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December 20, 2004
Virtual Property Market Gets Real
Posted by Marc Eisenstadt
Think MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) are kids' play? Think again. And I'm not talking about the games market being bigger than the film industry (for the developers that is), which is interesting enough. I'm talking about Joe Player starting to make serious moolah from a combination of extended play (after all, time is money) and shrewd investments. For example:
BBC News | Technology | Friday 17th December 2004
[from
"Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land"]
A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game (RPG). ... The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other. Entropia allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, while fans of other titles often use auction site eBay to sell their virtual wares. Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia. ...
[The buyer] will make money from his investment as he is able to tax other gamers who come to his virtual land to hunt or mine for gold. He has also begun to sell plots to people who wish to build virtual homes.
Should we be surprised/alarmed/outraged/thrilled by this? I'm not sure. In the bigger scheme of things, it is undoubtedly a sad reflection on us all that greed and frenzied buying take place on this scale, in a world of poverty and need. But let's keep things in perspective. In the lesser scheme of things, there is nothing unusual about this at all. My shares in (say) Yahoo! are no more real to me than (say) a deed to some virtual property on Project Entropia. I've never 'seen' nor 'touched' either of those things! Are shares in a real company based on a sounder analysis? Maybe, maybe not. I've seen tiny shacks (changing room / cabanas) on the seafront in the South of England sell for five- and six-figure sums, reflecting merely what the property market will bear -- and that in itself can of course be a very volatile market. Like Pokemon cards, Dutch tulips, or, indeed, MMORPG property.
Comments (4)
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1. Dave Evans on December 20, 2004 10:46 AM writes...
People have been selling assets in MMORPG's for years, it's an easy way to buy your way into a choice piece of real estate, armor, spells, etc. The problem is that once they expand the boundaries, or the server crashes and looses all ownership data (which has happened before), the value plummets to zero.
Entropia is yet another game attempting to link the virtual and real economies. The list of bankrupt predecessors that have tried this previously is pretty long.
Permalink to Comment2. Marc Eisenstadt on December 20, 2004 10:56 AM writes...
Exactomundo, hence the 'time is money' remark (people have long been shortcutting months online to buy armor/spells, as you've rightly said), as well as the 'Pokemon' and 'Dutch tulip' comments intended to foreshadow the (very) high risks.
Permalink to Comment3. Jeremy C. Wright on December 20, 2004 11:20 AM writes...
I rarely play MMO's (I've played two). However, when I do get sick of them, I always sell off all "assets" for a reasonable price.
Recently I'd played City of Heroes for 3 months, and then sold my account for 5500$. On an hourly rate basis it was pretty crap, but it's the only kind of game I know where your play time is worth money (at the higher end).
Permalink to Comment4. Dave Evans on December 20, 2004 03:57 PM writes...
WIRED News:
For years, companies like Sony Online Entertainment have prohibited the buying or selling of goods from games such as EverQuest. Despite such rules, which are commonly spelled out in MMOs' terms of service, the secondary market for virtual goods is estimated at $880 million annually.
Permalink to Commenthttp://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,66074,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html