Societies in Silico: A Narrative Review of Virtual Worlds and MMO Research from Castronova's Exodus to Social Presence
Year: 2026
Type: review
Abstract: Virtual worlds---persistent, shared, graphical environments with their own economies and societies---became a research field when millions began living part-time inside them, and their study now spans economics, sociology, law, and design. This article presents a narrative review of the field's canonical line: Bartle's 1996 player taxonomy and 2003 design treatise, Kollock's 1999 online cooperation, Castronova's 2001 virtual-world economic survey and 2005 Synthetic Worlds, Dibbell's 1998 My Tiny Life, Taylor's 2006 Play Between Worlds, Yee's 2006 demographics and motivations, Ducheneaut and colleagues' 2006 Alone Together?, Nakamura's 2002 cybertypes, Nardi and Harris's 2006 collaborative play, Lastowka and Hunter's 2004 laws of virtual worlds, and the contemporary synthesis. The synthesis is organized around three themes: societies and economies, in which in-world markets, governance, and migration were analyzed as real phenomena with real stakes; identity and presence, in which avatars, gender, race, and community reorganized sociality's study; and design and law, in which persistence, player types, and property rights became the craft's and jurisdiction's problems. It is concluded that virtual worlds made online life measurable---and that their research legacy is the social science of persistent digital society now applied everywhere.
Authors: Revista, Zen, GAME, 10
Institution: Faculdades Guarulhos
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204691995