Play Money

October 20, 2003 10:49 PM

Play money is a blog about a guy trying to make money selling artifacts from online games. The guy is Julian Dibbell, whose work has been discussed on metafilter before.
posted by rdr (11 comments total)

excellent. i've heard about people selling virtual items before but never really read much of a first hand account. thanks for the link!
posted by dobbs at 11:55 PM on October 20, 2003

Cool post; As someone who has sold online game items on ebay, I love the idea of someone making a living out of this!
posted by paradigm at 12:44 AM on October 21, 2003

This has been one of my favorite blogs almost since he started it. My Tiny Life is probably the best book out there on MU*s, and I was thrilled to find out the author was still around.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 6:10 AM on October 21, 2003

This link made my entire day. I personally sell a ton of items, specifically virtual items from various games, on Ebay. This year i made about 23k off sales. While it is still a hobby for me, and I do have a full time job, nonetheless it is very interesting. I had never heard of this blog before and intend to follow it from now on.

Terrific post.
posted by Addiction at 7:00 AM on October 21, 2003

Mr. Dibbell also contributes to a great blog about MMO games and their economies, social systems, etc. See Terra Nova.
posted by patgas at 8:10 AM on October 21, 2003

Wow. I have a friend who got involved with a husband and wife who did this full time. He says the three of them made about 100K off of this in a year, but the husband and wife do it full time. They're both originally independently wealthy, and have a bunch of machines that they're acquiring these items on, all at once. That's just insane. I remember when eBay was coming out against these auctions on their site, but they just kept on coming. Capitalism stands. The game-makers definitely don't like it, but people don't seem to care. They will buy a Level 50 Mage anytime one gets offered to them.

What I want to know is - who has the money to make these purchases.
posted by djspicerack at 9:23 AM on October 21, 2003

I have a low opinion of Mr. Dibbell because I actually found My Tiny Life to be a book full of gossip. I've been on LambdaMOO (the place he wrote about in the book) for almost 10 years. The book was a not very well-disguised gossip-history of the place.

When I say "not very well-disguised", I mean that he wrote, for instance, about a person with an alterned pseudonym of "briarblack" in the book whose real MOO-name is "blackbriar".

Anyway, I'm glad that Dibbell has found another thing to keep him busy. I'm not surprised it's sensationalist, given that his career so far has been sensationalist.
posted by kalessin at 9:27 AM on October 21, 2003

[tangent]

Are there any free, good, graphic MMORPGs out there?

[/tangent]
posted by signal at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2003

Mu Online is okay so far.

http://www.muonline.com

understandably it's also very laggy. I'm on server 3 as odiv.
posted by ODiV at 12:26 PM on October 21, 2003

Sorry, but I have to put in a word in favor of Julian Dibbell's book, My Tiny Life. Having been at Lambda during most of the events recounted in the book, I think that Dibbel really conveyed the feel of the place in a way that nothing else I've read about MOOs does.
posted by Rebis at 2:46 PM on October 21, 2003

If you mean that it conveyed that MOOers are, just like everyone else, completely insane bastards enshrined in their own little worlds, oh yes, I agree with you there, Rebis.
posted by kalessin at 5:47 AM on October 23, 2003