One of the rocks that players and academics often throw at developers is that their virtual worlds "aren't democratic". Democracy is good; virtual worlds aren't democratic; therefore, virtual worlds are bad.
OK, so players often use "not democratic" as a short-hand for "not a democracy in which I am the president", and academics often use it as a short-hand for "not Utopia", but they do have a point: on the whole, virtual worlds really aren't democratic. Nevertheless, as Ted points out in his book, this is a consequence of players' having no reason to want to be political leaders: they'd get responsibility, but no power.
However, players do organise themselves politically, typically in what have come to be called "guilds". These aren't usually democratic either, but they do represent player self-governance. Furthermore, some of these guilds can get quite big.
So, here's a scenario. Suppose that a guild got large enough that the players in it wanted their own server, for guild members only. They approach the developer, the developer says OK, and sets up a special server that can only be accessed if you have the guild's say-so. This would leave the running of the entire virtual world up to the guild; guild officers could even be given customer service powers if that's what the guild wanted.
It's only hypothetical, but it does raise some interesting questions. Would developers ever want players to run their worlds like this? Would such a guild-operated world address players' and academics' complaints about lack of accountability? Would it wipe out RMT on that server? Would it be sustainable, if the guild had the right critical mass, or would it inevitably fail? What are the legal issues, eg. if someone put in a minimum wage claim for their CSR work, whom would they sue? Would developers still get rocks thrown at them for not being democratic?
Thought experiments: don't you love 'em?
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