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When Play Money Becomes Real

Posted by simoniker on from the hundred-gold-piece-billers dept.

Thanks to Wired News for its article analyzing the commercial potential of the trade in MMO virtual items, focusing on Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE), of which CEO Brock Pierce claims "has more than 100 full-time employees in Hong Kong and the United States... [and] is hiring about five new people a week." Pierce also makes claims that: "In this industry, it's eBay and us... we're the major players", and elsewhere, a Sony Online spokesperson "is aware of IGE and has spoken with the company" with regard to their EverQuest item sales, concluding: "At this point, we're still sort of trying to decide what direction the company's going to move in on this topic." We've previously covered the financial dealings of IGE.

2 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. There was also an NPR story on this yesterday... by wtom · · Score: 2, Informative

    or maybe a few days back. I have no idea if the two are related, I can't remember any of the guest names. But for us online gamers, this is pretty familiar to us... I play UO, and items there have been sold for real world cash for a long time.

    --

    Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
  2. This is really nothing new. by mkraft · · Score: 5, Informative

    Online trading/selling of items has been occuring since the first account was sold on Ebay (Ultima Online) up to the formation of the Open Gaming Market (a currency exchange place for online game currency).

    There have been people who have quit their normal jobs and took the "job" of play Diablo to make money. There's even been a court case for return of stolen in-game items.

    It is a crazy world where currency in online games actually have more worth than the currency of some countries. I've personally sold virtual items for real life cash and I think people are crazy for paying what they do for these things, but then again I also can't understand why people pay large amounts of money for junk on E-Bay. I guess what they say is true, "one man's trash is another man's treasure", whether the trash is virtual or real. The online market just makes it easier to get those two people together.