated, not knowing a person that they are talking to is autistic. The responders may not be communicating in a way that will create understanding and make the situation less stressful. A program has been launched in London, Ontario, Canada to enter information into a database about autistic people so that responding police and emergency personnel are notified when they will be meeting an autistic person and may then communicate in a way that increases understanding and makes the situation less stressful. Autism Alert Cards, for example, are available for autistic people in London, England, UK so that police and emergency personnel will recognize autistic individuals and respond appropriately. The cards, which encourage autism-friendly interaction, have a couple of key points about interacting with people with autism.

Life events

"Neurotypical" people and those on the autism spectrum may have very different ways of communicating their feelings about life events, including:

• Coping with illness, injury and recuperation
• Dealing with dying and death
• Incorporating rituals and traditions for managing life events
• Managing emotions
• Learning from life events

Just because people may process and communicate their feelings differently, though, does not mean it is right or wrong. It is best to be honest and literal to help a person with autism to manage major life events. Providing information, and allowing them time to process it, are other important factors. Lastly, communication tools will also help to process and manage the event.

People on the autism spectrum can help themselves manage situations by being aware of what they are feeling and thinking — and expressing their thoughts to important people in their life. Other tools are being aware of when they need help and asking for it — and thanking people when they have received assistance or a gift.

Technology

Educational technological applications for people with autism include:

Digital talking books

Digital talking books are used to assist people with disabilities, commonly people who are blind, and also for people with autism. One such use is for taped church programs.

Mobile applications

• One of the providers of autism-friendly applications is iPad, which was an interface between the child and the storyteller on a video. By repeating what the narrator says, the children hear themselves tell the story, like Tom the Talking Cat. Reading the stories aloud helps children improve their language and communication skills, as well as improving fine motor skills, social skills and sensory skills.
• Apple iPod applications can be used by people on the autism spectrum to manage tasks at work. It can manage a checklist of tasks and reminder prompts. This helps a person be more calm and effective and rely less on managers or job coaches to prompt for needed work. Tony Gentry, who led research on the application at Virginia Commonwealth University said: "This is an exciting time for anyone in the fields of education, physical rehabilitation, and vocational support, where we are seeing a long-awaited merging of consumer products and assistive technologies for all."

Motion-controlled gadgets

Social media

Types of technology

• Emotion Markup Language is a general-purpose emotion annotation and representation language, which should be usable in a large variety of technological contexts where emotions need to be represented. Emotion-oriented computing (or "affective computing") is gaining importance as interactive technological systems become more sophisticated. For people on the autism spectrum, it can be used to make the emotional intent of content explicit. This would enable people with learning disabilities (such as autism spectrum disorders) to realise the emotional context of the content.

Training for businesses

As the prevalence of autism increases, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that customer-facing organizations have basic tools for communicating with people on the autism spectrum. Tesco, a multinational supermarket chain, has implemented training for its employees to meet the needs of its customers who are on the autism spectrum, which is estimated to be one of every 100 people in the United Kingdom. Employees use an online training site and respond to a questionnaire to assess the extent to which they became more aware of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Tesco is the first company to participate in an awareness program led by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA). The online training and questionnaire tool is intended to be used by many organizations in Wales to identify and commend businesses that are "ASD Aware".

The SERVICE principles have been developed to guide businesses in making no-cost or low-cost changes to their premises and practices. The principles address common challenges that people on the autism spectrum face when they are out in the community. By applying as many principles as possible, businesses can address the most frequently occurring challenges reported by people living with autism. Corrimal, New South Wales, Australia is working towards being the first autism-friendly community in Australia.

Recreational facilities

Inclusive recreation

Inclusive recreation, also called adaptive recreation

• 

  Malibu California surf adaptive recreation

• 

  CDP Images Workshop children with autism

Community involvement

See also: List of films about Autism

Organizations or programs that promote autism-friendly efforts are:

• Autism Awareness Campaign UK
• The Autism Directory in England awards an "Autism Friendly" mark to those companies that undergo The Autism Directory's free autism awareness training. It shows that this particular company has a basic awareness of autism and acts as a good indicator to any potential autistic customers
• Autism Research Institute (US)
• National Autistic Society (UK)
• https://autismfriendlycharter.org.au/ The Autism Friendly Charter is a free online learning platform and inclusive business directory that was developed in partnership with individuals on the autism spectrum and their families to assist businesses, organisations and venues to build understanding, awareness, inclusivity and capacity of the autism spectrum.

Autism rights movement

The rainbow-colored infinity symbol represents the diversity of the autism spectrum as well as the greater neurodiversity movement.

 

Further information: Autism rights movement

There is some effort in the autism community on raising awareness among society, but the very nature of autism can make self-promotion difficult for autistic people.

The autism rights movement encourages autistic people to "embrace their neurodiversity" and encourages society to accept autistics as they are. The movement advocates giving children more tools to cope with the non-autistic world instead of trying to change them into neurotypicals, and says society should learn to tolerate harmless behaviours such as tics and stims like hand-flapping or humming. Autism rights activists say that "tics, like repetitive rocking and violent outbursts" can be managed if others make an effort to understand autistic people, while other autistic traits, "like difficulty with eye contact, with grasping humor or with breaking from routines", would not require corrective efforts if others were more tolerant.

Many people disagree with the aims of the autism rights movement, saying that the movement overstates the gifts associated with autism and may thereby jeopardize funding for research and treatment. Additionally, many parents of autistic children say that the notion of "positive living with autism" has little relevance to them and that autism rights are for "the high-functioning autistics and Aspies who make up the bulk of the movement". Many also say that behavioral therapies provide help in caring for children who are sometimes aggressive and that autism exacts a toll on the entire family.

Autistic pride

Autistic pride refers to pride in autism and shifting views of autism from "disease" to "difference". Autistic pride emphasizes the innate potential in all human phenotypic expressions and celebrates the diversity various neurological types express.

Autistic pride asserts that autistic people are not sick; rather, they have a unique set of characteristics that provide them many rewards and challenges, not unlike their non-autistic peers.

Virtual economy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_economy

A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter these virtual economies for recreation and entertainment rather than necessity, which means that virtual economies lack the aspects of a real economy that are not considered to be "fun" (for instance, avatars in a virtual economy often do not need to buy food in order to survive, and usually do not have any biological needs at all). However, some people do interact with virtual economies for "real" economic benefit.

Despite primarily dealing with in-game currencies, this term also encompasses the selling of virtual currency for real money, in what is sometimes called "open centralised marketplaces".

Overview

Virtual economies are observed in MUDs and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). The largest virtual economies are found in MMORPGs. Virtual economies also exist in life simulation games which may have taken the most radical steps toward linking a virtual economy with the real world. This can be seen, for example, in Second Life's recognition of intellectual property rights for assets created "in-world" by subscribers, and its laissez-faire policy on the buying and selling of Linden Dollars (the world's official currency) for real money on third party websites. Virtual economies can also exist in browser-based Internet games where "real" money can be spent and user-created shops opened, or as a kind of emergent gameplay.

Virtual property is a label that can refer to any resource that is controlled by the powers-that-be, including virtual objects, avatars, or user accounts. The following characteristics may be found in virtual resources in mimicry of tangible property. Note however that it is possible for virtual resources to lack one or more of these characteristics, and they should be interpreted with reasonable flexibility.

1. Rivalry: Possession of a resource is limited to one person or a small number of persons within the virtual world's game mechanics.
2. Persistence: Virtual resources persist across user sessions. In some cases, the resource exists for public view even when its owner is not logged into the virtual world.
3. Interconnectivity: Resources may affect or be affected by other people and other objects. The value of a resource varies according to a person's ability to use it for creating or experiencing some effect.
4. Secondary markets: Virtual resources may be created, traded, bought, and sold. Real-world assets (typically money) may be at stake.
5. Value added by users: Users may enhance the value of virtual resources by customizing and improving upon the resource.

The existence of these conditions create an economic system with properties similar to those seen in contemporary economies. Therefore, economic theory can often be used to study these virtual worlds.

Within the virtual worlds they inhabit, synthetic economies allow in-game items to be priced according to supply and demand rather than by the developer's estimate of the item's utility. These emergent economies are considered by most players to be an asset of the game, giving an extra dimension of reality to play. In classical synthetic economies, these goods were charged only for in-game currencies. These currencies are often sold for real world profit.

Marketplace

The release of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft in 2004 and its subsequent huge success across the globe has forced both MMORPGs and their secondary markets into mainstream consciousness, and many new market places have opened up during this time. A search for WoW Gold on Google will show a multitude of sites (more than 90 sponsored results as of June 2006) from which Gold can be purchased. Real money commerce in a virtual market has grown to become a multibillion-dollar industry. In 2001, EverQuest players Brock Pierce and Alan Debonneville founded Internet Gaming Entertainment Ltd (IGE), a company that offered not only the virtual commodities in exchange for real money but also provided professional customer service. IGE had a trained staff that would handle financial issues, customer inquiries and technical support to ensure that gamers are satisfied with each real money purchase. It also took advantage of the global reach of synthetic worlds by setting up a shop in Hong Kong where a small army of technically savvy but low wage workers could field orders, load up avatars, retrieve store goods and deliver them wherever necessary. This lucrative market has opened a whole new type of economy where the border between the real and the virtual is obscure.

Hundreds of companies are enormously successful in this newfound market, with some virtual items being sold for several million dollars, like Beeple's Everyday. Some of these companies sell multiple virtual goods for multiple games, and others sell services for single games. Virtual real estate is earning real world money, with people like 43-year-old Wonder Bread deliveryman, John Dugger, purchasing a virtual real estate for $750, setting him back more than a weeks wages. This virtual property includes nine rooms, three stories, rooftop patio, wall of solid stonework in a prime location, nestled at the foot of a quiet coastal hillside. Dugger represents a group of gamers that are not in the market for a real house but instead to own a small piece of the vast computer database that was Ultima Online, the mythical world in which the venerable MMO Ultima Online unfolds. Such trading of real money for virtual goods simply represents the development of virtual economies where people come together where the real and the synthetic worlds are meeting within an economic sphere.

Although virtual markets may represent a growth area, it is unclear to what extent they can scale to supporting large numbers of businesses, due to the inherent substitutability of goods on these markets plus the lack of factors such as location to dispense demand. In spite of numerous famed examples of the economic growth of Second Life, an amateur analyst in 2008 estimated the income inequity in Second Life's economy as worse than has ever been recorded in any real economy: a Gini coefficient of 90.2, a Hoover index of 77.8, and a Theil index of 91%. However, the application of these economic measures to a virtual world may be inappropriate where poverty is merely virtual and there is a direct relationship between in-game wealth and time spent playing.

The global secondary market - defined as real money trading between players - turnover was estimated at 880 million dollars in 2005 by the president of the, at the time, market leading company IGE. Before that, in 2004, the American economist Edward Castronova had estimated the turnover at over 100 million dollars based solely on sales figures from the two auction sites eBay and the Korean itemBay. A speculative extrapolation based on these quotes and other industry figures produced a global turnover figure of 2 billion dollars as of 2007.

However, the secondary market is unlikely to have followed the growth of the primary market since 2007 seeing as game companies have become better at monetizing on their games with microtransactions and many popular games such as World of Warcraft are sporting increased measures against player to player real money trading. Also hampering the turnover growth are the extreme price drops that has followed the increased competition from businesses in mainland China targeting the global secondary market. Furthermore, the global decline in consumption that followed the financial crisis of 2007–2008 would have affected the secondary market negatively as well. Post 2007 secondary market growth is likely localized to emerging markets such as Russia, eastern Europe, South America, and South East Asia - all of which are relatively inaccessible to international merchants due to payment systems, advertisement channels and language barrier. For example, South Korea is estimated to have the biggest share of the global real money trading market and it has there become an officially acknowledged and taxable part of the economy. In western countries the secondary market remains a black market with little to no social acceptance or official acknowledgement.

As for an actual economic model, secondary market turnover in popular player vs player oriented MMORPGs without trade restrictions such as Runescape, EVE Online and Ultima Online has been estimated at around 1.1 dollar per concurrent player and day. No model for more regulated MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft has been suggested. However, being a largely unregulated market and tax free market, any turnover figure or economic model remain speculative.

Types of virtual currencies

Standard currency

Many games, both online and off, use a common or standard type of currency that can only be earned in-game and used to spend on in-game items that cannot be traded with other players or converted to real-world funds by means provided by the developer; for example, by completing quests in World of Warcraft, players earn gold pieces that are used to purchase new gear.

Premium currency

Many online games, particularly those that use the freemium model, offer at least one additional form of currency beyond its standard one, called premium currency. Premium currency cannot typically be earned in-game like common currency but instead by purchasing the premium currency using real-world funds. Premium currency typically is limited to purchase time-limited virtual goods, access to new characters or levels, large quantities of standard in-game currency, temporary boosts to the player-character's experience growth, or other goods that cannot be acquired with the common in-game currency. Once premium currency is purchased, it is rare for players to be able to revert the premium currency, or the goods purchased with it, back into real-world funds without selling it to other players through 3rd-party websites, making it a "one-way currency". Most commonly, premium currency must be purchased through microtransactions in bundles of fixed sizes with discounts for larger purchases, and do not allow players to purchase exactly the amount of premium currency they need for a virtual good. This practice tends to encourage the player to buy additional bundles as to minimize their leftover premium currency, a favorable practice for the publisher.

In-game membership items

Some membership-based MMORPGs take advantage of the population of players who wish to buy in-game items with real money through in-game items that can only be generated by buying them from the developer, which can then be redeemed for membership status or traded with other players for items such as in-game currency. This also allows for games to maintain larger audiences of high-level players as they have the resources to buy membership with in-game gold from people who purchase and trade these items for gold. This also allows for an official conversion rate of in-game currency to real world currency to be established, though many 3rd-party item sellers will work to obtain the in-game currency needed to buy the membership items and sell them on 3rd-party markets at a lower real-world price than the official conversion rate. Many games who implement this monetization model often strictly prohibit 3rd-party real world trading and ban players who do so. Some examples of this form of monetization include Runescape's bonds and World of Warcraft's WoW Tokens.

Cosmetic items

Many online multiplayer games have player-run economies of cosmetic items, sometimes involving and encouraging the use of real-world money. Team Fortress 2, a team-based online FPS released by Valve in 2007, is a hero shooter, where players selected from one of several created characters to control. In 2009, Valve introduced hats, virtual goods that could be used to customize the character models. Hats could be earned by players by accumulating in-game material drops and then used to synthesize the hat, or later could be purchased directly using real-world currency through the game's storefront. Valve also expanded this customization beyond hats to include weapons, weapon "skins" which change the appearance of the weapon, and similar means to customize the selected character avatar. In addition, through Valve's digital storefront Steam, players could trade these items, sell them in exchange for monetary credits which could only be used on Steam (from which Valve would take a cut of the sale), or receive them in promotions with other publishers of products they owned. This created a virtual economy around the game, as certain customization items carried status and recognition, giving them a perceived social value status. This created a virtual economy around items in the game, as some rare items, known as "unusuals" by the game community due to various special effects applied, and are seen as having high social value, had traded for as high as US$1,000, and because of the active trading that incorporated real-world money, Valve hired economist Yanis Varoufakis to help manage this.

Valve followed the same pattern with its next major game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where players could earn crates in-game that could be unlocked with keys purchased through real-world funds to obtain weapon skins that were doled out based on a rarity scale, a practice they had started in Team Fortress 2. As with Team Fortress 2 skins, these Counter-Strike skins gained value as status symbols among players coupled with the rarity of certain skins, and became highly valued, and was considered to help boost the popularity of the game. However, as Counter-Strike gained favor as an esport, these skins became part of a larger skin gambling scheme, where grey market websites, integrated with Steam's features, could allow players to use skins to gamble on the results of Counter-Strike esport events, and later just using skins to play games of chance, sometimes skirting many gambling restrictions that virtual and real world casinos are subject to. While some of these websites were taken off line for various reasons, Valve was pressured to prevent abuse of the skin trading systems on Steam.

Many games on Valve's video game marketplace Steam would implement this form of trading in their games, monetizing it by taking a cut of sales revenue from these items, with Valve also doing the same.

Player-driven economy

Some games may have currency systems that are partially or fully controlled by players of the game. Such games offer the means for players to acquire in-game resources which players may then sell or trade with other players, craft into gear which can be sell or traded, and otherwise create an virtual marketplace within the game above and beyond in-game stores established by the developer. This economy may also mix with real-world currency, with players trading in-game items through external websites to the game. EVE Online is a prime example of online game with a vast player-driven economy that, in 2014, was estimated to have a total virtual value of US$18 million based on the trading of the in-game currency. Player-driven economies have led to immaterial labor activities, such as gold farming in World of Warcraft, where some players are paid in real-world funds to spend the time to acquire in-game wealth for other players.

Recent developments

More controlled markets

Price comparison

Information brokerages and other tools that aid in the valuation of virtual items on secondary markets have increased in number. This has occurred as a response to alleviate the labor involved in leveling that requires hours, days or weeks to achieve. Being able to exchange real money for virtual currency provides the player purchasing power for virtual commodities. As such, players are guaranteed opportunities, increased skills and a fine reputation, which is a definite advantage over others.

Taxation

Most scholars agree that the sale of virtual property for real currency or assets is taxable. However, there are significant legal and practical challenges to the taxation of income from the sale of virtual property. For example, uncertainty regarding the nature and conceptual location of virtual property makes it difficult to collect and apportion tax revenue when a sale occurs across multiple jurisdictions.

In addition to taxing income from transactions involving real currency or assets, there has been considerable discussion involving the taxation of transactions that take place entirely within a virtual economy. Theoretically, virtual world transactions could be treated as a form of barter, thus generating taxable income. However, for policy reasons, many commentators support some form of a "cash out" rule that would prevent in-game transactions from generating tax liabilities. Nevertheless, as one commentator notes, "the easier it is to buy real goods with virtual currency (e.g. order a real life pizza) the more likely the IRS will see exclusively in-world profits as taxable." The IRS had included in-game currency as taxable property in forms for calendar year 2019 reporting, but subsequently removed mention of them after complaints were filed about their inclusion.

Gambling regulation

As with the above skin gambling concerns, conversion between in-game and real-world currency has led to direct comparisons with other online games of chance as 'virtual winnings'. This is why gamers and companies engaged in this conversion, where it is permitted by a game, may fall under gambling legislation.

During an interview with Virtual World News, Alex Chapman of the British law firm Campbell Hooper stated: "Now we've spoken with the gambling commission, and they've said that MMOGs aren't the reason for the [Gambling Act 2005], but they won't say outright, and we've asked directly, that they won't be covered. You can see how these would be ignored at first, but very soon they could be in trouble. It's a risk, but a very easy risk to avoid." He suggested that compliance might require MMOGs and related traders to obtain a gambling license, which is not excessively difficult in the EU.

When queried about games where real-world transactions for in-game assets are not permitted, but there is an 'unofficial secondary market', Chapman responded: "Ultimately the point is whether the thing that you win has value in money or money's worth. If it does have value, it could be gambling." So to avoid regulation by these laws, the "operator would need to take reasonable steps to ensure that the rewards they give do not have a monetary value[,]" possibly by demonstrating enforcement of their terms of service prohibiting secondary markets.

Virtual crime

Main article: Virtual crime

Monetary issues can give a virtual world problems similar to those in the real world. In South Korea, where the number of video game players is massive, some have reported the emergence of gangs and mafia, where powerful players would threaten beginners to give money for their "protection", and actually steal and rob.

Other similar problems arise in other virtual economies. In the game The Sims Online, a 17-year-old boy going by the in-game name "Evangeline" was discovered to have built a cyber-brothel, where customers would pay sim-money for minutes of cybersex. Maxis canceled each of his accounts, but had he deposited his fortune in the Gaming Open Market he would have been able to keep a part of it.

A 2007 virtual heist has led to calls from some community members in Second Life to bring in external regulation of these markets: "In late July, a perpetrator with privileged information cracked a stock exchange's computers, made false deposits, then ran off with what appears to be the equivalent of US$10,000, disappearing into thin air. This heist left investors feeling outraged and vulnerable."

In EVE Online however, theft and scamming other players is perfectly allowed within the game's framework as long as no real world trading is committed. Players are allowed to loot all items from fallen victims in battle, but there is a disincentive in the form of NPC police intervention in higher-security space. Virtual possessions valued in the tens of thousands of USD have been destroyed or plundered through corporate espionage and piracy. This has resulted in widespread retributive warfare and crime between various player corporations.

Black market

Many MMORPGs such as RuneScape, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online and Final Fantasy XI strictly prohibit buying gold, items, or any other product linked with the game, with real world cash. RuneScape went as far as making this practice impossible after being threatened by credit card companies when their customers who bought gold had their credit cards stolen to be used for bot accounts to farm even more gold by criminal traders. They did this by removing unbalanced trades and their traditional player vs. player fighting system to prevent players from trading items by killing each other in combat for each other's items (this was scrapped on February 1, 2011, after having been in place for 3 years), resulting in over 60,000 cancelled subscriptions in protest. Final Fantasy XI and Warhammer Online both have entire task forces dedicated to the removal of real money trading from the game. To control real money trading, EVE Online created an official and sanctioned method to convert real world cash to in-game currency; players can use real world money to buy a specific in-game item which can be redeemed for account subscription time or traded on the in-game market for in-game currency.

Stability

Main article: Mudflation

For a persistent world to maintain a stable economy, a balance must be struck between currency sources and sinks. Generally, games possess numerous sources of new currency for players to earn. However, some possess no effective "sinks", or methods of removing currency from circulation. If other factors remain constant, greater currency supply weakens the buying power of a given amount; a process known as inflation. In practice, this results in constantly rising prices for traded commodities. With the proper balance of growth in player base, currency sources, and sinks, a virtual economy could remain stable indefinitely.

As in the real world, actions by players can destabilize the economy. Gold farming creates resources within the game more rapidly than usual, exacerbating inflation. In extreme cases, a cracker may be able to exploit the system and create a large amount of money. This could result in hyperinflation.

In the real world entire institutions are devoted to maintaining desired level of inflation. This difficult task is a serious issue for serious MMORPG's, that often have to cope with mudflation. Episodes of hyperinflation have also been observed.

Non-fungible token

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and thus they are not interchangeable. NFTs can represent digital files such as art, audio, videos, items in video games and other forms of creative work. While the digital files themselves are infinitely reproducible, the NFTs representing them are tracked on their underlying blockchains and provide buyers with proof of ownership. Blockchains such as Ethereum, WAXP, Bitcoin Cash and Flow each have their own token standards to define their use of NFTs.

NFTs can also be used to represent in-game assets which are controlled by the user instead of the game developer. NFTs allow assets to be traded on third-party marketplaces where players of games such as Axie Infinity or MyCryptoHero can trade their tokenised "Axies" or "Heroes".

Capital

In these virtual economies, the value of in-game resources is frequently tied to the in-game power they confer upon the owner. This power allows the user, usually, to acquire more rare and valuable items. In this regard, in-game resources are not just tradable objects but can play the role of capital.

Players also acquire human capital as they become more powerful. Powerful guilds often recruit powerful players so that certain players can acquire better items which can only be acquired by the cooperation among many players.

Other virtual economies

Virtual economies have also been said to exist in the "metagame" worlds of live action role-playing games and collectible card games. Other "metagame" currencies have cropped up in games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft. Dragon kill points or DKP are a semi-formal score-keeping system used by guilds in massively multiplayer online games. Players in these games are faced with large scale challenges, or raids, which may only be surmounted through the concerted effort of dozens of players at a time. Dragon kill points are not official currencies, but are created and managed by endgame guilds to manage distributions of rewards in those raids.

Virtual economies represented not only in MMORPG genre but also in online business simulation games (Virtonomics, Miniconomy). Simplified economy represented in almost all real-time strategies (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2) in a form of gathering and spending resources. Diablo III has its virtual economy as well which is represented by online game auction.

Moderation on social news and networking sites

On a number of discussion and networking sites, such as Slashdot, Reddit, care2 and Yahoo! Answers, points are gained through the garnering of trust evidenced in upward moderations of posted content; however, as stated by Slashdot co-founder CmdrTaco, his implementation of user moderation was not intended as a currency, even though it has evolved on other discussion-oriented sites into such a system. On some such sites, the accumulation of "karma points" can be redeemed in various ways for virtual services or objects, while most other sites do not contain a redemption system.

On some sites, points are gained for inviting new users to the site.

Controversy

See also: Gold farming

A game's synthetic economy often results in interaction with a "real" economy; characters, currency, and items may be sold and bought on online auction websites or purchased from standalone webshops. Since January 2007 users are no longer allowed to sell virtual goods of online games on eBay due to the ambiguous legal status of real world trading.

While many game developers, such as Blizzard (creator of World of Warcraft), prohibit the practice, it is common that goods and services within virtual economies will be sold on online auction sites and traded for real currencies.

According to standard conceptions of economic value (see the subjective theory of value), the goods and services of virtual economies do have a demonstrable value. Since players of these games are willing to substitute real economic resources of time and money (monthly fees) in exchange for these resources, by definition they have demonstrated utility to the user. Some virtual currencies have even accrued higher value and stability than some real world currencies. One example is Runescape's gold coins, which is more valuable and stable alternative to the Venezuelan Bolívar, with many Venezuelan's turning to selling Runescape gold to make a living.

In January 2010, Blizzard stepped up its offensive on account security scams with the launch of a new website. The new Battle.Net account security website hopes to highlight the importance of keeping it safe when it comes to subscribers' accounts.

These pages are part of a larger effort to provide you with the knowledge and tools necessary to identify and report threats to your account's safety, to spotlight ways in which we work to fulfill our security commitment, and to act as a helpful resource in case someone manages to steal account information from you.

Ongoing campaign by WoW fan sites to boycott gold ads on their sites is just one of several community efforts to raise awareness against crackers.

Gold sellers and leveling services are responsible for the vast majority of all account thefts, and they are the number-one source of World of Warcraft-related phishing attempts, spyware, and even credit card theft. Players who buy gold actively support spam, hacks, and keyloggers, and by doing so diminish the gameplay experience for everyone else.

On August 1, 2011, Blizzard Entertainment announced that their forthcoming MMORPG, Diablo III, will include a currency-based auction house, wherein players will be able to buy and sell in-game items for real money. Robert Bridenbecker, Vice President of Online Technologies at Blizzard, explained that the intent behind the effort is largely to reduce account thefts resulting from player interaction with third-party sites. An undisclosed fee structure including listing fees, sale fees, and cash-out fees will accompany the Auction House at launch, and all transactions will exist within the protected context of Blizzard's MMORPG. The "Real Money Auction House" (RMAH), as it is called by the Diablo III fanbase, will exist in the presence of a parallel auction house wherein items are exchanged for gold, the in-game currency. Accordingly, gold can be posted on the RMAH such that the two currencies may be exchanged for one another at the market rate less applicable fees.

Other virtual world developers officially sell virtual items and currency for real-world money. For example, the MMOG There has therebucks that sell for US dollars. If the currency in Second Life, the Linden Dollars, can be easily acquired with real money, the reverse is done through a market place owned by Linden Lab, but is not guaranteed, as the TOS of linden Lab explicitly says that Linden dollars are not redeemable. Rates would fluctuate based on supply and demand, but over the last few years they have remained fairly stable at around 265 Linden Dollars (L$) to the US Dollar, due to "money creation" by Linden Lab. The currency in Entropia Universe, Project Entropia Dollars (PED), could be bought and redeemed for real-world money at a rate of 10 PED for U.S$. 1. On December 14, 2004, an island in Project Entropia sold for U.S. $26,500 (£13,700). One gamer also purchased a virtual space station for U.S. $100,000 (£56,200) and plans to use it as a virtual nightclub. Another example was recently cited on CNBC that one seller was selling a Pokémon Go account for $999,999.

Many Korean virtual worlds (such as Flyff) and other worlds outside that country (such as Archlord and Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands) operate entirely by selling items to players for real money. Such items generally cannot be transferred and are often used only as a means to represent a Premium subscription via a method which is easily integrated into the game engine.

These intersections with real economies remain controversial. Markets that capitalize in gaming are not widely accepted by the gaming industry. Reasons for this controversy are varied. Firstly, the developers of the games often consider themselves as trying to present a fantasy experience, so the involvement of real world transactions takes away from it. Further, in most games, it would be unacceptable to offer another player real currency in order to have them play a certain way (e.g., in a game of Monopoly between friends, offering another player a real dollar in exchange for a property on the board); and for this to be necessary or valuable may indicate a Kingmaker scenario within the game. However, such rules of etiquette need not apply, and in practice they often don't, to massive game worlds with thousands of players who know one another only through the game system.

Further and more involved issues revolve around the issue of how (or if) real-money trading subjects the virtual economy to laws relating to the real economy. Some argue that to allow in-game items to have monetary values makes these games, essentially, gambling venues, which would be subject to legal regulation as such. Another issue is the impact of taxation that may apply if in-game items are seen as having real value. If (for example) a magic sword is considered to have real-world value, a player who kills a powerful monster to earn such a sword could find himself being charged tax on the value of the sword, as would be normal for a "prize winning". This would make it impossible for any player of the game not to participate in real-money trading.

A third issue is the involvement of the world's developer or maintenance staff in such transactions. Since a developer may change the virtual world any time, ban a player, delete items, or even simply take the world down never to return, the issue of their responsibility in the case where real money investments are lost through items being lost or becoming inaccessible is significant. Richard Bartle argued that this aspect negates the whole idea of ownership in virtual worlds, and thus in the absence of real ownership no real trade may occur. Some developers have acted deliberately to delete items that have been traded for money, as in Final Fantasy XI, where a task force was set up to delete characters involved in selling in-game currency for real-world money.

LindeX Market Data

However, Second Life has shown a legal example which may indicate that the developer can be in part held responsible for such losses. Second Life at one stage, offered and advertised the ability to "own virtual land", which was purchased for real money. In 2007, Marc Bragg, an attorney, was banned from Second Life; in response he sued the developers for thereby depriving him of his land, which he – based on the developers' own statements – "owned". The lawsuit ended with a settlement in which Bragg was re-admitted to Second Life. The details of the final settlement were not released, but the word "own" was removed from all advertising as a result. (Bragg purchased his land directly from the developers, and thus they were not an uninvolved third party in his transactions.)