new book about online game economies

Today I ran across the catalogue copy for a book coming out in September called PLAY MONEY, by Julian Dibbel. It's about gold sellers...people who make real money buying and selling items in MMOs. I was (truly) stunned to read that apparently these people can make between six figures a year and six figures a month.

I don't know how many of you out there are readers, but botting and gold selling is always a big topic around here, and it's nice that there's a mainstream book coming out dealing with the topic of online games in an interesting way. So I thought I would put up a post.

I am pretty sure it's more like: The boss wh ocontrols all these works makes a ton of money, while the people doing the actual selling get jack shit.

Sounds like all other kinds of work.

O no people not making money....

Its not like there is a million over industries doing the same thing....

Everyone (well at least alot) of people in England think the clothes store Primark is the best thing ever. Well those clothes arnt cheap because they pay the makers of them fair wages.

Anyway, good for the people owning these companies. It isnt a particularly complex idea and they are making a fortune from it. Aside from minimally affecting Guild Wars (in my opinion) I really do not have a problem with them. Exploiting nerds and people too lazy to make gold FTW. Im sure they dont care about the gaming communities and how they are affected. Like I have always said nice guys finish last and you have to be ruthless in business to succeed.

Gold selling companies are huge business now. Last I read one company was buying up the biggest WoW forums on the net and also WoW resources.

Seems like an interesting book. Ill definately look into buying it.

There's a book that I read last year, written by an academic economist. It's called Synthetic Worlds.

Probably not an easy read for younger GW patrons, but I do recommend it for people who like to spend time musing about how virtual economies and the 'real' one interact.

Here are the book on Amazon and the author on Wikipedia.

Oo wow looks really interesting. Im defo. going to be getting both books for some summer reading.

I'm pretty sure you would be wrong about that. I read the book 6 months or so ago, and it was all about 1 or 2 people that run power trading or farming companies. There are actually few sweat shops, and Mr. Dibbel had trouble contacting any. Most of the big name gold sellers pay a lowered price for gold then sold it to the public for more.

The catch was the public may buy from the actual farmers at a lower rate, but the farmers cannot keep up with as many orders as the big companies who buy from the farmers. The farmers are making 6 figures a year and the big companies that buy the money are making 6 figures a month. No whipped asians that recieve breadcrumbs and a picture of their family if they meet the days quota

Question: Is there a real difference between buying virtual gold, and buying a game in the first place?

After all, look at EA games. They are notorious for overworking their programmers, and paying them crap wages (when looked at the amount of work they do). And these are skilled workers!

So I don't see how really there's any ethical difference between buying gold that may exploit workers, and buying a game that may exploit workers.

If we want to get into the "wasting money" argument: one could argue that buying a game itself is a "waste." Hell, watching TV is a waste of time, and time equals money, therefore watching TV is a waste of money.

I believe in the future Gold selling will be a legitimate way to make money, as MMORPGs gain popularity and more and more people seek their services. Which is why I believe eventually most game companies will sell gold themselves, making extra money and protecting their interests.

NOTE: I am not condoning Gold buying which is against the EULA, and could result in your account being suspended or banned.

We had a documentary in the Netherlands about gold farmers(guildwars, WoW ect) in china and korea, a while back.

Big halls filled with people(hunderds) playing the game to earn money,to eat, pay the rent, live.....not to get rich. Like somebody said maybe the boss gets rich but not these people. What amazed me was that they didnt talk about bots, it actually seemed some were actually playing the game.


mzzls

I don't want this to sound like a flame, but I hope you're not really trying to make this argument. Assuming there's some other paying job you could be doing at the times when you watch TV, then you're right. Personally, nothing gets between me and "To Catch A Predator".

Anyhow, concerning how much money a person could make doing this, I googled Julian Dibbell and found this: http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingre.../2004/04/63083

Says he made $3917 in a month, that he reported to the IRS. I kinda like the guy just because he plays MUDs.

For a second I thought the book was about Actual functions of an MMO economy and how it is tied to the human physiological experience of the game.

When I heard it was about botters..

/Bore

This same statement could be made about just about all of the service related industries; e.g., Quick Lube is exploiting me because I don't change the oil in my truck anymore since I've gotten too lazy to do it myself.

I bet he made a ton more. People who work for "cash in hand" like builders can easily declare way less than they made. I am not sure if he could do the same if the money he made was deposited into his paypal account. Maybe if the paypal account was linked to a bank account offshore i.e. Cayman Islands, Channel Islands etc. Im no expert on tax so dont know how correct what I wrote is.

That Julian Dibbel, the author, has the perfect picture;
Making money through bots & selling game gold, not by actually participating in such practices but by writing a book about it! xD

(okay, according to that article Father of the son of God posted he did, but that's besides the point )

I've read a bunch of articles on the matter. Apparently some guy who sold gold in Star Wars Galaxies made enough to buy a house within less than a year. He had a custom doorbell made to play the imperial march.