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There's Gold In Them Thar Games
Via Terra Nova, the New York Times (reg. required) has a piece discussing the increasing trend of players making serious money off of MMOGs. They cite one gentleman who is able to pay his monthly mortage thanks to his daily ventures into the virtual spaces of Second Life. From the article: "Mr. Ainsworth, 36, was not a fan of online games until his 10-year-old daughter became interested in The Sims Online. He then noticed that a large number of simoleans were for sale on eBay. 'I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets...so I figured, buy low, sell high.'"
By MARK WALLACE
Published: May 29, 2005
JASON AINSWORTH plays the online game Second Life at least four hours a day. In the game, he runs a virtual real estate development business. But his after-tax profit - about $1,800 a month - is real, and it's enough to pay the mortgage on his home in Las Vegas.
For many people, what are known as massively multiplayer online games have become significant sources of income.
Web sites have sprung up that allow players to use real currency to buy items - like weapons or real estate - that they may want or need for the games.
Games like Second Life, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and dozens of others offer the opportunity to interact with thousands of players worldwide in virtual environments that continue to exist whether or not any particular person is playing at the moment. The virtual broadsword you found in the dragon's cave (or that dream house you built) before logging off on Tuesday will be right there on Wednesday.
Acquiring those items, however, requires work. In Ultima Online, it can take weeks to amass enough virtual gold to buy a superior weapon. It can take just as long to earn enough "simoleans," the virtual currency of The Sims Online - the online version of Electronic Arts' best-selling role-playing games - to buy and furnish a house.
But not everyone cares to spend time toiling in pursuit of game money. This provides an opportunity for people like Mr. Ainsworth. A thriving market has sprung up in which players spend real-world cash to buy game currency or desirable items from other players. Transactions take place on eBay or on sites like gamingopenmarket.com or www.ige.com. Payments are made through PayPal and other online services. Players then log into the game and transfer the virtual goods or currency.
Mr. Ainsworth, 36, was not a fan of online games until his 10-year-old daughter became interested in The Sims Online. He then noticed that a large number of simoleans were for sale on eBay. "I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets," he said, "so I figured, buy low, sell high."
But Mr. Ainsworth found his moneymaking options in The Sims "very limited"; he switched to Second Life, a virtual world that is less a game than a three-dimensional environment in which players can do whatever they choose. There, he has leveraged his real-life experience - he is a developer and contractor - into an online business. In 14 locations in Second Life's virtual world, he owns enough "land" to rent space to nearly 50 retailers, who in turn earn virtual money selling everything from jewelry to clothing to art (all nonexistent, of course). Mr. Ainsworth converts his game profits into real money on sites like eBay, Ige and gamingopenmarket, which charge a small fee, and he includes that income on his tax returns.
"A lot of your success or failure depends on your ability to keep the fire lit," he said. "I have good months and bad months, but the work is fun."
Earnings can be considerable. Ailin Graef, who goes by the screen name Anshe Chung in Second Life, said she was on track to earn about $100,000 in real money in her first year in the game's real estate business.
Hundreds of people who play Second Life make a profit on it, said Philip Rosedale, chief executive and founder of Linden Lab, the game's developer. The value of the average player's transactions, if converted to real money, is more than $1,000 a year and has been growing nearly 25 percent a month, Mr. Rosedale said.
Who buys this stuff? One Second Life resident, who asked to be identified only by her screen name, Diamond Hope, said she spent $10 to $15 a month on clothing and other accessories in Second Life, but would spend more if she could afford it. "With all the things you can buy in Second Life," she said, "it's hard not to want them, just like real-life stuff."
In the open-ended environment of Second Life, players are provided with a host of powerful tools that can be us
If you're referring to SL, you only pay a monthly fee if you want to be a landowner. Otherwise, you can pay US$10 one-time charge for a Basic account, which doesn't expire or recur (landowners pay the server costs).
Currently your inventory is unlimited, so not having land isn't that big of a deal unless you want to open a store or build something you wish to persist. There are sandbox regions for people who don't own land who want to build things and store them in their inventories. And of course you can always make friends with someone who owns land and ask them permission to persist something on their land.
As far as owning land, it only gets expensive if you can't control yourself and keep feeling the need to acquire more and more land. You can go anywhere from 512m^2 for $10/month to full 65536m^2 server regions for US$200/month each.
Honestly though, there's a lot to do in SL without having to own land. Most people buy land just to plant a house down, which seems like a waste to me (why build something traditional to Real Life in a virtual world?).
In fact, there's hardly any reason to own land unless you really feel the need to -- you can even rent land with the in-game currency if you want to set up a vending machine for selling the items you create.
SL is neat, and worth checking out if you have a fast computer and broadband. It's having some scalability problems right now, so it can be a bit slow during peak hour, but I think anyone geeky enough to be reading this site would probably at least find SL somewhat nifty (ie scripting objects in 3d multiuser environment) and worth checking out.
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