World of Facecraft

World of Facecraft, or “Facecraft” is an idea I came up with a few years ago.  Basically, it’s the idea that someone can combine World of Warcraft and Facebook to create a private economy with multiple currencies.

Imagine if you will:  You buy this new game called Facecraft and create an account.  You make three characters, a wizard, a fighter, and a custom class that you call “Reading Teacher,” because you were, afterall, a reading teacher for 6 years before being laid off last semester.  You log on one evening and go to do a quest which will reward you with some gold and experience with which you can upgrade you character, buy things, and give your character cool outfits, new weapons, or even advertizing space on the server’s “wall”.  One quest you notice is: teach my daughter to read.

Of course, your wizard and fighter characters can’t do this quest, so you log on to your teacher character and read a few of the specifics of the quest.  You get 100 gold after doing a quick phone interview and accept the job.  For one hour of teaching, you get 100 experience and 100 gold.  But you must drive to the student’s house and meet the parents, assess the child’s reading level, design a syllabus and teach an hour-long class twice a week for 10 weeks.  You quickly do the math and realize: that’s 2 times a week x 10 weeks x 100 gold and exp = 2000 gold and 2000 exp, which would put you up to level 3 and get you enough gold to buy that cool flying mount you have seen others using.  Do you do it? 

Driving across town seems a lot of trouble, and making a syllabus is a lot of work, not to mention the commitment to 20 classes.  You’re not sure you want to do all that just for some stupid flying mount, which is just pixels on a screen anyway.  So you decline the quest.  But your wife comes into the room and asks you how your job search is going.  You, of course, quickly minimize the game and open Monster.com and point to the resume on the screen and say something like, “I’m just posting some resumes now.” She kisses you and tells you that she’s going to help your mother make some dinner.

Back in the game you walk away from the quest giver and head over to the market place.  In the market, there are vendors of all kinds hawking their wares.  One of them is selling vegetables, real vegetables, the kind you can actually eat in real-life, to anyone who lives in your city.  Apparently he has a small crop in his backyard and you can have them delivered to your house, in an hour.  The cost is 100 gold.

Now why would someone offer to deliver vegetables?  They’re probably not safe to eat anyway if they were grown in some guy’s backyard.  And who knows if he’s a real vegetable seller or just some criminal waiting for you to open your door so he can stick a gun in your face?  He does have a semi-long list of reviews.  He says he’s willing to let you pick your own vegetables from his backyard if you have a reputation of more than 500 with the vegetable grower’s guild.  (Your reputation is 0.) 

Suddenly it hits you: Facecraft has introduced a new currency: virtual gold pieces.  You earn gold in the game, and exchange them for real things from other Facecraft players. Wait—they’ve introduced 3 new currencies: gold, experience and reputation.  Wait, there’s another currency.  What was that list of reviews that the vegetable seller had?  A currency.  So on Facecraft, you have to quest, play, and even work, to build up these currencies so you can do what? make your character look cool and—eat?  What would your wife say about that?

There are other websites offering to buy your virtual gold for real cash.  100 gold for 10 bucks.  There’s also websites offering to sell you gold for cash.  It’s all too much.  Maybe playing as a fighter would be easier than playing as a teacher.  Or maybe taking that job teaching that little girl how to read suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, even if you are only earning gold in a game.  Facecraft could be a new economic engine for the new breed of jobless computer owners out there, you think. 

Later that night after you eat, your wife asks you what you’re going to do tomorrow.  You think about the quest you accepted and say, “I have to work.”  Your mother’s mouth drops open.  Your wife kind of stops moving suddenly.

“Work, like a job?”

“It’s just one class, twice a week.”

“How much does it pay?”

“Ten bucks an hour,” you say.

She shrugs.  “Well, it’s not great, but it’s not horrible.  Where did you find the job?”

“Online,” you say.

“And it’s full time—or part time…”

“It’s just one class, one student, so it’s part time. Twice a week.”

“Well, it’s something.  20 bucks a week is enough to buy some groceries,” she says.  “And maybe this website you found could get you more jobs.”

“Yeah,” you agree.  “I just have to build up my reputation a little, and more jobs will open up at higher level—I mean pay level, I’m sure.”

She eyes you curiously at that remark, but doesn’t ask anything more.

Later that night, the doorbell rings.  It’s the backyard-vegetable guy with a bag of food.  You earned 100 gold advance from the little girl’s parents after doing the interview. He asks you your game name. “Rorax,” you say. Then hands you the sack of tomatoes, which are slightly small and a little yellow, some cucumbers, which look delicious, and some dirty carrots and potatoes.  “Thanks for the food,” you say. 

“Thanks for the gold,” he says.  “I’m saving up for a flying mount.” He shakes your hand and smiles.  “Don’t forget to leave a review,” he says before walking away.

When a bank loans you a bunch of money, but they don’t actually have that money lying around in their vaults, isn’t that like making currency? Perhaps after relying on the banks for so many years to make our currencies out of thin air, why can’t we make currencies ourselves? Personally, I would rather deal in a basket of currencies than rely on only one currency, because if that currency fails, I could always use another.

What if the website crashes?

Has Facebook crashed? Has World of Warcraft crashed? There are glitches, sure, but not the kind of glitch that costs the country untold trillions, like when the stock market crashed in October of 2008. Besides, its not like a player has to completely switch over to Facecraft for survival. He can still have a normal job in the real world. But what’s a job for if not to pay for things, and if you can buy real things in a game, what’s the difference, right?

The government might have a thing or two to say about it, because it’s awfully hard to tax virtual gold pieces, and how are you supposed to tax reputation or experience? But when I sell a toy on ebay, the government doesn’t come knocking on my door asking for 20% of that sale either.

This is a work in progress. Comments?  Send to talonflade@hotmail.com