What is virtual economy?
Edward Castronova first used the phrase virtual economy in 2006 to refer to artificial economies inside online games, especially when the artificially scarce goods and currencies of those economies are traded for real money.
The phrase was subsequently adopted among game scholars and in the game industry.
Lately, Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta & Dr. Mirko Ernkvist's work, Knowlege Map of the Virtual Economy, defines virtual economy as the artificial economies inside online games, including the artificially scarce goods, currencies, and other intangible commodities, such as human effort and trading for real money.
