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View Full Version : Turning Bytes into Bling

HarverdGrad
11-17-2005, 06:23 AM
Another "how I got rich" off of Everquest story (http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/17/technology/mmo_fortune_112805/index.htm)... It's a good read.
phantomhitman
11-17-2005, 06:46 AM
legal or not, these are smart people. i see this becoming a big business, legally, within the next 2 years.
Lexicon
11-17-2005, 07:08 AM
It's not that hard a business to do either, very little start up capital (in my case $0 since I already had accounts and computers), good profit margins (especially if you sell to players instead of wholesale to IGE), very little risk (except for a few game companies that ban accounts over night I lost over $5k although I know one supplier who lost over $50k that same night). I got out of the business this year though, the hard thing for individuals in the US is the increasing Chinese competition selling direct and whether the game companies jump in to the market themselves.
Kefkataran
11-17-2005, 08:06 AM
Seriously, though, as interesting as this story looks, this is a shitty news post. At least put some effort into submitting stories. Hell.
HarverdGrad
11-17-2005, 08:11 AM
Hiya Kef,
I don't get paid for this sh*t, and my time is valuable (I'm not a journalist + don't pretend to be). I thought the story was interesting.
Lighten up.
swiftdraw
11-17-2005, 08:12 AM
Ah, capitalism at it's finest. I love it. Its always good to see that people are still entrepeneurial enough to find an odd and pretty much untapped market and make good money from it. Now that everyone else is catching on, I'm wondering what changes will happen. Will companies jump on this new money wagon and make the market mainstream? Or will they try to lock everything down and cause the market to go underground? Also, as mentioned above, how will free international comptetion effect the market and who will be the major economic players? It would be funny to see an actual legitiment company start up who's main purpose is to sell items and goods for online games for real world money.
Kefkataran
11-17-2005, 08:55 AM
Hiya Kef,
I don't get paid for this sh*t, and my time is valuable (I'm not a journalist + don't pretend to be). I thought the story was interesting.
Lighten up.

It's a totally interesting story, and I'm glad you brought it to our attention. It's just a crap news post. Pretty much no one here gets paid for posting stories, but most people still put in the effort to make them look nice and appealing. Just saying. *shrug*
TrackZero
11-17-2005, 10:13 AM
legal or not, these are smart people. i see this becoming a big business, legally, within the next 2 years.

No, if there's that much money in it, the respective game developer/publisher will want it for themselves. They'll start selling equipment through the game itself for cash, while pressing charges against anyone who tries to do this kind of thing outside their control.
Lexicon
11-17-2005, 11:46 AM
No, if there's that much money in it, the respective game developer/publisher will want it for themselves. They'll start selling equipment through the game itself for cash, while pressing charges against anyone who tries to do this kind of thing outside their control.

They've already flirted around with pressing charges as is. When I ran my business I received Cease and Desists from Vivendi for WOW, NCsoft for Lineage 2 strangely they didnt care that I sold COH influence, and threats from a SWG CS manager that one was just amusing.