Any online game with an auction/sale system has an active economy with laws of supply and demand, which as I gather most businesses adhere to.

[...] wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo your family thinks that you’ll never amount to anything because you sit around in your bathrobe all day managing your World of Warcraft guild. Maybe. Maybe not. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, you could be modeling the coming wave in leadership styles. The lengthy, multi-page piece is definitely worth a read, but here are a few snippets to whet your appetite - and maybe help keep the family off your back: A lot of work will be done by global teams… that are assembled for a single project and then disbanded.(GP: sounds like a raid, no?) Collaboration within these geographically diverse groups will, by necessity, occur mainly through digital rather than face-to-face interaction. What on earth will leadership look like in such a world—a world whose features have already begun to transform business? Suspend your skepticism for a moment when we say that the answers may be found among the exploding space stations, grotesque monsters, […] [...]

Related: Gary Larson's "hopeful parents" cartoon. (Google "far side" "hopeful parents".)

[...] like being a game-master in a pen & paper rpg can do wonders for your creative mind this is not exactly a revelation for many of us. Hone your leadership skills in a virtual world then take it tostreet. read more | diggstory [...]

[...] GamePolitics wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo your family thinks that you’ll never amount to anything because you sit around in your bathrobe all day managing your World of Warcraft guild. Maybe. Maybe not. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, you could be modeling the coming wave in leadership styles. The lengthy, multi-page piece is definitely worth a read, but here are a few snippets to whet your appetite - and maybe help keep the family off your back: A lot of work will be done by global teams… that are assembled for a single project and then disbanded. Collaboration within these geographically diverse groups will, by necessity, occur mainly through digital rather than face-to-face interaction. What on earth will leadership look like in such a world [?] …the answers may be found among… Eve Online, EverQuest, and World of Warcraft. Despite their fantasy settings, these online play worlds… in many ways resemble the coming environment we have described and […] [...]

If you want to look at business leadership look at eve-online.

More than one player heads an alliance of a thousand+ players spread across multiple sub groups. Each sub group has different focuses and different internal structures.

If the alliance holds sovereignty in any territory there is a huge amount of work involved in keeping it. A complicated logistics chain is needed to keep Player owned Structures fueled and operational. When you add combat operations and command to that pile, its becomes a nightmare with a huge amount of burnout. It usually takes a strong personality to keep corps within the alliance from outright fighting.

Even a small industrial corp needs products from mining, research, salvaging, and moon harvesting. These can be acquired in corp, or bought at one of the major trade hubs. Its not uncommon to see corps negotiate supply contracts with other corps. Then you have to find a market to sell your products, then you have to transport them.

Huge amount of work.

I definitely agree with this. When I was a junior in high school, I help run a Mechwarrior 4 clan. Setting up schedules for matches, scheduling practices, coming up with strategies, and learning how to deal diplomatically with issues that come up when leading a group of different people. It is definitely valuable and I learned a lot about leading a team and working with people.

I used to organise 6-man group raids in an MMORPG called Anarchy Online and I have to say it's a lot harder than leading people in my normal job. For one, people often show there worst online, especially if they don't know you in-game. In real-life they usually are the opposite.

[...] [Via GamePolitics] [...]