Very briefly I thought about playing World of Warcraft for money. There's money to be had in online games, not just for the game publisher, but for the game player too.
In a game like WoW, time is money. A lot of players want to play the high level game and have the great equipment, but they don't have the time to get there. Enter the capitalist belief that time is money, and suddenly you have players who are willing to pay money for having someone else play the game. A game that they've already paid money for, and they continue to pay money for in order to play. They'll pay for characters, they'll pay for items, they'll pay for gold, and some will even pay for levels. Psychologically, this is because people like to say that they've beaten the game, and World of Warcraft, unlike the games that you purchase in the stores is a server-based game. Cheats and trainers won't work, much to the chagrin of people who want to get to level 60 and see the high level content but don't want to spend the months (or years, depending on your lifestyle) to get there.
The following is a list of some of the side businesses that have sprung up from World of Warcraft (and other massively multiplayer games):
- Gold Farming
Players whose purpose in World of Warcraft is to sell in-game gold for real world money are known as gold farmers. This usually involves playing the game to a high level and then killing lower level monsters in an instance dungeon, picking up the items and selling them on the auction house. Sometimes they buy gold cheap from other players, and then resell it for about 1000 gold for 30-40 dollars on eBay, which is enough for an epic mount and some extra toys for your character. That being said, it's probably not possible to really sell gold without using game exploits, game cheats or cheap Chinese labor (yes, there are some businesses in China whose purpose is just to farm gold -- they trade off the character in shifts) , as the amount of time necessary to earn a thousand gold is non-trivial.
- Character Leveling Services
Since the game doesn't really start for most people until level 60, levels 1 through 59 are known as the grind. On average, it takes about 3 to 6 months of casual playing to get to level 60. It's definitely possible for people to start up services where someone else levels up your character for you, and in the end, you have a level 60 character with the name you've chosen. In EverQuest, there were guilds that were established just for this purpose so that the characters could be properly equipped with good equipment from the raid zones. A similar thing could be done in World of Warcraft even more easily, since most raid areas are instanced experiences (not shared with other raid groups).
- Character Selling Services
For people who get tired of their characters (or playing the game), many have sold their World of Warcraft character for real world money. Level 60s go anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars, depending on server, class, race and gender. According to the research on characters sold on Everquest, female characters sold for less money.
- Writing Startegy Guides
There are people who have written strategy guides and now sell them as an electronic download. In most cases, the information contained in these guides aren't worth the money, as they are simply recollections of things that are easily googleable on the internet.
--------
Leave a comment