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A Real Living With Virtual Goods
RussHart writes "The BBC is reporting on a Julian Dibbell who has quit his day job to sell items from Ultima Online in the real world, hopefully making a living on which to support his wife & daughter."
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If you're not duping items or some such, it's because you're in front of the game for hour after hour after hour hording things to sell on ebay. Bet you anything he works longer hours than he did at his 'real job' to make anywhere near as much money.
...instead of being afraid that officials'll crackdown on this and kill his livelihood?
In a capitalist society, items are worth exactly what the market will bear. Notice that nowhere here is there a distinction about corporial/non-conrporial items.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
I've been following his blog since he wrote "The Unreal Estate Boom" for Wired.
I haven't even played Everquest but it still makes for interesting reading.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
This seems to be something that the online games are going to have to address quickly. As I recall from previous posts, they've made it against the rules to sell items, but is that really enforcable? Why not legalize and regulate the trading industry with items that are "signed" or somehow unique to prevent "duping" or other bugs? An auction system similar to ebay or a simple marketplace exchange would perform this service quite well.
...real playing with virtual game???
Well good luck to him. One problem I've found working at home is a lack of social interaction with friends. Also it can be far to easy to work at any time. Hopefully the online community will at least support him to some respect. However you can't beat a good drink out with the lads (or ladesses)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
In your apparent jubilation, your carefully worded post seems to have met the loner casualty called the "dictionary". Cheri o
was on K5 a while ago, it's basically a HOWTO.
I played UO back in the day (around 2000) and I managed to sell my account for about $500 (US dollars).
Personally, I can't understand how someone can actually quit their job to sell game items. To me, it's just not enough money for the work that must be done. What if the game goes under? Here's a whatever year old man with no job. Good luck getting a job, considering the market. What's he gunna do, move on to another game?
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
I mean, what do developers for money each day? - Generally, they create code that has no real substance outside the digital realm. Sure it might be useful to some folks, but game items are equally useful to the players using them.
I know little about these games, but it seems to me there's better money in a hack to produce virtual goods outside the context of the game, and bring them in. Eg, produce compatible objects in code, and insert it into the game. Consider it as an Import business. I'll ignore the economic ramifications for now though...
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Back in the 90's, quite a few people that visit Slashdot made a good living on virtual services. Ahh, venture capital.
Are his wife and daughter in the real world too, or are they virtual items? I have been thinking about purchasing a wife to auger my girl friend.
This makes it sound like Julian Dibbell isn't what he is, a hack writer who mines the online communities he can find for grist. His article on MUDs (which he later expanded into a book was a complete smear job, a non-insightful overview of the MUD world intended to turn a small little molehill into enough of a mountain to get his paycheck. He writes self-indulgent overviews of his online comings and goings, each one crafted as if he has expertly stumbled into a forbidden cave of insight and perspective. No doubt this current project is the most recent seed for whatever next article or tome he will lure a credulous publisher into foisting on us. Take a pass, friends.
You now owe me a new Dr. Pepper, preferrably not dispensed through my nose.
He brought a new meaning to, "Don't quit your daytime job".
The moment you log into Diablo 2, you will see IRC BOTs posting advertisments in the local chat rooms about purchasing items online. One such site called www.godlyitems.com sells everything you could want. Though, I hear they use player bots to kill, hord, and dump. Then they harvest the booty and sell it on e-bay.
Life is not for the lazy.
So what happens here? Will the cops go after the virtual pillagers who stealed his virtual stock (Out of wich he does make real money and can argue that they stole actual stock from his actual business model)?
I wonder if as this kind of virtual-real world mixtures come to play into the real-world economic system then will officials/authorities step in and regulate the virtual worlds or something..
It's the American dream!
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
no real-life but real goods.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
BIA(Brittanian Industrial Average) plummeted today. Analysts cited over-valuation as a major cause of the sudden drop in virtual commodity prices. "Virtual Futures just aren't performing as well as most E-bay traders had hoped." ........ President Bush's invasion of Brittania for 'virtual weapons of virtual mass destruction' without UVN consent also seems to have contributed to the poor market conditions....... Two virtual traders jumped out their windows in response to the market's downward plunge, but only managed to break their ankles. "He must have thought he was in a skyscraper. Good thing he was only in our living room!"
I wouldn't trust Crazy Eddie if I were you.
I guess you could say the same thing about much of commercial law, the stock market,and insurance. And there is more money in all these things than in being a real producer or creator.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
SCO is trying to do that too.
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
I have two friends who make their living by selling virtual stuff in EverQuest. The one who started it first now makes about $1000 a week... it took him about half a year to build a character sufficient enough though... the other one is just starting to make money but he says he can also make like 200-300 dollars a week.
++K
<[letter kay][at][number seventy seven][dot][finnish TLD]>
So isn't he (amongst others) using child labor? How ingenious to make work look like play.
A joke, of course, but the thought of having UO sweatshops where kids can play UO as long as they give the owner a share of the loot, is not far. :-)
"Real world" money defeats the purpose of the MUD or MMORPG, as this is for myself, and as I understand this to be for many others.
As I have said in the past, the hope in the ideal of the MUD or MMORPG is that who or what we may be in the "real world" does not in any way limit who or what we can be in this alternate reality.
While one individual selling items for "real world" cash may not have significant effect, this behavior, in principle, is unacceptable if the above is the purpose of the MUD or MMORPG.
When my opportunity to behave as I would like and have a legitimate expectation to be able to in this alternate reality is restricted as a result of my subservience in the "real world" to the political and economic power of another, or of the elite, then I have not even in this alternate reality escaped their reach.
While we might certainly pretend that those who are powerful in this alternate reality as a result of their political and economic power in this reality, are not so for this reason, but are instead for some false or fanciful reason put in the context of the alternate reality, I refuse to do this, and I urge other concerned persons to voice this position.
Why would we bring this upon ourselves? Is the political and economic power of the elite of this world not sufficiently overbearing, that we should directly permit behaviors which have the effect of extending their reach into another?
Does the thought entertain you, that your superior who has power over you from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 5, can for a price extend his power over you, his enjoyment at the price of your integrity, and his opportunity at the price of your hope, even when you at home think you have finally escaped?
I will not be the pawn of another's wealth; not in this world, and not in any other.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
--Especially if you're a Motie... :b
(any Niven fans out there?)
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
... Finn supposedly got started?
...
Wake me up when he lives in the alley
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Maybe Slashdot should start posting the year as part of the date under the article headlines. I could have sworn this was news... in 1999.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
...that the artical makes out like MONEY is somehow real. C'mon people, money hasn't been real since the Gold Stardard was dropped, and depending who you talk to it wasn't real even then. The value of anything is determined by what people agree it is worth - everything: cars, your house, your labour, big businesses, shares, options, and yes, even imaginary gold.
* Neo pays with plastic
<Morpheus> You think that's money you're spending now?
It's ALL virtual. The sooner you realise that the sooner you can stop being a slave to money.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Purchasing characters and items removes much of the fun from these games. It trivializes the progression path that you would otherwise normally take and provides a 'quick hit' solution for those who can't be bothered with spending months building their characters up themselves and with their online friends. If that's what people want to do with their money, then so be it. Players build up reputations over a period of time (they can also be torn down rather quickly). Characters that have been purchased online can easily be spotted by experienced players as the person playing it often has little or no clue how to play properly. Many of the serious gaming guilds won't allow an "ebay" character to join in with their fun as they have not taken the time to build up a trusting relationship with guild, and a guild won't want to help a player who may simply sell his character on for profit in 6 months time. So individuals who buy and sell characters and items are often viewed as untrustworthy by players who play by the rules and build their characters up the hard way.
Game admins in MMOGs like UO and EQ have the power to create items, or edit accounts, or something similar whereby they can arbitrarily collect real-world saleable items. They could hoard a large number of very highly prized items or just a huge amount of gold, and then sell them to real players, creating money out of nothing - no hours spent crawling the landscape and no risk taken with real-world trading. They wouldn't even need to do it with their own account, simply use their higher knowledge of the gamescape to point a pleb account they own to the locations of hidden hoards of items or prizes.
I'm not saying game admins are a dodgy lot, I'm sure most if not all of them are completely honest, but all it would take is one guy with just the right amount of in-game power to crank up quite the profitable R(PG)acket.
When I was still in college, I realized that I didn't have alot of money to play with. I thought about getting a job (I had quit my high school job to go to college), but then I realized that the hours would kill me (commuting to the job, working, then commuting back home, would waste valuable time that could be spent playing games and doing homework). So I just made an MF sorc, and started doing runs. I would play for maybe 3 or 4 hours a day, and in between classes. I never used any bots (out of fear), only maphack. Every day or so, I was able to get myself some Ith equipment, rare runes, and so much more. Then I'd be off to eBay, to make some profit. While this may piss off alot of you, I was able to go drinking several times a week, and take my girlfriend out often enough to keep her with me to this day, and buy myself things to amuse myself with. Much better than flipping burgers at Wendy's, like I used to, although not quite what I am making now :P
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Most people who work for themselves put in more hours for less pay. Why do they do it? Because they like working for themselves, or they want to do something they enjoy. In this case it's probably the latter: he is spending all day playing an online game!
Mod me a Troll, but this guy is a bottom-feeding loser, who sells to cheating losers.
I stopped playing CounterStrike because too many people felt the need to cheat. It was no longer any fun to play. And, in case some of you don't know, that what game are for: to have fun. They are a distraction.
People who actually pay real money to cheat on an MMOPRPG are even bigger losers than the FPS cheaters. And deciding to "support" your family based on a scam like this has to be one of the most irresponsible schemes I've heard of. I don't want to hear "I know a guy who..." Whatever. It's different when other people rely on you. If you want to do crap like this for a "living" you shouldn't have knocked somebody up and married them.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I will not be the pawn of another's wealth; not in this world, and not in any other.
You're quite right that it's a shame to bring real-world inequalities to bear in a MMORPG; but in saying so, you're admitting that you are the pawn of another's wealth in this world.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
So are the developers now officially gods?
Pretty nice move, I must say.
It tends to fluxuate. I can remember several years ago when it was around $30 per million, $35 if you needed it right away or bought smaller amounts.
At that time, being a millionaire in UO wasn't rare, but it wasn't common, either. When I first started the game, it took me several months to earn 100,000 gold pieces to buy a house from someone. Fast-forward a few years. A couple of duping bugs, along with a house deed exploit, brought mass inflation and the price of gold bottomed out around $10 per million. In comparison, the house that cost me 100,000 gold pieces some two years prior was selling for 5-6 million! Around the time I quit playing seriously, the gold price had climbed a bit, back to $15 or so per million. I guess it's risen a bit higher since then.
There are also variations from sale to sale even throughout a single day. There's no standard rate, it's sort of like filling up your gas tank. One gas station might be charging $1.659/gallon, then you drive 3 blocks down the road and another station is selling it for $1.599. Similarly, you might go to Tradespot and find someone selling a million gold for $17.50, and no other sales are open, so you buy it. Ten minutes later someone else posts saying they've got gold for sale at $15 per million; you win some, you lose some.
And, just like any other business, there are always a) suckers and b) desperate customers. If gold is averaging $15.00, there'll be some guy posting 10 eBay auctions with a minimum bid and Buy It Now of $17.50, and probably half of them will sell. Someone who needs a few mil in a hurry - say, to buy a house - might stand at the bank in-game and offer to pay $20 per million; it's faster than going over to one of the trading boards.
This varies wildly. When I was last playing, experienced players who had built up or purchased decent characters (and had time to spare) could make 1 or 2 million a day through honest play, using normal game mechanics as opposed to cheating or exploiting. I didn't find this type of person to be the average profiteer, though. Like the parent mentioned, spending 8 hours "working" only to reap $30 or so is no bargain. I used to enjoy powergaming now and then, where I'd spend a day or two doing nothing but trying to earn as much gold as possible, but it was usually for my own spending in-game. After a day or two it always got very boring.
For awhile, there was a "taming boom" which introduced billions of gold pieces into the UO economy. At some point, people started to figure out that a single tamer towing around several dragons or drakes and a nightmare could literally own just about any dungeon room on the entire map. You could sit in one spot for hours on end, letting your tamed pets kill everything for you. When you wound up with more loot than you could carry, you made a quick round-trip recall to and from a bank to drop off the loot and pick up some bandages for the pets. Meanwhile, your pets gained stats and skills - and thus became stronger - from all the fighting.
And thus the taming boom started. Hunting in dungeons turned into a lame experience, because no matter where you went, you'd find tamers camping the good spawn spots. The tamers shouted "go to Felluca" but it was the same situation there, except that some of the tamers were killing each other. Worse, because taming became known as the way to make gold, and because UO became known as a game where you could make real money by playing, it attracted the worst of the worst. A game set in Victorian times tends to lose its atmosphere where you walk into the dungeon and encounter a group of tamers named PiMPiN HaRd, deeznuttz, KindGreenBud, and TupacLivzOn hogging all of the mons
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
...three years ago.
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There are a lot of porn webmasters, porn site owners, and porn site programmers here on Slashdot, maybe you can benefit from these links.
Mr Dibbell would have no doubt that a crime had been committed but he realises that he might have a hard time convincing the police to investigate the theft of goods that have a tangible value but negligible reality.
SCO?
The guy's selling items in an online RPG. He bought those items from other people. Chances are, the people he's buying from are making a profit themselves.
What does any of this have to do with misfortune?
Believe it or not, it's perfectly legal to employ people under the age of 18. Look at music or movies for all the examples you need, Britney Spears started at 16, Mandy Moore at 14. Lindsay Lohan was 12 when she starred in the remake of "The Parent Trap," and Kirsten Dunst was 12 in "Interview with a Vampire." Anna Paquin was 11 when she worked on the set of "The Piano."
Or is it just that it's OK when cute underage girls work for Hollywood, but it's not OK when bored anti-social teenage guys work for some dude selling stuff online?
Teenagers (and even pre-teens) are working, more now than ever, and most of them are elated at the opportunity to be earning some money. I'm not so sure that this is a wonderful thing for the non-movie-star types, sucks being 16 and having to get a job because your parents can't afford to help you out with a car, they can barely pay their own bills cause the economy blows. But the working class is getting younger every year. Get over it, and let us make some cash.
P.S. I'm not responding to you personally as much as I'm responding to the people who modded you up.
I'm I the only one who finds this individual totally irresponsible for quitting his job doing this while he has to support a wife and child??? He's putting his addiction before his very own family. This guy needs professional help, and quick.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
All seriousness aside....
A common trade statistic quoted between countries is a trade deficit. That's associated with a flow of capital out of one country to another, and is often a point of concern or even international tension.
Are we going to have to worry about a trade deficit with the imaginary world now? Is the imagination part of the free trade zone? Is this why people like Pat Buchannan want to erect walls around people's imaginations?
Oy....
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
$1000 in 3 weeks, while his wife and kids were away. They're going to be eating a lot of rice and lima beans, and let's hope they don't get ill.
Heck, let's go over the numbers again:
"Mr Big" is one of a handful of Ultima players who make six figure sums annually from their trades.
Assuming "six figure" is $100,000, at an average auction price of $7 (which seems to be the case from the ones I've seen) that's 14285 transactions per trader per year, or 40 competed transactions each and every day of the year for these traders. Cutting that back to an 222 working day year, it's 64 completed transactions per day.
Push the average value up, and it becomes more manageable, but then you have to spend more time on each trade. And remember, you've only got 225,000 rubes to sell to. If the "handful" of six figure traders is three, then that's $1.33 from each and every rube every year, which seems reasonable until you consider the dozens, hundreds, thousands of casual traders scrabbling for their money.
It's easy to say that you're making money at this. It's even possible to fool yourself. But until I see IRS filings, I'm going to take it with a huge pinch of salt.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
At least you can stop playing MMORPGs and carry on living!
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Especially if you are from contries outside North America/Western Europe.
:)
There are a lot of these people out there.
I knew someone from eastern Europe doing this. He was playing Asheron's Call and he with the help from someone in the US they used to by and sell things by using E-bay/tradeboards etc.
Some of them play a lot but he also make more money of this than having some ordinary job. And making a living off a computer game is not hard if you live in Ukraine.
PayPal, Ebay and mmorpgs have made us a new border free worldwide market. Where $10 is just as easy to obtain in US, Norway, or in Ukraine, where $10 is valued so much more than in western countries.
For those that think this only applies to 'super nerds' you are way off!
These are people who are just very good at buying and selling things, just like a good broker. They have the ability to analyse the game and to guess what the next patches/improvements to the game, by the developers, will be. A nerd would probably be happy to sell something to the first person giving a reasonable offer, so he could go back and play the game, the buyer however, most likely one of these guys, have probably already found another buyer willing to pay twice the price.
I tried this for a bit when I played Asheron's Call too. But problem is that you spend more time on boards/talking to people than you spend ingame playing. Also, with the insane economy we have in Norway it would probably be one of the worst places to actually do this kind of business from.
For comparison, I could buy a powerful ingame character (something I have done several times), which would have taken someone several months of ingame playing time to level up, for the money I make in one day in real life. But for someone in a less wealthy nation the money might be comparable to half a year of ordinary income.
For some it would probably be a pretty ok job.
You need some luck tho. The guy I knew had a mother working at some school/university in Ukraine, so he had pretty much free access to internet.
Still cannot find a girlfriend.
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
Sounds kinda out there to me.
I don't play any of these games, so I don't know the mechanics but half the fun of RPGs was going after powerful NPCs to nick their stuff.
So, why aren't these guys being taken apart by other players after goodies?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Sorry, but I have trouble respecting a guy who is obviously putting his love of this game ahead of making sure his family is legitimatly supported. It's selfish and irresponsible. Someone who chooses this as a valid means of living is really living in the now. What about the future of this game? What will he do when people get bored playing it? Will he just jump into the next MMOPRPG game and start from scratch? Wouldn't there be a bit of a lag time then when he isn't earning any income while the next big thing catches on and he is getting enough experience in the game to generate these items? What does he do for insurance for his family? Is he making enough money to plan for college for his daughter?
If he was a single, childless guy or a college student, I'd commend his entrepeunurial spirit. If his wife had an excellent job and he wanted to do this, that would make sense, but I didn't see anything in that article to indicate she even works. When you are the sole provider for your family, that sometimes requires you to put your hobbies aside so you can take care of your responsibilities first.
After reading his blog and the bbc article, it's fairly misleading to say he quit his job. He is a hack writer who has obviously been writing similar subjects(online worlds, etc) for a while. This "project" is simply an extension of that job. More likely he'll write an article or whatnot and sell it to some publisher/magazine somewhere. Might even get a book out of it. Read between the lines.
If you don't buy from me, I'll CLUB this BABY SEAL!!
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Job security.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
So, selling virtual items on ebay is fine for EQ and Ultima, but don't try it with a /. account.
Is there room for a derivatives market do you think?
Seriously. If you're going to make money trading, why trade here and not in a real world exchange?
Nothing much new here, a friend of mine (in the US) makes his living with Everquest. A rather well off ceo of some smaller company pays him a stipend to be "on call" when the guy plays he only has a little bit of time so my friend has his character ready and waiting to do "fun stuff" if the dude dies he just tells my friend where his corpse is so he can do the drudge work of recovering it for him while the exec is away from the game.
On top of that, he gets paid to help people level up ($20 an hour), and sells items and premade characters (he told me about this single sword he sold for $1500 apparently it was quite hard to get). Last time I talked to him he'd just bought a (nearly new) minivan, put an addition on his house, and was not bitching about money problems, and his wife definitely doesn't make the income for those kinda upgrades to their life so while I didn't get a firm figure I know he's gotta be pulling in 35K at least to get by, and I suspect it's more.
He gave an offer of joining him, teamwork makes things more efficient and while I considered it I really didn't want to base my living on the whims of the online world (funny thought coming from the owner of a web hosting company).
--- www.f-theocean.com
...because my Valkyrie in Oubliette really needed one.
And, I wasn't the only person on the PLATO system purchasing items, either. Sometimes, it was the only way for players without powerful friends in the game to advance.
So, seeing a market where real dollars change hands for items created in a closed virtual economy isn't exactly new, although it appears the concept is scaling nicely.
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. -- Will Rogers
I sold three accounts for $550 and bought two for $450 in under and it only took 25 minutes. (some waiting to get PayPal confirmations etc.) The guy I bought the two accounts from, had sold 4 other accounts the last 24 hours. Two for around $300 each. Look at this: E-Bay (ebay). Several transactions going to take place in the $100+ range. Adding to this, you don't have to live in the US/western Europe to play $1000 could actually be a lot of money. For the smaller transactions I know a lot of people buy something from someone on E-Bay, and when everything is ok, they later just contact the guy without using E-Bay and just pay them through PayPal, knowing that they can trust the seller. When that happens you have people just sending, lets say, $5 through paypal, and the seller shows up at a location providing them with 500k ingame cash (or whatever goods they wanted). It's like pay infront, and get free delievery. Also, in Asheron's Call you can have bots running, controlled from IRC, so whenever you recieve a confirmation from PayPal that GI Joe paid you $7 for 100 health elexirs, you just add 100 HE. to GI Joe's account on your bot (this is done from IRC). GI Joe shows up at your ingame house and picks up the 100 elexirs and you didn't even have to go ingame to controll the transactions. This way, I don't see a problem with doing a lot of small transactions every day. I think you are blocking your vision with too many real life problematic constrains, like most of us. But some people can make money out of anything, and they live at the stock exchange, run big corporations, earn lots of money from mmorpgs.... And they most likely have lots of fun doing it!
This is the same Julian Dibbell who wrote the incredible "A Rape in Cyberspace," first published in the Village Voice. I use it as a text in my Cyberlaw class. It's no surprise, then, that he's exploring even more real-world equivalents in the online universe. {Jonathan}
You modded this funny?
You're going straight to hell, heretic.
Warning: May contain nuts
"The wife of Julian Dibbell, the man who quit his job to sell items from Ultima Online, has filed for divorce. 'He has deluded himself into thinking he can support his family with his fantasy life. I just got tired of hoping he would grow up,' was the only comment given by Mrs. Dibbell."
I have played MMOGs here and there, so I am famailar with the crowd. MMOGs are fun; they afford you the oppurtunity to play a fantasy game with thousands of other knuckleheads like you - they are good sources of entertainment, but I feel that they also pander to a nasty trait in some people's character. Most recently I picked up Star Wars Galaxies (it's not that great, by the way, but shows promise). Before that I tried Earth and Beyond for a week or two, Dark Age of Camelot (which I felt was the best) for a good month, and Ultima Online for at least a year and a half off-and-on. Suffice to say, I have met the people that will spend their real life money on some video game sword or hat.
First, when I play a video game, part of the joy is either "beating" it, or earning things and "building my character up" (making your character better/stronger/faster). The main lure for me is to be challenged, and if playing a role playing game, feel immersed. I prefer console games, because they can give you that "quick fix". When it comes to MMOGs you are already paying a monthly subscription fee, so why in the world would you want to spend more money to get things that you can just earn by playing the game? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of playing and remove all feeling of accomplishment? Where is the challenge?
If you are willing to spend $100 of your real life money on some "magic sword of troll killing" or a pile of graphical gold in Ultima Online, I think that you shound stop and consider if it is healthy that you care more about video game gold than $100 of real money - I don't care how rich your are.
It's articles like these (and the ensuing comments) that make me feel good about my decision to play single-player. Why would I want other people cheating in a game when *I* want to be the only cheater?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I don't play games of this type, so I don't know how you possess items in the game, but if this guy is amassing large quantities of virtual goods for real-world sale, what's to keep a bunch of players from robbing his storehouse or killing his character and making off with his loot?
You've just taken a large portion of this guy's real-world income. Can you get arrested for that? Could he sue you and win? It just a game, right?
Is he also known as CMOT Dibbell?
A Prayer to the Omnipotent FSM
Do we really want our society to move in that direction?
Setting aside whether child labor is inherently right or wrong, there was a reason why these laws were made. It was to shield them from whatever influences (good or bad) that business had on impressionable minds and allow room for other influences to be incorporated in their childhood/adolescence. Money and business are powerful factors at any age group, but more so for those that have yet formulated alternative perceptions and opinions. Greed by it's very nature doesn't leave room for other principles.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
Um, only one, Mandy Moore, was an emancipated minor (when they were minors, that is). All of the others were not.
Virg
I have vague memories of this but didnt a GM in Ultima Online sell a few thousand dollars worth of stuff before he finally got caught? Anyone have any info on this??
> The same thing could happen in the real world...that's why the treasury is so closely monitored. Old bills are burned and new bills are minted (printed), the quantities are controlled so as not to cause massive inflation.
Well, bills are destroyed and reprinted because they wear out, not so much for monitoring purposes. And the amount of printed money in circulation is miniscule compared to the amount of money in the economy, so printing more bills does not realistically matter at all.
Virg
1.Buy high-level character in an MMORPG with a good Ebay economy.
2.Outsource playing and item acquistion to a net cafe in Korea or somewhere else in Asia.
3.Sell items and gold acquired on Ebay for money.
4.PROFIT!!!
Now, seriously, whats to stop that from happening? Sounds like it could be a feasible service-oriented business.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Ith equipment is a euphanism for hacked items. You were using hacks to make equipment and trying to pass it off like you found them ROFL.
Kinda like pro sports. Paid so other wannabe(noobs) players can learn.
Hehe I wanna be a pro MMORPG player.
I CAN FINALY BE A JOCK!
Where do we get a cool lettered jacket I want a rpk patch!
...why do you write like a dick? Really, start tossing in a few thou's and wherefore's, and you'll be er... lamer than Sigfried and Roy.
I'm always amused when online games, like UO or EQ, suddenly observe something unique and think it is novel.
We've had people living off of GemStone III and DragonRealms for years. We have one individual, who's original occupation was Hollywood Screen Writer, give it up to be a merchant of virtual stuff in GemStone IIII. He makes good six figures doing it.
The guys background in economics has helped me really understand the dynamics of value in the product. Not only does he know the real "street" value of items, but he can predict with uncanny accuracy the change in item values based on rule changes that happen from time to time. Using that knowledge he can min-max real world money making opportunities.
Games like GS and DR have the added advantage that we have so much unique content that it's impossilbe for a graphical game to even touch the plethora of "things" that can be bought and sold. Even our own graphical stuff in the works. This makes for an amazingly diverse market.
So tuned in the economy is this guy that he can detect an exploit or bug before our GMs or automated sensors even notice. If, say, a player found a way to duplicate items and sell them, we find out about it through him first. After all, its in his interest to keep the value of stuff high.
We've also used him to help develop a model for how the economy should work. MMPOGs are, generally speaking, not zero-sum so you cannot make anything that works well by trying to model a real-world economy. You have to make something new and different. But it still has to work for there to be any game play benefit much less real-world cash to be made.
The observation that we, as the providers of the game, have the ability to just ruin the economy at any time is a good one. I've made it myself. I could wipe out some people's livelihoods on a whim. But he has pointed out to me that my economic motivation is in line with his and so that is a rather unlikely thing for me to do. And he's right. I strive to keept he economic aspects of our titles healthy because that promotes the life-time value of the customer (good game = customers stay and pay longer).
David Whatley
the companies force you to sign a EULA that says that items from the game may not be resold to other players?
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
so when EQ or UO decide to take their servers offline because the next generation of W32.blaster decides to target them (or sysadmins start patching real fast), or when a freak accident simultaneously fries all the power supplies to their servers, or when a massive earthquake knocks out the west coast servers...
is there any monetary recompense for these poor folks? i mean, that's their livelihood. job security indeed. real life can take the fun out of an internet job so fast.
Whether you desire it or not, their control of wealth gives them the ability to hold you in pawn; in this world and any other.
Anyone want to buy a max payne demo savegame. It's right before the end of the demo. Definetely the coolest part.
Also for sale is a complete collection of half-life savegames from the FIRST time I ever played it through back in the ORIGINAL RELEASE YEAR.
Definetely antiques.
Many Thanks,
Luke
I think some people are over reacting on this, I mean is cool that games have advanced to an state as such, but this is not something ever seen before.
Think about it, do baseball, football, soccer or [insert fav sport here] players actually produce something material and tangible for what they get payed? (which in some cases is several thousands of dollars) No, they produce goals, homeruns, "wins" that only exist on the same context of the game (they are virtual), yet people expend REAL money on watching them play because they consider it a popular "entertainment".
Now what about collectors and collection items sellers? people who sell autographed shirts, and balls that were catched in the park? the value of those items is "real"? no, is "virtual" they have now a new Virtual value which collectors use to buy (and sell) the "collector" item, however the "real" value since the mass and structure of the ball plus some particles of ink which is the same, with a price around $10 but now increased to thousands of dollars, because of its "collector" value.
Fast forward to our day and the same happens on games which are today popular entertainment, first we got the paid gamers first the "testers" then we had the "cyber athletes" and now we have the "collectors" the people who get "collector" items from popular games and sell them on "collector" prices, there is little diference between a guy who sales an autographed basketball than a guy who puts a "silver sword" on the market. Sure you get a few pounds of inflated plastic in the real world, but you must consider that getting Michael Jordan basketball (or even Jordan himself) in a virtual world will actually make you score easier.(you wish it was like that in the real world)
A few articles through the years anyways, i.e. Wired 3.02 "Viruses are good for you", etc.
Isn't he violating the TOS of UO (never played, so didn't read). I'm sure he's on the blacklist of any new MMORPG he tries to play much like the casinos do when players make money off the casino in ways they didn't intend or agree with.
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
..Your husband is a moron. I suggest you develop a taste for the many ramen varieties. Kthx.
FTFA:
Instead in April 2004, he will declare to the US Internal Revenue Service that his main source of income is the sale of imaginary goods.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
is if he could make a living buying and selling items from "Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress."
I think this is all going down the road of too little information.
Maybe she told the people what it was worth and they still didn't want to deal with it. I've seen my brother-inlaw tell another vendor what he could sell something for and still offer him much less than that and they would take that offer.
If she was truly hired as an apraisor and she told them it was worth $200 she was a jerk. If she told them it was worth $2000 and she would give them $200 because she wasn't sure if she could sell it at the price or how long it would take her or if she just needs a high profit margin.
I would guess that the senario was more an offer to sell a bunch of stuff in the house for what ever anyone would give. To get it out of the way.
Or she maybe an ass. I don't know I just hate seeing people jump on someone with no defense.
You know? Someone could write a neat front-end to make all that go smoother. Maybe even cross game boundaries, not just limit oneself to one game.
A lot of trading, is simply information managment.
im going to quit college and start playing video games full time... i wonder if theres any way to make money at counter-strike (without having to compete in tournaments and whatnot) ill buy a bunch of m4s and sell them on ebay.
Back when I was into UO I wrote a set of tools (in Perl) to track Ultima Online Gold to US dollar exchange rates. It'll graph them and track the on an hourly basis. When I saw this story I immediately tarred it up and placed it live for general slashdot interest. It's just a shame that an accidental 'rm -rf * .htm' deleted my MySQL database that had about 2 years of UO data.
The tarball to set it up is at: http://www.visualmanna.com/dev/uowatch.tar.bz2
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
Too bad he has to get a real job now to pay his bandwidth bill after being linked to by slashdot.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I had a friend who supported himself for two months on $1500/mo playing Evercrack 10-14 hours a day, back in the hay-day of Evercrack. Rich brats would pay him $20-100 for powerful items. He sold his characters twice through the ordeal, both for around $400-500 a piece.
He finally quit because it got old and he got a real job. (He was previously unemployed).
Thanks for the writeup... I enjoyed reading it...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Let me put it more simply:
A living wage for a family guy is $30,000. There are approximately 225 working days in the year. That's $133 profit a day, each day, every day, in completed transactions. No fudging, no exceptions, no "waiting on confirmation", or you skip a mortgage payment or lose your health cover.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, just that when everyone is a potential competitor, you need to be completely serious about it and do the sums before you give up the day job. Having fun at your job is what you do before you get a mortgage and orthodentist bills. After that, job security takes priority, and fun is what you do in your off hours.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.