Making Real Money in Virtual Worlds

[Morreion]

Making Real Money In Virtual Worlds (Forbes)

As the popularity and sophistication of MMORPGs has skyrocketed, enterprising gamers have found ways to make real money playing them--to the point where experts say that it has become common to run across gamers who make their entire income with virtual jobs.

"It's eminently doable," says Edward Castronova, an associate professor at Indiana University and author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. "If a person in Shanghai can live on a dollar a day, they can make their living playing video games."

Gamers mine virtual worlds for currency, build virtual real estate empires and even sell their virtual bodies—all in the name of real-world profit.

One such entrepreneur is Julian Dibbell, a contributing editor for Wired magazine, who in 2003 challenged himself to spend a year making a living as a retailer in the massively multiplayer game Ultima Online. Dibbell sold in-game items, currency and real estate on eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), eventually making almost $4,000 a month in profits, translating into roughly a $36,000-a-year salary. And Dibbell says that his income only qualifies as lower-middle class among virtual businessmen.

"There are people making six figures," Dibbell says. "One-man operations, basically, doing seven figures. It's not hard to make money doing this."

[dotty]

I have several friends making a small income in Second Life. Yes, it's all legal and above-board. I do not actively try to make money while gaming, but I'm currently making about $5 a week. Right now I 'work' approximately 3 hours a week and it covers all my expenses in that game. It's not big bucks, but then I'm not trying.. and it's the first game that I ever MADE money in. hehe


You might find this interesting - blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/01/19/2009-end-of-year-second-life-economy-wrap-up-including-q4-economy-in-detail?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+SecondLife+(Official+Second+Life+Blogs+-+FEATURED)

Let's take a look at the Gross Resident Earnings figures for 2009:

Gross Resident Earnings (processed credits - as described above) totaled US$55 million
Gross Resident Earnings grew 11% over 2008
US$45 million of Gross Resident Earnings came via the LindeX - (exchanging real money through the game site)
US$10 million of Gross Resident Earnings came via Xstreet SL - (shopping!)
The Small Business segment* represented 47% of the total dollar value of earnings
The Small Businesses segment was the single largest portion of Gross Resident Earnings
More than 50 accounts earned more than US$100,000 each
The top 25 accounts, as a group, earned about US$12 million

[Morreion]

That's fascinating, Dotty!

I bet this kind of economic activity will be a growth business in the future- coming sooner or later, a virtual money-making tax.

[Regolyth]

I have thought on multiple occasions of selling my gold, or items, in-game for real money. However, I like to keep said money and items and use them myself. I used to have a pretty good farming session for items and plat in DAoC. I made lots and lots of money. It was at that time (and once back in UO) that I thought seriously of doing this.

However it would defeat the purpose of me playing the game in the first place: fun. If I wanted to really make money at the games, I would have to play for a few extra hours in order to farm enough to sell. At that point, the game becomes less fun (because you're doing a repetitive task over and over) and I would no longer want to play the game. So I decided not to do this. Besides, I needed to study for my classes anyways.

[dotty]

Agreed, Rego. My 'work' of 3 hours is really stretching the meaning of the word. I'm a manager for a musician playing live shows in SL. I tend to think of it more as a better term than 'stalker', since I'd be at all the shows anyways. hehe

There are already a few real life businesses that are making branches within Second Life. It's a very cheap and easy way to hold a conference, teach school, learn languages, etc.. No cost for software nor monthly fees, and it offers voice and video communication. Also handy that you can build ANYTHING in SL, so making prototypes or changing them around is a snap.


<edits and shuts up realizing she rambled on again

[Loendal]

On the subject of Second Life, there's a shadier side there too.

I know a group that has reportedly set up what amounts to a cyber-whorehouse / nightclub in Second Life. People are paying real world money for virtual lovin'. I don't know exactly how profitable it is, but given the mindset of a good portion of internet users I can imagine it's at least marginally lucrative if the story's true.

I had Second Life installed on my machine, and enjoyed flying around as a dragon but couldn't get into it on the depth of which some people have. Is it truly a profitable undertaking to create some kind of virtual business in there?

[Morreion]

Here is a blurb on SL businesses...

And here is an older article: IBM will launch an official group in January to deal with Second Life and other virtual realms from which the company hopes to profit.

[dotty]

Is it worth starting a business in SL? Well, that depends on what your talents are, and if people are willing to buy what you offer. Just like RL, if you have no customers you have no business.

Of course there is a shadier side to SL. It's a sandbox world where your avatar can be ANYTHING (including a 30ft tall penis or boobs that fill a 40x40 room... or both at once!) of course there are people who will take advantage of that. Yes, there are people who pay money to bump pixels together. I don't think that is surprising at all. The fact that there is probably a group that loves sex with sheep might surprise some.

If it's possible in RL, it's already in SL.

If it's possible to dream about, it's probably in SL. (Yes, we have flying pigs)

If you enjoy any activity, anything at all, there is probably a group of other people who also like that activity. Just use the 'search' tool and they will all show up.

I'm not sure what ISNT allowed in SL. I know child avatars have to be particularly careful, or they will get banned if there is any sexual play with adults. I'm also positive that gambling is not allowed in SL. Other than that... um... anything goes in the sandbox.

I can certainly understand a newcomer in SL wandering around and quickly growing bored. There is no obvious 'game' to it. You need to find a group or activity that interests you. They are working on helping out newcomers find these interests, but it's still the biggest hurdle for SL IMO.

I HIGHLY recommend anyone in SL to open up 'Search', go to the 'Events' tab at the top, change the category drop-down list to 'Live Music', and press 'Search'. This will bring up a never-ending list of live music happening almost 24/7. You can read a blurb about the show (avoid the DJ listings, they arent live), and press the 'teleport' button to instantly go and listen. If you dont like the music, bring up the 'search' window and teleport to another show.

Finding the roleplay groups are a bit more difficult. There are thousands of them in SL, and they are scattered all over within their own various 'realms'. So you must pick which genre/lore interests you, and than track them down. I know of 2 extremely active medieval types, the monstrously large Gor community, a Greek spartacus type, an arabian knights area, an active sci-fi ship, a star wars area, ...this list goes on

..and I've done it again. Sorry for rambling!