Time Distribution of Game Players and Economic Gross Replacement: The Replacement of GDP by Virtual Economic Activity

On-line virtual games and community have becoming a new way of entertainment and networking. As people exhibit different activities in the virtual world as the real world, obsession in virtual world enjoyment might seems to reduce peoplepsilas time on real life consumption, job, which seems to jeopardize their job performance and curtail the revenue generated from the real world. This article tried to analyze the effect of virtual activities on the macro-economy. We find that virtual activities, which include in-world activities and inter-world activity, do generate economic value and make contribution to the GDP for the whole country. We also develop a method on how to measure the net replacement effect of the virtual economic activity on real GDP, and the net effect on Mega-GDP. Data from Second Life demonstrates that the virtual game and online community has positive effect on the mega-GDP and is beneficial to the economy.