Survey Reveals Need For An "Occupy Azeroth" Movement

While real-world protestors continue taking to the streets in various cities around the U.S. to shout about the gap between the haves and the have-nots, we can all be thankful that someone has taken some time to study the wealth disparity that really matters -- the one that exists in World of Warcraft.

According to a survey given out by The Golden Crusade, the richest 1 percent of WoW players own 24.25 percent of the gold currently circulating in the virtual world. The numbers drop dramatically as you go down, with the bottom 75 percent holding 14 percent of the wealth, the bottom 50 percent owning just over 4 percent, and the bottom 25 percent owning less than 1 percent.

For what it's worth, you probably shouldn't take these numbers as pure gospel. Even the person who administered the survey admits that it may not be accurate. 2,531 results were gathered, but there were numerous points where errors could enter the equation, and the person behind it does not have "a professional background" in economics or statistics.

But assuming that you do buy into the math, what does it actually mean? Here's the fairly interesting conclusion that the study comes to:

The results of this report highlights a large gap in wealth between the upper and lower class players in World of Warcraft. With such a large percentage of players below the mean wealth level, the whole ingame economic system is an extremely top-heavy one, leaving large sums of gold sitting idle in the top players pockets kept isolated from contributing to the economy, which is especially detrimental if one considers that a server economy is the simple flow of gold and materials. One can argue however that by holding such large sums of gold such players can more easily influence and correct markets, keep inflation in check by keeping the sums of gold out of the hands of the masses, and provide buyers for big ticket items such as TCG Mounts.

It is also clear from the results of this report that activities that tend to attract more competitive players, Raiding and PvP, tended to have larger wealth averages amongst it’s participants while more docile activities, Role Playing, had a significantly lower average.Similarly, resource aimed at intermediate to advanced subjects and audiences provided a marked increase in wealth levels, even if the resource was not focused in gold making.In-game “age” proved to have a positive effect on the average wealth levels of players, though whether this is due to pure time to accumulate said gold or from the experience of playing so long, is yet to be determined.

Okay, it's probably a smarter idea to spend your time caring about the financial issues going on in the real world, but this is still an interesting read that shows just how complex money and the market can get in an MMO. I strongly recommend taking a look at the full piece.

[via WoW Insider]