Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job And Struck It Rich in Virtual Loot Farming Export

@book{citeulike:691662, abstract = {{From the writer acclaimed as "our hot link to the intricacies of cyberspace"--a wild ride to the outer limits of the virtual world, where real money meets fantasy gaming (Kit Reed, author of <I>Weird Women, Wired Women</I>) <P> <I>Play Money</I> explores a remarkable new phenomenon that's just beginning to enter public consciousness: MMPORGs, or Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games, in which hundreds of thousands of players operate fantasy characters in virtual environments the size of continents. With city-sized populations of nearly full-time players, these games generate their own cultures, governments, and social systems and, inevitably, their own economies, which spill over into the real world. <P> The desire for virtual goods--magic swords, enchanted breastplates, and special, hard-to-get elixirs--has spawned a cottage industry of "virtual loot farmers": People who play the games just to obtain fantasy goods that they can sell in the real world. The best loot farmers can make between six figures a year and six figures a <I>month</I>. <P> <I>Play Money</I> is an extended walk on the weird side: a vivid snapshot of a subculture whose denizens were once the stuff of mere sociological spectacle but now--with computer gaming poised to eclipse all other entertainments in dollar volume, and with the lines between play and work, virtual and real increasingly blurred--look more and more like the future.}}, author = {Dibbell, Julian}, citeulike-article-id = {691662}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike09-20&amp;path=ASIN/0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike01-21&amp;path=ASIN/0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike06-21&amp;path=ASIN/0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465015352/citeulike00-21}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike07-20&path=ASIN/0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-5 = {http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-6 = {http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0465015352}, citeulike-linkout-7 = {http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?keywords=0465015352&index=books&linkCode=qs}, citeulike-linkout-8 = {http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0465015352}, day = {31}, howpublished = {Hardcover}, isbn = {0465015352}, keywords = {economy, money, virtual\_worlds}, month = {July}, posted-at = {2006-07-26 11:11:55}, priority = {2}, publisher = {{Perseus Books Group}}, title = {Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job And Struck It Rich in Virtual Loot Farming}, url = {http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike07-20&path=ASIN/0465015352}, year = {2006} }

TY - BOOK ID - citeulike:691662 L3 - citeulike-article-id:691662 N2 - {From the writer acclaimed as "our hot link to the intricacies of cyberspace"--a wild ride to the outer limits of the virtual world, where real money meets fantasy gaming (Kit Reed, author of <I>Weird Women, Wired Women</I>) <P> <I>Play Money</I> explores a remarkable new phenomenon that's just beginning to enter public consciousness: MMPORGs, or Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games, in which hundreds of thousands of players operate fantasy characters in virtual environments the size of continents. With city-sized populations of nearly full-time players, these games generate their own cultures, governments, and social systems and, inevitably, their own economies, which spill over into the real world. <P> The desire for virtual goods--magic swords, enchanted breastplates, and special, hard-to-get elixirs--has spawned a cottage industry of "virtual loot farmers": People who play the games just to obtain fantasy goods that they can sell in the real world. The best loot farmers can make between six figures a year and six figures a <I>month</I>. <P> <I>Play Money</I> is an extended walk on the weird side: a vivid snapshot of a subculture whose denizens were once the stuff of mere sociological spectacle but now--with computer gaming poised to eclipse all other entertainments in dollar volume, and with the lines between play and work, virtual and real increasingly blurred--look more and more like the future.} SN - 0465015352 TI - Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job And Struck It Rich in Virtual Loot Farming PB - {Perseus Books Group} KW - economy KW - money KW - virtual_worlds AU - Dibbell, Julian PY - 2006/07/31/ UR - http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike09-20&amp;path=ASIN/0465015352 ER -