Oct 27 2009
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Virtual consumption: the thesis | Virtual Economy Research Network
A PhD thesis in the growing issue of consumption of virtual goods. Seen from the perspective that our economies are shifting towards producing and consuming experiences instead of products and services this trend isn’t hard to explain.
- People buy virtual goods for the same reasons as they buy material goods. In online spaces, virtual goods can function as markers of status, elements of identity and means towards ends in the same way as material consumer goods do in similarly contrived physical spaces, says Lehdonvirta.
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- From a macroeconomic perspective, it does not matter what consumers buy, as long as they keep on spending. Virtual consumption might offer an ecological way out of this consumer society’s dilemma, says Lehdonvirta.
