Via the Second Life forum I made my way to a Gamesblog interview of SL founder and CEO Philip Rosedale. From the interview:
In May 2005, the total amount traded in-world was USD$1.47 million. There were 1.3 million transactions between 19,500 unique users.
And to think this is really still in its infancy.
(edit: C|Net has latched onto this interview. you can read that entry here)
Via Jerry Paffendorf’s SL Future Salon blog entry, comes word that IT Conversations has a 2004 talk posted on their site by PayPal co-founder and former CEO Peter Thiel. The topic: Virtual Money.
Since the bridge between design, virtual product, and personal manufacturing will be largely built as a result of some kind of monetary incentive, it’s perhaps appropriate to begin considering the different avenues by which this incentive will arrive. It’s an issue that’s currently near and dear to me. Even though I’m not particularly interested in money, one still has to pay for this stuff, so I’ll be giving it a listen soon.
I had this conversation again yesterday:
Friend: Can you imagine that? Someone paid like a $100 for this sword-thing and it’s not even real! It’s nothing. Make believe. It only exists in the game.
Me: You need to think about it differently.
Friend: But it doesn’t make any sense. They’re buying nothing!
Me: What do you buy when you get tickets to a baseball game? Or a concert?
The only thing I can figure is that the perception of reality blinds people to this obvious commonality: virtual products aren’t much different than most entertainment, whether it be going to the Indy 500 to watch people race cars in a circle or going to Disneyland to visit Space Mountain, none of it is stuff you can put in the car, take home, and place on your shelf.
People don’t play video games because they have to, they do it because it’s fun. It’s a luxury we enjoy in developed countries when our basic needs are met. It’s really just like going to a sporting event. And there is also a social element. Perhaps not as immersive as the real thing (having a beer spilled on you in the bleachers is pretty immersive), but which is more social: watching the television alone in your room or playing Counter-Strike online with your clan?
The point is that what we now think nothing of was unthinkable not so long ago (e.g. paying some guy millions of dollars to dribble a ball on a wooden floor); and what is unthinkable now will likely be common in the not too distant future. Let’s not forget, there was a time when being an Actor was an almost shameful profession (in some parts of the world, they still think paying people to act is laughable). Which leads me to this article over on Gizmag about a videogame tournament with a $1,000,000 prize. Maybe when you read the article, Mark Cuban’s comments on broadcasting these videogame tournaments at digitally-enabled movie theaters doesn’t sound so far-fetched.
BusinessWeek online has an article on PayPal that’s worth reading if you’re watching virtual economics. For those who aren’t aware, PayPal is owned by eBay. And of course the bulk of virtual transactions (for now) are apparently conducted over eBay. So as virtual currency becomes increasingly tied to real life, it’s interesting to read how PayPal is potentially in a position to extend its online presence into the real world.
I heard about this article over on Gamespot and went looking yesterday, but to no avail. Fortunately, Terra Nova provided a link which I’ve just found. From the article:
“The market is huge… There is no way that our company can be 100 percent successful at shutting down this activity,” SOE spokesman Chris Kramer said.
The company has watched the sale of virtual items evolve from a handful of people to an estimated $200 million market, Kramer said.
“We’ve watched the secondary market skyrocket, even though it’s officially against the rules,” Kramer said. “We can no longer ignore it.”
SOE is Sony Online Entertainment, in case you didn’t know. Sony recently reversed their policy on virtual goods trading and has now joined Microsoft in supporting it. Good read.