There.com's Virtual World & Economy

I)ruid writes "Unlike the virtual economies that have sprung forth from EverQuest, other MMORPG's, and sites such as eBay, this virtual world's economy is actually supported by its creators. Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy? Only time will tell..." We did a previous story on There (a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it).

Comments

As opposed to?

[Telastyn]

The "normal" economy is based on perception of wealth and value rather than accumulation of rare metals. Why should this be any less viable? [beyond the fact that it's perception will be weaker because it's "new"]

I dunno ...

[B3ryllium]

I think I might prefer The Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Can't search for it, but you could link to it

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

From the previous story, you can find There here.
--

Re:Can't search for it, but you could link to it

[Dog and Pony]

you can find There here

Funny thing, when you get there, it is suddenly here, and the here you started from is there. And never shall the two meet. ;)

An answer to your question

[krog]

Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy?

As long as there enough miserable bastards to dump all their cash into their online "life", sure. Just don't count on too many well-adjusted patrons.

Fake Money ---- Real Money?

[MarvinMouse]

The biggest problem with this system is it just makes it so much easier to do fraud.

Look at everquest, when that bug was found that gave you millions of dollars. The inflation became absolutely rampant, and many people who didn't have the millions to survive the inflation were screwed.

And now these guys are offering way to convert your real money to and from fake money so you can buy nonexistant products? I so see this being a major economical security risk. Especially since there is no guarantees anywhere on the money, and all it would take is a simple bug and the entire economy of "There" would basically become meaningless.

Re:Fake Money ---- Real Money?

[ccnull]

Precious metals are fake money too -- they are only valuable because people say they're valuable (some industrial uses for gold and platinum notwithstanding). The diamond trade is an even better example; if you've ever tried to privately sell a diamond you'll realize the value is far less than what you paid for it -- even if it's in the same condition as when you bought it? Why? Because the cartels keep prices high by controlling the supply and the brokerage of the gems. My point here is only that the "gold standard" isn't any more valid than any other standard. Come to think of it, an "oil standard" would be an interesting proposition...

Also note that even if you try to buy an ounce of gold from a metals broker, rarely will you actually get the gold -- you'll get a certificate for the gold, much like buying corporate stock. If "the government collapses" do you really think you'll be able to go pick up your gold bars?

Just don't look to closely at the debate -- the whole system might fall apart. Nasdaq, anyone?

Or if you are in the UK

[tjensor]

Try Celebdaq. Its run by the BBC and it actually has its own TV show on BBC3...

Entertaining for a while - like a month or two. Still - I made a killing from Cilla and Jacko :-)

In an actual economy, however

[SolemnDragon]

...members can trade items among each other, sell items to each other, produce goods from material. Wealth is created when someone takes items of lesser relative worth- say, raw materials- and produces something of greater relative worth- say, art, or tools, or food... This makes no mention of whether actual creation or trading capabilities are going to exist. Are we going to be able to resell our 'virtual nikes' (produced in a virtual sweatshop, no doubt) on a virtual black market?

Are retailers going to be able to set up virutal shops? Are there going to be virtual cyberprostitute rings? And just as importantly... are there going to be virtual cops?

A virtual economy is a lot more than a virtual mall. It is not a marketplace, it's an environment within which a marketplace gets built.

Virtual taxes. Virtual income. Do you earn an income in it, or is this a one-way economy, like everquest, with people pouring money in left and right? Because frankly, i can think of better ways to spend my money than on the entrance fee to a virtual playground, where i then get to buy virtual stuff with real money. (Do virtual goods have a depreciation schedule?)

Another good question would be whether a 'virtual economy' which does not permit free enterprise is an economy at all- can i set up a virtual shop, selling, say, modifications like armor, and make real money? Does money come back out for anyone other than the marketers and the owners?

In other words- how does this differ from a 'sims you can pay for' model??? In a real online virtual economy, we'd be able to sell each other game mods that let us, say, change our environment (virtual landscapers) or up our quality of life (virtual just about everything else) and it would be the geeks who made the most money. This is not likely to be permitted... this looks more like a toy than anything else. We're not there yet, put down the mouse and go back to the Gibson novels... *sigh*

flawed. period.

[klocwerk]

I was in on the beta test for There. (yeah, who wasn't.) The entire premise of the 'game' is that you pay the company a monthy fee to play, and then you put real money into the company's bank account in exchange for a certain amount of "ThereBucks" which you can use to buy crap in their fake world.
The engine is crappy, the interface is worse, the premise is flawed and expensive, and the game is based around trying to look cool.
You can't edit anything in the world, you can't create anything, you can just buy stuff. it's like a virtual mall.

Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because i heard it was going to be like the Metaverse in Snowcrash.

Re:No search? BS.

[Carbonite]

Before you start calling people morons, consider these points:

- It's usually wise to read reviews of a product before you purchase it.

- There.com is not the ideal site to find an unbiased review.

- It's difficult to search for reviews of "There" because of the huge number of matches.

- Most reviews will not call the service "There.com" if the actual name is "There".

- Therefore, it will be difficult to locate reviews and other information on "There" using Google or other search engines.

I don't believe the original author meant that it was 100% absolutely impossible to search for "There". The point is that it's not the best name for a product and this could hurt its chances of suceeding.

The Money is Real ....

[ReidMaynard]

"And we sit there, around the bar, just talking," I was saying. The talk floats up over their heads in chat balloons. "I get $1000 for the night" her voice rings out through computer speakers. Other sounds drift in from the street, where the drugs aren't quite the same as in the real world, but, thanks to the physics programmed into the system, it's convincing enough ...

But just like Oakland, CA...

[sulli]

there's no "there" there.

EQ conspiracy theory.

[unicron]

This is mildly off-topic, but interesting none-the-less.

When it comes to making real life money through EQ, I think I've come across a scam that's gotta have one hell of a profit margin. I can't be the first guy to ever think of this, but I've yet to find any information about it online.

On playerauctions.com, you can buy in game money for RL money. I've had a friend do this and much to my surprise after he completed the transaction, he alt-tabbed back into the game and the guy was handing him the money.

At any given time their is about 3 million platinum pieces being sold, per server, in amounts ranging from 10k to 100k. To those that don't play, this is an astrinomical amount of money. Most of the end game uber guilds don't have this much in their treasury. It's a mind-blowing amount of money. Now as someone that has played EQ for 2 years, I can tell you their is no way that you could put together 3 mil in a day. The uber guilds MIGHT be able to liquidate all their droppable gear plus their collective amount of money and squeeze out 3 mil, but after that it would probably take them a month or 2 to scrape together that amount of cash again.

Their are macro programs that basically use a script to walk your avatar between a weapons/armor forge and the metal dealer where your guy makes something that sells back to the merchant for a few bucks more than the materials cost, showing a slight profit each time. This idea is out as well because it would take weeks to do this, and the same guy working a forge for 2 weeks straight MIGHT arouse suspicion.

My friends and I have given serious thought to how
someone is able to put together this much cash day in and day out. The ONLY explanation that makes ANY sense is that GM's are using their power to summon money but the boatloads, giving it to anonymous alt characters, and raking in the fat cash. The money on playerauctions.com is ALWAYS being bid on, and I estimate that they're pulling about 1k-1.5k real money EVERYDAY from this practice. That's 100% profit as well.

Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to see if anyone /. that plays EQ ever thought of this. I'd love to hear another explantion, but this is the only thing I can come up with. I also can't believe they haven't been caught yet..which almost gives credit to the theory that Sony is actually behind these auction...something to think about.

A better one (for kids) exists

[ron_ivi]

http://www.neopets.com

has a virtual world where you use a virtual currency to buy items for your pets & fairy quests.

Years ago ('99) it had an auction system comparable to ebay (in both volume and sophistication), a store-builder comparable to yahoo stores; etc. Hundreds of thousands of kids play regularly. It's an amazing unknown success of the .com world, which spread entirely by word-of-mouth.

Interestingly, 10-15 year old kids started createing consulting services in their chat rooms to build the HTML for a virtual "neostore" for other players in exchange for items worth many "neopoints".