The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the risks in virtual worlds and especially the gaming environment of massively multi-player online games. It gives a pragmatic viewpoint for the analysis of the nature of risk in this business sector, which has not yet been explored. Two main elements are presented: First, some elements regarding technology (conception, creation, and stabilization of virtual worlds) and economy (relations between actors, the phenomenon of rarity linked to the avatars); and second, elements anchored in the shape of a parallel business, where the market value of the virtual between rules and interferences (cheating software, illegal servers, hacking of the systems) plays.
JEL Codes: Z10