The BBC has a story about a gamer buying an island in a a game for….$26,500 in real money. The island exists in Project Entropia, a Role Playing Game (RPG) and was put up for sale on eBay.
The Beeb goes on:
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 purchase of the island is not an eccentricity, however. The new owner can tax visitors to his island and sell off sub-plots to other gamers. This can either be further eBay sales for real cash or for the game’s virtual currency, the PED. PED’s have an exchange value for real money too, so this amounts to the same thing.
I remember in the dotcom era when Beenz (the web’s currency) was launched with a great fanfare. “Some day” gushed a spokesman “we’ll see day traders in Beenz, earning a living that way.” Since their cunning business strategy consisted to selling $5 notes for $10, that seemed to be unlikely to me at the time.
However, it is a very likely scenario that MMORPGs will actually provide some gamers with the opportunity to earn a living in this way.
It’s also a fascinating idea in that unlike real land, virtual land can be simply created at will – almost like printing your own money. This means that it’s no longer a scarce or finite commodity, which has always been a key economic driver behind the real world value.
Instead its value comes from its desirability to other gamers, just as beach front land in Florida is more desirable and costly than an isolated wasteland in Siberia.
How intriguing.
—–>Follow us on Twitter too: @russellbuckley and @caaarlo
Recent Comments