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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.'"
Has anyone here actually tried this, and what were the results?
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
Ah, so what you could do is create a 3rd Life game inside Second Life for people to play, sell that money for 2nd Life money, and that money for In Real Life money.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
It's true, I put in a few hours of WoW a day in, and i'm up to 10000 gold pieces. When i'm ready to retire, with Gold at over $480 an ounce, Whooooo i'll be rolling in the dough. How can I go wrong? All I need to do is contact this Blizzard company, they must be a brokerage of some sort.
Second Life may well be possibly the only game he could do this in.
Most likely because noone cares about it, and the market for its in-game currency and commodities is tiny.
Any game which has a larger audience (WoW, SWG, Lineage 2, Guildwars, EQ2) would have seen its slew of dedicated "farmers" from Korea, China, India and various parts of SE Asia.
Either with sweat shop labor or automated with bots, they farm in-game currency and items and sell them at a far lower price than anyone in more developed countries could, whilst still maintaining it as a worthwhile time investment.
Some may argue that "You're getting money for playing a game!" but in reality, its no more fun than flipping burgers, or clocking your mundane 9 to 5, its work.
Farming in these games is all boring tedious work, and at the rates being offered by botters and farmers in less developed countries, its not worth doing.
As an aside they have totally destroyed the in-game economies of most of these games, which is generally why the sale of in-game currency is in violation of the Terms of Service.
It's probably worth pointing out that although the SL platform itself is not a game, it does host many resident-created games within it's architecture.
Since residents can use a scripting language to program the behavior of the 3D objects in SL, they have taken advantage of this to build a variety of games. In fact, I think there is currently a game developer competition going on at the moment.
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My favorite game in Second Life is Primtionary. Objects within Second Life are constructed out primary objects ("prims" for short) based on several basic shapes. Primtionary is like Pictionary; the contestant is given a word and must quickly construct a 3D model while other players try to guess the word. LOTS of fun. More than worth the $10 I've spent on Second Life so far. That's what I like about Second Life right now; you can spend $10 and have complete access to the game. If you decide to own land and build on it, then you can upgrade to a monthly account. Meanwhile, you can practice building in the sandbox regions and get good enough to build something meaningful once you do decide to upgrade. And nothing prevents you from making clothes, vehicles, pets, etc and selling them while still landless.