The Economies of MMOs

In World of Warcraft, there is a primary economy- the harvesting and exchange of goods and money with in game world itself. This economy is first introduced to the lower level players by having them “loot” creatures they have killed or sell items they have picked up. They are also able to obtain money from quests they complete. This new wealth (albeit small) can now be used to purchase goods from the game (via vendors in each city) or through other players (via an auction house). Other ways to make money are to create professions with your character collect, hunt, and gather materials to create equipment, potions, foods, enchantments, etc. Some of these skills can be very lucrative, at least in the game economy.

The gold and silver made in the game, however, is not just “Monopoly” money. It can have real world value. This is the secondary economy that has become familiar to most online games, despite some developer’s attempts to stop it. For World of Warcraft, (this is similar to other MMOs), the End User License Agreement (EULA) states that the end-user “shall not, under any circumstances - …exploit the game… for gathering in-game currency, items or resources.” The acts that are prohibited are restated in the Terms of Use (worldofwarcraft.com).




Other creators, like Sony (Everquest series), have decided that supporting customer’s demand for real-money and virtual goods exchange, have created a Station Exchange (Siegel 2008).

Despite the EULA and Terms of Uses, and the threat of recourse (Siegel 2008), players and companies willful play a part in the money making venture of “farming” gold or items in the game. Here are some examples of websites selling gold:

http://www.mygamesale.com/
http://www.wowmine.com/
http://www.thsale.com/
www.SusanExpress.com
http://www.ige.com/

In games such as Everquest, players were averaging making $3.42 for every hour they played, with the nation having a gross per-capita of $2,266 (Knight, 2002).

WoW Gold exchange rates: right now you can buy 500 gold for $11.01 USD, which turns out to be roughly 45 gold for a dollar. (According to Thsale). The conversion rate is roughly 2 cents for a WoW gold (Goldsoon).

Works Cited:
Knight, W. (2002). “Virtual World grows real economy.” Retrieved from
http://www.newscientist.com on October 25th, 2008.
(2008). “World of Warcraft – US Buy Gold.” Retrieved from http://www.thsale.com
on November 13, 2008.
Siegel, R. (2008) “Paying Real Money to Win Online Games.” Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org on November 13, 2008.