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."

Comments

Greatest fear?

[jtnishi]

"Mr Dibbell greatest fear is that he falls prey to real cyber criminals who pillage his Ultima items or steals the cash from his PayPal account. "

...instead of being afraid that officials'll crackdown on this and kill his livelihood?

Re:Greatest fear?

[Motherfucking Shit]

Dibbell has more to fear from the IRS. What if they get wise to his little scheme and demand income tax?

I'd hope that someone doing this on such a high-profile level would report the income. The Beeb article even quipped that "in April 2004, he will declare to the US Internal Revenue Service that his main source of income is the sale of imaginary goods."

BTW, I recognize you from boards.uo.com (though I haven't really been there since they delegated the boards to Stratics). Nice to see a familiar name from my UO days :)

ex-Frigax
Lake Superior

Virtual goods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 90's, quite a few people that visit Slashdot made a good living on virtual services. Ahh, venture capital.

Are...

[BladeMelbourne]

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.

Re:Are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late. I already augered your girlfriend.

Best Typo Ever, I hope

[teamhasnoi]

I have been thinking about purchasing a wife to auger my girl friend.

You now owe me a new Dr. Pepper, preferrably not dispensed through my nose.

In other news....

[monoqlith]

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!"

You could call this social criticism

[panurge]

What are the established churches but ways of making real money out of virtual worlds? The clergy get paid for exploring, reporting on, and handling virtual goods in, a spiritual realm that is actually invisible and whose existence is unproven. At least with online games, the players can experience the virtual environment.

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.

Re:I played, I sold, I quit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see that on a resume'.

1996-2000 Senior account market manager, United Records Limited.

2000-2003 stock market day trader.

2003-2005 Role playing games account/item discount broker.

With all that experiance at that, you either qualify as a strategy book writer, or a 7-11 store clerk.

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[gl4ss]

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