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  • 银行危机现身网络虚拟世界“第二人生”

    2007-08-24

    [2007.08.16]Trouble in paradise

    A credit crunch in cyberspace

    Trouble in paradise
    "伊甸园"中也会有烦恼

    Aug 16th 2007
    From The Economist print edition

    The banking crisis finds an echo in Second Life
    银行危机现身网络虚拟世界“第二人生”

    IN VIRTUAL worlds you may be able to fly, but the laws of economic gravity still apply. Last week, when real-life financial markets suffered a credit crunch, Second Life, the much-ballyhooed 3D online world, experienced its first bank run. This featured avatars, electronic alter egos, lining up in front of virtual teller machines, trying to withdraw so much money that it forced the bank, Ginko Financial, to cease operations and turn deposits into perpetual bonds. Some predict that the virtual economy is in for its first financial crisis.
         在虚拟世界中虽然人可以自由飞翔，但是经济规律却依然存在。上周，现实世界中的金融市场遭受了一场信用紧缩，但与此同时，网络上大肆宣扬的“第二人 生（SL）” 3D世界却首次尝试了银行运转。这些异型的网络虚拟人物在提款机前排起了长队，试图从SL中最大的银行Ginko Financial提取巨款，结果银行因此停止了运转，所有存款变成了永久债券。有人预言：虚拟世界中的经济将要面临首次金融危机。

                                                   
      Withdrawal symptoms

    Such fears seem overdone. In contrast to real life, financial institutions do not play a big role in Second Life's economy. It is dominated by land speculation, the sale of digital objects, such as attractive body parts for new avatars, and gambling—until it was outlawed last week for legal reasons, possibly triggering the bank run.
        这样的恐惧似乎有些过度夸张。与现实社会相比，金融机构对SL虚拟世界的经济并没有多大影响。虚拟世界中影响力最大的要属土地投机，数字产品（一些诱人的 高级装备等网络虚拟商品）的出售，还有就是赌博，而赌博使SL在上周被宣布为不合法，从而触发了银行在SL中的运行。

    That said, Second Life is certainly gripped by irrational exuberance, paralleling all those risk-blind investors in dubious derivatives. When a new audience discovered the virtual world last autumn, it seemed to have found a second paradise. The press loudly sang its praises. Not wanting to miss out on the next big thing, scores of well known real-life companies, such as Coca-Cola and IBM, set up shop in the virtual world. Attracted by features, such as teleportation and the possibility to make some Linden dollars (which can be exchanged into real bucks), new users signed up at a rate of nearly a million a month.
         也就是说，“第二人生”确实处于非理性繁荣控制下，所有那些在其可疑的周边产业中盲目冒险的投资者们也是如此。去年秋季有人发现网络虚拟世界似乎就 是我们的第二个天堂。新闻报道中也高度颂扬了我们的第二天堂。为了不错过更大的机遇，大量像可口可乐，通用电气等大公司也在虚拟世界中开店做起了生意。由 于可以远距离传送和可以赚到林登币（SL中可用的游戏币，可以用真正的货币兑换），现在在SL中每月注册的新用户可达近百万。

    All this transformed Second Life into an extremely fast-growing economy, if you believe the numbers of Linden Lab, the service's San Francisco-based owner. It grew by 15-20% a month during the past two years. And until recently, Linden Lab could not add servers fast enough to meet the demand for additional virtual land, which must be bought for real dollars, an important source of revenue for the outfit. The digital territory has thus expanded to more than 700 square kilometres—about eight times the size of Manhattan.
         上述所有因素使“第二人生”中的经济迅猛增长，你还要相信位于圣弗朗西斯科的本游戏服务机构“林登实验室”数量庞大。在过去的两年中，他的数量在以 每月15-20%的速度增长。然而，最近，林登实验室已经来不及添置足够的的服务器已来满足对于虚拟土地不断增长的需求。在SL中，这些虚拟土地是要用真 实货币购买的，是获得装备收入的重要来源。SL中虚拟的数字领土已经扩展到700多平方公里——相当于八个美国曼哈顿州的面积。

    Yet even before Ginko's collapse, public opinion had turned against Second Life. This was in part because of the media backlash typical with an over-hyped technology, but also because reality has intruded online. Many users experience this parallel world as a lonely one, despite the existence of 7.7m registered residents as of June. Only 10% of new users are still active after 30 days and at any given time only between 20,000 and 50,000 are logged on. Most corporations hardly attract any online visitors, which is why some firms have already closed their branches. Real money is being made by only a happy few.
        虽然Ginko银行还未倒闭，但是社会舆论已然将矛头指向“第二人生”。从某些方面来看，这是由于媒体对过于夸张的网络技术产生对抗性的反应，而现实社会 中的因素侵入网络虚拟世界也是一方面原因。尽管六月份注册的用户有770万，许多用户在这个虚拟世界中仍感到孤单。仅有10%的新用户在一个月后仍然情绪 高昂，而且不论什么时候游戏登陆的都只有2万到5万人。大部分公司现在几乎招揽不到在线游客了，因此有些公司不得不关闭一些分公司。能为赚到钱而感到欣喜 的已寥寥无几。

    Still, Second Life is unlikely to experience the same hard landing as the market for subprime mortgages. In fact, compared with other virtual worlds before it, Second Life's economy and its currency have been tightly managed. To ensure that the Linden dollar does not stray too widely from an exchange rate of L$270 to the American dollar, Linden Lab uses a set of monetary instruments, allowing it to inject or mop up liquidity. It also intervenes on a Second Life currency exchange, called LindeX, which even features automatic circuit breakers if trading gets too frantic.
        尽管如此，“第二人生”不会面临市场次级抵押的窘境。其实，与他之前的虚拟世界相比，SL的经济和流通管理相对严格。为了使汇率不偏离270林登币兑换一 美元太多，林登实验室运用了一系列货币手段，使它可以注入或抽离流动资金。被称作“林登X”的手段会干预SL中的货币兑换，一旦交易变化过于强烈，它可以 启用自动电路断路器来阻止上述情况发生。

    The real economic policy tests, however, are yet to come. Will Linden Lab be willing to prop up its currency if growth slows down (which it apparently already has begun to do) or if many users start selling their Linden dollars? Will the firm, which so far has preferred a laissez-faire approach, introduce regulation, to avoid further bank runs, say? If Second Life has trouble answering such questions, it can take solace from the fact that they are proving pretty tricky in real life too.
       然而对于经济政策真正的考验，尚未来临。当增速放缓（目前已经出现），或者大批玩家开始抛售林登元的时候，林登实验室还会愿意维持他的货币（使之汇率稳 定）吗？这个一直以来一直推行自由经济政策的公司，还会采取更多的监管措施来防止进一步的挤兑行为吗？即使“第二人生”觉得回答这类问题很难，他们也大可 以自我安慰，因为事实证明，这些问题在现实生活中也是很难应付的

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