Massively Multiplayer Money

[mr. x]

another wired article. this is kinda cool i guess. i dont play MMO's (too much money) but this sounds neat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3368633.stm

Online games now have their own foreign exchange that lets players buy and sell different virtual currencies just like in the real world.
The Gaming Open Market allows players who control characters in games such as Star Wars Galaxies, The Sims Online and Ultima, to buy and sell the currencies used in the different game worlds.

Players can convert cash reserves in one game into a different currency in another world or sell their virtual money for US dollars.

The market now has 29 characters in six different games that act as virtual bank managers in the separate worlds.

Money maker

Jamie Hale, co-founder of the Gaming Open Market, said that before the exchange was established buying and selling game cash was a laborious process.

He said many players used auction sites such as Ebay or paid high transaction costs on specific dealer sites such as Player Auctions. Then they had to arrange to meet other players inside different games to make the transfers.

The firms behind online multiplayer games run several versions of their world simultaneously on separate servers or shards. Swapping cash between shards was possible but much more laborious, said Mr Hale, and exchanging money from one game to another was almost impossible.

Despite this huge amounts of money are being spent every month buying and selling game cash, game artefacts (such as magic weapons) and even complete characters.

According to figures collated by economics professor Edward Castronova, 2003 saw more than $9m of trades on Ebay category 1654 which covers internet games.

This figure excludes trades done on EverQuest - by far the most popular US online game.

Mr Hale said the Gaming Open Market hoped to make the process of buying and selling game cash much easier and cheaper.

Cash crunch

Mr Hale and his co-founder Tom Merrall run characters in all the games the market covers to act as virtual bank managers who handle the movement of cash in and out of the virtual worlds.

Currently the market handles transactions in six separate currencies including Simoleons from The Sims Online, gold from Ultima Online and credits from Star Wars Galaxies.

Soon it hopes to be helping people trade cash from Dark Ages of Camelot and EverQuest.

Currencies are traded in blocks to make the market consistent and trade values easier to understand. The market makes its money by charging commission on deposits, withdrawals and trades.

"We expect the exchange rates to fluctuate in response to supply and demand in the games," Mr Hale said.

Inflation could also put pressure on exchange rates.

"There have been times when players have found cheats and manufactured piles and piles of gold in the game," said Mr Hale. "In that situation we expect the price to drop substantially."

Eventually, said Mr Hale, people will be able to speculate on future currency values and use them to hedge just like they do with real world currencies.

[fresh22]

Forget imaginary currency......I played Ultima Online for a couple of years, if you look on ebay powerful artifacts or items get the real dough.....lets see: a wizard's hat w/ special magical properties that goes for 500 US dollars and more, its crazy what people spend for imaginary items for MMPORG's, eh maybe they are living vicariously through their online characters *shrugs*

[bluemonq]

hahaha, i remember the userfriendly series on selling an ultima "mage of thwappage" (i know its not real). i have a different wired article in front of me right now on rares (weird things like piles of horse manure and sticks of wood that should not have been able to be moved around but could be) going for tens to hundreds of dollars; at least the special powers make sense, but horse manure?

[mr. x]

^-- well nobody said they actually sold right?

[bluemonq]

Originally Posted by mr. x

^-- well nobody said they actually sold right?

actually...according to wired, a fairly lively trade is made on items like these

[mr. x]

Originally Posted by bluemonq

actually...according to wired, a fairly lively trade is made on items like these

what the freak? i take it theres a use for it then?

[bluemonq]

nope. it's just a point of pride for those people, owning "rares", sort of like showpieces. they're kinda like magic: the gathering cards in the sense of uselessness, except even less useful

[etcj]

Wait..I'm a bit confused. So people are playing online games like the one described in .hack//sign, right? I don't get why people need to buy in-game items with real life money. How do you know that you aren't get a hacked or fake item that's been hexxed or something?

[kitty]

Originally Posted by etcj

Wait..I'm a bit confused. So people are playing online games like the one described in .hack//sign, right? I don't get why people need to buy in-game items with real life money. How do you know that you aren't get a hacked or fake item that's been hexxed or something?

when i was playing diablo II, people would sell really rare armous sets on ebay.

didn't really seem worth it to me, but my friend was collecting all the rare stuff so that he could create sets, possibly to sell.

[mr. x]

kitty why do u have a ROTK quote, i thought u hated the movie?

anyway this might be an interesting aspect of MMO in the future...

[TB4000]

A co-worker of mine bought a bunch of hacked items for Phantasy Star Online, which I do still play on occasion when I get the chance(Level 94 Ranger, biatch!) He offered me some, but I hear tell that stuff can corrupt your entire memory card and character, forcing you to start the whole thing from scratch...not a pretty sight.

[kitty]

Originally Posted by mr. x

kitty why do u have a ROTK quote, i thought u hated the movie?

'cuz after i went and saw the movie, we read the last chapter of the book :) that's from the book and is a pretty good indication to me of sam and frodo's true relationship.

i didn't *hate* the movie... i just didn't think it was all that.

[bluemonq]

Originally Posted by etcj

Wait..I'm a bit confused. So people are playing online games like the one described in .hack//sign, right? I don't get why people need to buy in-game items with real life money. How do you know that you aren't get a hacked or fake item that's been hexxed or something?

well, the short story is...you don't. it's happened before, i believe. i think some of the games made it illegal to buy stuff with real money. some people just take their games seriously.