Last modified: 2023-10-20
Abstract
This research aims to explore posthumanism economies occuring in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG). Ragnarok Online: Next Generation (ROX) is a development of the legendary online game Ragnarok Online providing players with the virtual world living experience. MMORPG game is a life simulation that has a social system and an economic system driven by the players.
This is a descriptive qualitative research. Data were collected by a virtual ethnographic approach with observation of the game structure and interview with players of this game. This research is describing data related to game structure, identifying the relationship between virtual currency and real currency and analyzing the economic system in the game as the concept of posthumanism.
The research results show that virtual currency has a close relationship with real currency related to in-game transactions to speed up and simplify game progress. ROX also shows a simulation of a real-world economic system with the existence of capitalist domination as shown by the dominance of one of the main guilds and a small group of players known as whales. Apart from that, market mechanisms occur between servers in the circulation of virtual currency in accordance with the concept of supply and demand.