EricJ Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 This guy just spent $100k of real money on virtual property in a game...He seems to have a plan however News.com story When I was playing EQ more, I new the guy who did buying and selling of items for $$ and he must have made a killing, since in my time there, doing a tiny fraction of what he was doing, I managed to probably make about $10,000 (over about 2 years). This is a whole different level however... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritual Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 A guy at my work used to play Project Entropia a lot before... He never pumped much money into it and thus he never got the ability to do much. I think the whole game reeks of scam! When he was still playing the preparation for buying properties in the gaming world had begun and apparently there were plenty of people who were interested. Apparently you get a percentage of all the profits other players make while on your property. The company behind the game said in their advertising that you could make real money out of playing the game, but my friend said that it was very difficult to actually make more than you invested. That would mean you'd have to invest quite a lot of money, which means the risk of losing is a lot bigger, and you'd have to spend basically every waking hour playing the game. I'd say it's madness! :dontknow: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJ Posted December 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 ummmm, so it sort of sounds like a virtual pyramid scheme, lol Although there are also companies (IGE I think for example) who apparently are making millions off EQ, WoW, etc...goods and in game money... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritual Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 The difference between games like Wow and Project Entropia is that PE is hardly even a game at all... it's just a virtual world and you create a character and walk around, talk to people, look for stuff to sell, hunt animals for money, learn to make stuff so you can sell it to other people etc etc. And, in order to buy things so that you can do anything in that world you need to transfer money to an acount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Caroland Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 That is somewhat surprising I have to admit. I knew that people sold stuff on ebay and the like for weapons, gold, accounts, whatever, but the idea of buying a virtual property and making money off it is ... wow! I would call him crazy, but the fact is, he might just have stumbled onto something early on and will make a ton of cash off it because people are interested in playing the game or whatever it is. Heck, I remember when Ultimate Online was huge (and I played the hell out of it) and Lord British was killed when he was giving a statement in the game and the guy that did it was banned from the game, put through court and was asking to have his identity withheld due to fear for his personal well being. Heh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anatora Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 Valloa made a nice chunk of spending money selling virtual items in an online game. I think the most paid by one person was $1,800 for one sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJ Posted December 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 Valloa made a nice chunk of spending money selling virtual items in an online game. I think the most paid by one person was $1,800 for one sale. Yeah, when I left EQ, I got offered $5,000 for my character. There is lots of money there. I have to admit the idea of this "game" where you just wander around and play life, instead of living life...seems less fun to me. At least build in adventure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Caroland Posted December 13, 2005 Report Share Posted December 13, 2005 I can't believe people paid for those items like that, really, I can't. Why on earth would you spend money like that on something that is 'virtual'? I somewhat understand the fellow above in the original story but for someone to buy a 'character' for $5000 or an item for $1800 is just beyond me. Hell, if I was the system admins for those games, I would see about loading up a character and selling it for x-mas money for the hell of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeadAsbestos Posted December 14, 2005 Report Share Posted December 14, 2005 I really just don't get it. Am I just getting too old, or are these people off their rockers? I had this very same debate about some born-agains I had the misfortune of meeting recently... :bird: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anatora Posted December 14, 2005 Report Share Posted December 14, 2005 It can take 5 or more years of playing an online game to build a character up to a high status with lots of unique items or gold pieces in the bank. Sometimes a player can't wait real years to acquire an item for their character and sometimes an item up for sale is extremely rare and no longer available. Some players are very serious about their online characters and enhance them when they can. It really amounts to the equivelant of buying a " virtual" upgrade or new software from the internet that you have to download. You don't have the item in hand, but you benefit from it just the same. We aren't talking about just kids here. Many of these players are professional people with a lot of money to spend. Why is beyond me, but if that is how they spend their free time, far be it from me to argue. There are worse things to spend their money on. :loco: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Farstrider Posted December 14, 2005 Report Share Posted December 14, 2005 A friend of mine does this sort of thing, building up characters then selling them off, I really don't get it myself, but whatever floats your boat I guess. If this guy can make what he says he can in the article, then all the more power to him. One does have to wonder how that would work when it comes tax time. Is it taxable or not? Hmm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJ Posted December 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2005 oh, you gotta believe it's taxable. Probably at a higher than normal rate somehow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaeliaJS Posted December 14, 2005 Report Share Posted December 14, 2005 There's actually a lot of big money in online multiplayer games. Diablo, Everquest, Everquest 2, DAOC, etc etc. Even text based muds... I made several thousand dollars selling platinums for real money in a mud called Dragonrealms, and when you figure out the exchange rate, a boat in Dragonrealms costs more than a car does in real life. Why do people spend real life money on these games? Because they're either in college or have full time jobs that pay well but very few expenses, and they have all this money lying around that they're not using. They spend upwards of 30-60 hours a week playing these games, so why not invest money into it too? For buying items... if something in said game is rare or takes a very long time (6+ hours) to have even a small shot at getting it, the item can mean more to them than having the money in real life. Think of it kind of like Magic: The Gathering cards. You can spend $3 on a pack of cards that you don't know the contents of, but some players spend over $500 on a single card just because it's so rare and useful. As for buying fake money... It can often take weeks to earn enough in-game coinage for something you want. To a rich person that is lazy or time strained, buying money is a very very tempting proposition. It can also be an investment - What you buy now may become much rarer later and you can sell it at a large profit. The whole thing does toe the line a bit between fantasy and reality, and there's thousands of pages worth of debate about the ethics of buying in game advantages for real life money. It is something, though, that's getting more and more popular as time goes on. PS - System admins have been known to illegally create characters, items, and money just to horn in on this. However, it's extremely risky... online game companies invaribly watch for cheating very closely, and crooked admins are usually caught fast and booted from the game without mercy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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