Valve hires in-house economist

Valve has hired economics professor Yanis Varufakis, who will be helping the games company navigate the labyrinth of digital economies.

Varufakis, a native of Athens, has become well known for mixing labyrinths and economics as an influential commenter on the Euro Zone Crisis, and author of "The Globabl Minotaur".

It was this work which drew the attention of Valve president Gabe Newell, who had been following Varufakis’blog.

"I’m the president of a videogame company,” began Newell’s letter to Varufakis.

"We are running into a bunch of problems as we scale up our virtual economies, and as we link economies together. Would you be interested in consulting with us?”

Varufakis, who had not played a video game since space invaders in the ’80s, almost deleted the e-mail before reading the second line, but wrote "something in my head prevented me from pressing the DEL key".

For the full story, visit Develop.