00:00Every person who's played video games has been told by someone who doesn't that we're wasting our time,
00:06and to every one of those people we can say that there's plenty to learn from games and the people who play them.
00:12From social influence to economics, systems built into virtual worlds are based off of and have an effect on real life.
00:20Video game researcher Demetri Williams uses games as a tool to study real-world behavior,
00:25discovering that people often attach similar value and emotion to in-game money as they do to real-world money,
00:32like in Destiny 2, which utilizes virtual currencies, prompting players to consider their worth and economic implications.
00:40Games like World of Tanks enable researchers to explore how virtual purchases and player interactions influence each other.
00:48We were able to look at when this player buys a virtual tank.
00:52Do their friends then buy the virtual tank, Williams said in an interview with Marketplace?
00:57If they play more, do their friends play more?
00:59And so we could find who the influences are in their systems.
01:04These virtual worlds offer educational opportunities,
01:07and some students make money for tuition by streaming themselves playing video games,
01:12indicating that gaming has become a source of financial knowledge for younger generations.
01:17So the next time someone tells you you're wasting your time,
01:21you can tell them that the real in-game currency is knowledge.
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