Just Another Virtual Day at Work For a World of Warcraft Player

Virtual warrior 'Tarameer' 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. More than 20 million people play these games worldwide, according to Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, and he thinks such gamers spend more than $200 million a year on virtual goods

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) October 28, 2006 -- For a year, 'Tarameer' has roamed the world of Azeroth in the online computer game World of Warcraft, living a fantasy life as a successful and wealthy dwarven warrior. Last week, Tarameer decided the game was capable of providing him with a full time income and quit his job of 4 years to become a full time trader of items and gold within the game. It is a simple trade of cash for the product of Tarameer's labors, except that all the goods exist only within the confines of a computer game, electronic blips to be transferred from one account to another.

"Sometimes I trade my items for gold inside the game. More often now I trade items for cash directly. I use sites like eBay or forums. There is always a demand for items and I was making more money hourly in the game than I was at my full time job so I quit. Other people work from home so I thought why not me? I am thinking of opening up a store to sell my items. I can't do this in the game so I might open an eBay (ebay.com) store or a Trade Warcraft (tradewarcraft.com) store. Then I guess I need to think about what I will enter on my tax return for my profession!"

Tarameer 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. More than 20 million people play these games worldwide, according to Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, and he thinks such gamers spend more than $200 million a year on virtual goods. One 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.

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