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Real MMO Item Profits From 'Play Money'
V_M_Smith writes "Showing it's possible to make real profits from 'play money' - Julian Dibbell set out to make a mint selling virtual goods on Ebay and elsewhere - and (at least for the last month) he succeeded. There's a story about the feat over at The UK Guardian and another over at Terra Nova, which explains Dibbell's 'year-long experiment in virtual item trading from the fantasy world of Ultima Online netted him, in its final month, a tidy profit of $3,917. Over the course of a year, that would be $47,000'."
Well it seems it would be a lot like a job, especially if you have to play from 10 to 17 hours in it.
But i dont think the point of the game is to spend real money improving your character. It just happened to end up like that. what i find the most disturbing is the fact that some of these online worlds have higher gdp's than bulgaria. while bulgaria may not have that many people or money, its still a REAL country, not an imaginary one. I cant believe people spend *that* much money on this stuff.
From the article:
"The phenomenon of the online economies is symptomatic of the increasing age and maturity of players of interactive entertainment. According to calculations reported by Edward Castronova, an economics professor at California State University, people are taking internet games so seriously that since the beginning of the year, Category 1654 has racked up $6,404,668 in sales - real money spent on things that do not exist."
I kind of take umbrage at the notion that buying something intangible is a concept new to the advent of MMOs or even somehow novel.
What is art? It's about $20 worth of paint, canvas and wood, isn't it? Oh, it's arranged in a way that makes it worth $4.6mil? I see, so it's not the worth of a thing but the perception of worth, the interpolation of physical value with non-physical value?
So why is the selling of items that carry very real value to people surprising? Here is a simple rule! If more than one person values something, you have a market.
My
Limekiller
The only problem with that scenario is the cheats your friend was using are in violation of the EULA, making the money he made off the game ill gotten gains, and illegal to boot.