April 2026: Dewey is a post-apocalypse novel about AI and religion. AI will not shoot us, it will lure us into permanent virtual reality. The kill-switch is sacramental religion: Liturgies like the Eucharist that cannot be done virtually, that require the physical presence of real human bodies.
JULY 2025: I was honored to be appointed by the Governor of Indiana, Mike Braun, as the Commission’s faculty representative. The Commission is the highest administrative body in the state for post-secondary education.
FEBRUARY 2025: This talk is about AI and its threat to our connection to reality. I argue that religious people are insulated from this risk because they treat the body as holy.
I now post on X on Technology, Fertility, and Religion @nuthatch9s.
At GameDeveloper, I wrote about the irrationality of playing rationally against irrational players, or, the folly of using pure logic to predict the behavior of players.
There is much panic today about falling birthrates. I predicted this 15 years ago in “Fertility and Virtual Reality.” Updated predictions inside.
Mike Lee of ABC News has moved to Substack. He had me on for a long-form interview about 2040: An American Insurgency, my board game about a future civil war in the US. We talk about the rising risks and the need for getting along. Watch here.
JUNE 2023: The Alcoholics Anonymous Game is now free! Easy, no-pressure way to talk about the realities of alcoholism and drinking. Perfect for therapy or at-home play. DOWNLOAD HERE. The original article about the game is here.
Best Practices for Game Economy Design Targeted to people with a little experience in in economy design who are looking for best practices before diving deeper.
In a new paper at Kyklos (paywalled, sorry), I develop a basic economic theory of fame. I think this may be the start of a more general economic theory of attention. In the next decades, attention may become fairly central to economic thinking, as the virtual economy gradually overtakes the real economy.
I have joined the Academic Freedom Alliance. This organization worries about the right of academics to engage in sincere discussions, even if they might go into hot territory.
This game simulates an American civil war in the year 2040. There is also a free version suitable for classroom exercises.
I just published a paper in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture (vol. 25, no. 4, Fall 2022). Sadly, it is behind a paywall. As religious ideas are increasingly marginalized in the real world, why do they keep showing up in video games?
20 years of experience analyzing virtual economies, in a nutshell.
Webinar hosted by Machinations, a company I am working with on virtual economy design.
GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!
A new interview, wherein I express skepticism for the current metaverse real estate craze, while also expressing confidence in the long-run growth of virtual living because the real world is not very nice for lots of people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Ej5w_weEk
Some years ago I wrote a parable for a client about autonomous agent based models. It was rather buried, but it keeps getting hits. So, I am putting it here on the main page. https://edwardcastronova.com/2017/11/03/wile-e-coyote-and-the-computationally-simulated-roadrunner/
Podcast with Grant Martsolf of the Beatrice Institute, talking about my most recent book, Life is a Game. Wide-ranging conversation on games, life, God, technology, and society. https://beatriceinstitute.org/ted-castronova-episode
Any investments made today, before the reckoning between blockchain and the System, are exposed to an extreme level of political risk.
Talking to Word on Fire Ministries about video games as a site for religious expression.
These stories lure us in by making common cause with ordinary people. They seem to express, and ally with, our frustration and hopelessness with a world gone mad…Yet it’s a trick. The same people who commiserate with those on the screen are busy offstage perpetuating the misery.
Words and Games 