NEWS: Geeks Spend $100 Million On Nothing

GEEK: Geeks Spend $100 Million On Nothing

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, or MMORPGs, such as EverQuest and the upcoming Matrix Online, have become big business. For some years now it hasn't just been the games makers raking it in though, as people have long been selling virtual goods for actual cash. Now it's been estimated that sales of such items have topped $100,000,000.

But it isn't just kids after a little extra pocket money selling the spoils of their epic weapons quests, as the money to be made attracts some unsavory business ventures.

wow i heard rumors of chinese peaple organized into sweatshops but i never belived it

never played the games but i know a kid that spent 100 bucks on some thing for everquest... wierdo

break out the credit cards everyone!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd believe it -- i mean people sell screennames and icq numbers on ebay so why not?

http://search.ebay.com/icq_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQfromZR8

one of my b/f's friends just made over $200 bucks selling a character he leveled up on COH, i wish i had that kind of money to throw around on fake stuff

This geeky kid at my work does this. He actually has a small team that get together for gaming parties, play for hours, if not days, and then sell the points or whatnot on Ebay. It's strange, but he actually makes money.

who wants some geek love?

I sold a Jedi account for star wars galaxies for 2 grand a few months ago not to mention the millions of credits I sold at 20 bucks per million. The online gaming world is a way to make some serious cash if you know what your doing. with Games like Everquest 2 and world of warcraft coming out in the next month that will just open the door for more money to be made off of items that do not exist. It's kind of like getting paid to play a game.

It's kind of like the stock market then?

Pretty much, if you don't know whats going on in the game world you can't figure out what to do to get ahead. Plus Jedi accounts are not as rare as they once were so the one I sold a few months ago is only worth about 500 bucks now. So it is like the stock market in the regards of know when to when and what to buy and sell at the right time.

[Edited on Oct 31, 2004 7:21AM]

That's no dumber than people paying to have a star named after them. That's fairly stupid as well.

Exactly, they are selling the time they've invested to advance to a certain point, is certainly a legitimate business. Some of the shit in these games can take months, if not years to amass.

Besides that, how much have you guys spent on tattoos, and piercings? (50 bucks to have a hole punched in you?)
Believe it or not, to the rest of the world, those are also relatively worthless endeavors.

Boy i must really be a money waster, piercings tattoos and online games thats a good point about time. When you start a game you don't know anything, as you get better things come faster. I noticed most of the people I sold stuff too were people who were new or casual players who only played weekends because they had a 40+ hr a week job. They deffinetly have money to spend, so it's almost like they paid me to get their stuff. There are also sites thet will level your characters for a price. Like do 1 skill to max for around 100-200 bucks. seems like not alot of money for the work, but some people are so use to doing these skills they can get them maxed out in less than 2 hours, so 50 bucks an hour is pretty good pay.

Spike, I think whatever you spend your money on, to make you happy, is a totally worthy investment. Rock on, good sir!

i've known a few kids in my day who supported themselves soley on designing and selling characters for Everquest...damn somedays i wish i was just a little bit dorkier

I sold my Ultima Online account I had going since the beta version of the game on ebay a year and half ago for 780 Bucks!!!

I meen wtf! Who the hell pays for this kinda stuff. I meen... Its not even real shit. I laughed when I went and saw the cash lying in my PayPal account.

Before Ultima Online's economy went to shit, you could sell 1,000,000 gold for $100 on eBay. Now it runs about $15. You could sell a castle before the "new lands" opened up for around $1000. Not sure what they'll fetch now.

I knew one person who literally made a living playing UO and selling the rare items, weapons, and houses she obtained in-game. She made several thousand dollars per month.

I played that game for three years, quit for a year, and came back for a couple of months this year. In all that time, I've never seen the sense in paying a couple of hundred dollars for pixels. I couldn't make that "I have real money here in my pocket" for "colors on the computer screen" transition. But that's just me.

What shocks me is this talk of 'not even real shit'.

ever pay for a movie, book, art, music, etc?

none of that shit is 'real' either.

Who here has paid hard earned money for downloadable ringtones or wallpapers for their mobile phone?

(i haven't btw but the market is billions of dollers a year)

People who enjoy the virtual communities and who spend a little money helping to get an advantage over their compeitors are no different from people who pay the extra 50 dollers for the top of the range running shoes or spend an extra thousand dollers for a custom built road racing bicycle to improve their performance.

They're no different from the people who buy designer handbags to impress their friends with their style and implied success

It's wild watching the virtual economies go. For example, at various times the everquest platinum has been worth significantly more than some real world currencies.

I seem to remember there being conversion rates from EQ plats to real-world currency. o.O

I have sold and I have bought, and I don't even play my FFXI game all that much. It's not so bizarre, and there are millions of MMORPG gamers...