Ashish Sharma: Real Life economy isn't fun

GDP grew 7% for October-December over a year-ago period, exceeding estimates

A video game called Real Life recently published gross domestic product data for its India edition. GDP (an in-game metric that shows the total value of all goods and services produced in Real Life’s India edition) grew 7 per cent for October-December over a year-ago period, exceeding estimates. Thus, the India edition retained the title of Real Life’s fastest-growing major economy, despite the alleged pain brought by an in-game shock feature called demonetisation (fancy for note ban). Real Life makers say note ban was necessary to crack down on dirty money, to fully virtualise the in-game currency (rupee), and to prompt a shift to digital transactions. This shift, they say, would make India edition more virtual, more immersive, more fun. And, would “lift GDP growth even further”.

Having played Real Life for 28 years now, I am reluctant to believe this video game could be fun, let alone making it more fun. Take a rural employment guarantee plan called MGNREGS. Under this, I roleplay as a rural guy, and earn around Rs 200 per day for digging ditches. Does that sound fun? No. Rival video game SmallWorlds does better by dropping 1,000 tokens on sign-up for free, and not asking me to dig ditches in return. I am free to spend the money in the most productive way. MGNREGS, then, seems the worst video game plot designed by in-game characters called bureaucrats and politicians. What’s more, over 100 rural characters decided to drop out of Real Life in 2016. In player parlance, farmers committed suicide. 

They could have moved to another edition of Real Life offering better gameplay such as the US edition (migration in parlance) but they didn’t even have the resources for that. Even if they did, they would have been swept back by the current wave of anti-globalisation. Even gamers with advanced skills (doctors, engineers) find Real Life migration tough, with the US edition coming down hard on immigrants. Planets in Eve Online, by contrast, leak no sweat over free inter-stellar trade with each other, for they know trade deficits  and surpluses are silly economic abstractions. 

So, who would want to play Real Life which is unpredictable (note ban), anti-trade (Trump), and anti-fun (economy designed by unimaginative bureaucrats)? 

Not me. I spend most of my day jacked into Second Life. It’s programmable to produce any scene desired. Think of it as an infinitely pleasing toy, for free. 

As an observer, I have always been puzzled by this toy’s effect on users. Economists say people pursue activities that please them. Then why do I and others pop out of Second Life time to time? Probably because we have Real Life jobs to keep. And this is where things get interesting. Let’s say my hours in Second Life result in Rs 12,000 monthly (I dance at a bar). My Real Life take-home pay, on the other hand, is Rs 18,000 monthly (I chase commas at a newspaper). So, my total contribution to Real Life India economy is Rs 30,000 monthly. We add Rs 30,000 to GDP of Real Life’s India edition, noting that 40 per cent came from Second Life. But what about all the tips that I got at the Second Life bar, which I did not cash out? After all, I made a lot of Second Life dollars from happy customers that I never sold for rupee. 

This means any value I produce in Second Life, be it service (dancing) or product (naughty-secretary glasses), is lost to Real Life if Second Life dollars measuring that value are stashed away in Second Life itself. Now imagine a future where most of us spend most of our time in games like Second Life, because Real Life jobs don’t offer fun (even if they offer high wages), because Real Life economy is not fun (bureaucrats don’t keep fun in mind while designing policies, but creators of other games do). 

So, the economy of India edition will end up working like me — 60 per cent of production in Real Life, 40 per cent in Second Life. Worse, if people like me don’t cash out of Second Life, GDP in Real Life’s India edition will fall 40 per cent. People will migrate not to the US edition, but to virtual worlds. 

And GDP is not the only thing which will fall. Tax collections would as well. This could be a severe economic collapse and the power of government could wane as people would start asking bureaucrats and employers why is your economy and job less fun than Second Life’s economy and dance bar. 
 

ashish.sharma@bsmail.in