If you were asking this question just a few years ago the answer would be an unequivocal no. But thanks to recent gains in the popularity of gaming and broadband Internet access you can now make real money by playing PC games--real games like World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, City of Heroes, Starcraft and others.
I'm not making this up. In 2001, economist Edward Castronova calculated the money earned by gamers in just one game (Everquest) to be over 130 million US dollars a year1!
And more recently, in 2006, another game academic valued the total economy for all MMO games at 20 billion US dollars, nearly a billion of that being openly traded over the Internet for real cash2. That means hundreds of millions of dollars are being exchanged within games--and I'm not talking about the game companies! I'm talking about a billion dollars worth of products and services being sold by gamers to other gamers for cold hard cash.
Gold farming, in which players accumulate in-game currency that they then turn around and sell to secondary markets, is the OLD WAY to make money with online games. Because more of the world's wealth is now being spent inside games, new game businesses have sprung up, frequently out of nowhere. These new income opportunities have even sparked the interest of CNBC. The December 2007 edition of Business Nation featured Second Life account holders who were making $85,000 to $180,000 annually, at home, using their avatars. CNBC estimated the GNP of these Second Life services to be 365 million dollars a year.
So while it's true gold farming used to be the only way to make money playing games there are so many more business models out now you won't be spending all day clicking on a mountain, unless you like doing that sort of thing...
People are now making money participating in these activities:
Each opportunity comes with its own advantages and disadvantages and requires certain skills and appetites from the gamer. The more research you do the more likely you will find a role that fits you. As you learn more you may even develop your own unique business models based on your own interests and knowledge about certain games and the people who play them (your market).
You don't need a degree in software engineering to make headway. Of course, just like in real life, it helps to have skills (design-sense, business acumen, marketing, accounting, researching, chat persuasion, battle strategy, a photographic memory, fast reflexes, or just a love for games and avatars). Whatever you start with will help you find your place in this industry. The fact is, most people starting in these games are, well, noobs.
Despite its flexibility, this is not a career for everyone. Playing games for cash involves spending a lot of time online and being creative and self-motivated. There are many people who won't feel comfortable trying to make money online such as those who like relying on a boss or who generally avoid spending a lot of time indoors and enjoy driving to work. Others simply have an aversion to information technology and virtual reality. On the flipside the things that make this unattractive to others can be the very thing that draws some to this industry.
Wages are highly stratified. As in real life, there is a huge minimum wage class. Many of these players are new, poorly trained and are using the same gold farming techniques that have been around since the turn of the century. The thing that makes certain players highly successful is taking the time to use their most marketable talents in the game and having the right information.
The game you choose can also determine much of your success. Before you begin should know which games are hot and which are not.
Traditional sources of income come with many barriers to entry such as having the right background or being in the right circle of friends or, frankly, being liked by your potential employer or investor.
But the Internet is much more democratic and efficient. It doesn't matter what you look like or what you sound like. It doesn't matter who you know or who you don't know; the online market is indifferent to everything but your talent and your work ethic. Where you live is not even part of the equation: you can work at home or anywhere on planet Earth that is connected to the Internet. So even if you enjoy spending all day locked in a car you can still be "working at home" if you have a laptop and a wireless broadband account.
Furthermore, start-up costs for creating your own game player business are very, very low, sometimes nothing. Lastly, online game jobs don't carry the legal risks of certain other "sexy" online industries.
Well, to really grasp this industry you could spend the next 6-12 months doing research, tearing up the servers at Yahoo! and Google, finding out all the intricate ways in which people are making money in this new economy--in other words a lot of hard work. Fortunately Game Player Cash has done all the work for you. This instantly downloadable eBook is the most comprehensive source you will find on the topic.
NO. This is not a strategy guide for playing games but playing for cash. I went out into the "virtual field" and met with all sorts of people involved in this new industry. You'll hear my reports from smaller, newer players just making a little extra income to the in-game giants making loads of cold, hard cash you can take to the bank. Plus you'll also hear from the game developers themselves. You'll get the information you need to succeed in this new line of work.
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References Used in this Article:
1Castronova, Edward. "On Virtual Economies." CESifo Working Paper No. 752, July 2002.
2Dibbell, Julian. Play Money Basic Books, June 2006
© Copyright 2006-2007 Tex Media · (412) 204-8086
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