An interesting article

[rickyjo]

There's another school with the same program that has a class studying Virtual (World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Second Life) economies... Cool? Yes. The real-world use of such a class is a whole other discussion.

Again I would like to point out that Game theory is something economics majors usually learn.

"The games studied in game theory are well-defined mathematical objects. A game consists of a set of players, a set of moves (or strategies) available to those players, and a specification of payoffs for each combination of strategies....The normal (or strategic form) game is usually represented by a matrix which shows the players, strategies, and payoffs"

A game like starcraft is just an extremely complex chess board with infinitely more objects and move possibilities and a incomprehensibly larger move matrix.

You can see how seamlessly this idea of mapping cause and effect and all potential outcomes fits into economics. It's all about predicting possible outcomes of economic decisions and circumstances.

So although many folks think of these as just games one must realize that a strategy game can in its most base form be turned into a giant cause and effect matrix useful in many areas of study, most notably econ and math. I should get my econ major friend to explain this more properly. It's the coolest thing, I even skimmed one of his books on the topic and it blew me away. I think that's what these odd video game classes must be all about.