Washington Post reports, “Online role playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world are getting blurred”.


Mike Musgrove of The Washington Post has a report on “Virtual Games Create A Real World Market”.

One of the online game players auctioned a character ‘Jedi Knight’ he had created for himself to roam the virtual universe in a computer game and he was able to sell it for $510. According to the reporter, “Kellen’s auction is just one example of how increasingly popular online role playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world are getting blurred”.

Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University has written a book on the subject, and he thinks such gamers spend more than $200 million a year on virtual goods. The report also says, a site, GameUSD.com, even tracks the latest value of computer-game currency against the U.S. dollar, an exchange-rate calculator for the virtual world.

One such buyer of virtual characters says, “I just don’t have the time to grind for 10 hours a day to get to the fun content in most games, I had rather spend a little real-world cash”.

Sharing is caring