Virtual World Leads to Real Life Profits
The other day I posted about the game Second Life and its ability to give players a “second life” - so to speak. The Second Life community is growing at amazing speeds, and those within it have found ways to make real money from the game. Capitalistic minds never rest!
I’m sure many of you have seen the eBay auctions where people sell in-game “goods” for real-life money (if you haven’t, just try typing in “World of Warcraft” in the eBay search engine!). MMORPGs are notorious for this kind of behavior. People see dollar signs in everything. Gamers sell their time, their in-game money, their characters, their weapons, and pretty much anything they think other gamers will want. The fascinating thing is that people actually buy them! And they’ll pay top dollar for these virtual goods.
Second Life is no different. The players are finding ways to feed themselves while feeding their gaming addictions. MSNBC ran an excellent article on the subject, which features one such merchant: Kasi Nafus. According to the article, Nafus has a Second Life clothing store, called Pixel Dolls, and she does quite well for herself with it. Enough, she claims, to make a living at it. In fact, Second Life has now become Nafus’ full-time job.
An estimated 20 million people around the world are spending time in so-called “massively multiplayer online roleplaying games,” or MMORPGs. These online spaces are adding not only users, but are also growing economies that interact with the real world.
Second Life, for instance, has its own currency that is convertible to U.S. dollars at a fluctuating exchange rate. Users can buy the virtual currency using their credit cards, or sell it and get real dollars via checks or PayPal transfers.
Its 60,000 users trade $2 million a month, making its economy about the same size as that of the South Pacific island of Tuvalu. That’s small, but large enough that it supports about 100 virtual jobs, according to Philip Rosedale, chief executive of Linden Research Inc., which created Second Life. Some design virtual buildings, others design schemes of movement that make virtual bodies dance or perform other complex actions. There’s even a virtual journalist, though he’s employed by Linden Research.
Whoever said gaming couldn’t buy happiness? (Has anyone actually said that? Hm…)
The gaming world is expanding in all sorts of ways: physically and even virtually!
It’s an exciting (and profitable) time to be a gamer.
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1 opinion for Virtual World Leads to Real Life Profits
the play girlz gaming blog: because guys aren’t the only players » Do You Buy or Sell Virtual Goods?
Jan 3, 2007 at 5:20 am
[…] I came across this article in Sign On San Diego today which was all about virtual economies in MMOs. We’ve talked about this before, but I thought I’d talk abot it again, since back then I really didn’t pay much attention to the world of ‘gold farming.’ […]
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