[MUD-Dev] Mapping real money into MUD money

[David Kennerly]

Katie Lukas wrote:

> Julian Dibbell also has an excellent site about the translation of
> virtual economic systems into cold hard cash, which he (and
> others) do as a living.  http://www.juliandibbell.com/

Julian got another article about that recently:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3135247.stm

<EdNote: Below>

--<cut>--
Making money from virtually nothing
DOT.LIFE - how technology changes our lives
By Mark Ward
BBC News Online technology correspondent
Can you make a real living buying and selling goods which only exist
in the virtual world of an online fantasy game?

Many thousands of people make a very good living writing, creating
and running computer games.

Rather fewer people earn a wage playing games professionally by
taking the top cash prizes at tournaments around the world.

But Julian Dibbell is not trying to support himself, wife and
daughter by programming or playing.

Instead in April 2004, he will declare to the US Internal Revenue
Service that his main source of income is the sale of imaginary
goods.

Game gear

Mr Dibbell is buying and selling virtual cash, weapons, armour,
homes and other artefacts from the Ultima Online game for Earth
money from his home in San Francisco.

Many players of massively popular multiplayer online role-playing
games such as Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Star Wars
Galaxies, make a little cash on the side by selling some of the
things they find while adventuring in these virtual worlds.

But Mr Dibbell is turning this occasional trading into a fulltime
occupation. He is, as he puts it, trying to get rich by literally
"selling castles in the air".

People began adventuring in Britannia - the world of Ultima Online -
in 1997, which makes it the most venerable graphical game on the
web.

It has more than 225,000 active players, who spend up to 20 hours
per week in Britannia.

The game has a broad fantasy setting, familiar to anyone who knows
Tolkien. Players can choose a life of adventure or a more sedate or
sedentary occupation such as weaver, weaponsmith or tailor.

Mr Dibbell had good reasons for picking Ultima Online for his
virtual business empire.

"I was playing the game every spare chance I could. Finally, I
thought I should figure out some proper reason to do this before my
wife pulled the plug."

Britannia also has a well established economy and is not prone to
the deflation and economic surges that seem to be afflict other game
worlds.

Mr Dibbell says that the trading system in Britannia is engineered
to make it hard for someone to hand over cash and get nothing in
return.

Trial run

Also Origin, the makers of Ultima, are happy for the trading to go
on. Other games, such as EverQuest, have tried to ban sales of
artefacts and characters with varying degrees of success.

To see if the idea of making a living by selling artefacts would
work at all, Mr Dibbell set himself the task of making $1,000 of
Ultima Online trades in three weeks - while his wife and daughter
were away.

He made it with only minutes to spare.

And now it has become his job.

A typical day starts with a check of the places on the net where
money, artefacts and even property in Ultima Online are traded.

He looks to see if anyone is giving a good price for what he has to
sell or something he knows he can get from other people.

Sites such as eBay, Player Auctions and Tradespot list items,
characters and player accounts for sale.

The amounts being traded are huge. Figures collected by economist
Edward Castronova show that the total dollar value of what is being
traded, excluding EverQuest items, runs into the millions.

Mr Dibbell has become an itinerant merchant wandering the land of
Britannia seeking out gold and other goods to sell.

"I've discovered that there is a food chain and the producers are at
the bottom and the merchants are at the top," he says.

"The producers are the teenage kids that have a lot of time on their
hands but no money so they go out and hunt and loot and craft and
produce the stuff that I am buying and selling," he says.

Dodgy deals

Mr Dibbell is also acting as an in-game representative for a
well-established trader who regularly asks him to find objects on
his behalf.

This "Mr Big" is one of a handful of Ultima players who make six
figure sums annually from their trades.

They manage to do this because they are well-known, trustworthy and
have amassed huge amounts of in-game goodies.

Big money can be made when buying an Ultima account of a long-term
player who has got bored of the system and the work involved in
keeping it going.

The account may be sold as a whole, but can generate much more by
breaking it up and selling the items, money and property
individually.

"You can double or triple your money on one account," says Mr
Dibbell.

But the buying and selling of virtual goods is not without real
ethical dilemmas or risks.

Mr Dibbell recently found he was acting as a fence for a very rare
stolen artefact that he could make a big, quick profit on.

He consulted Mr Big who declared that he had no problem with in-game
theft as there are many Britannia inhabitants who make a living as
rogues and footpads.

Mr Dibbell greatest fear is that he falls prey to real cyber
criminals who pillage his Ultima items or steals the cash from his
PayPal account.

With his livelihood gone, Mr Dibbell would have no doubt that a
crime had been committed but he realises that he might have a hard
time convincing the police to investigate the theft of goods that
have a tangible value but negligible reality.
--<cut>--
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