What Took Them So Long

Massively multiplayer online games have been in existence since the early days of the Internet. Ultima Online pioneered the way for other, more advanced games. To complement such games, sites were created to sell in-game currency, items, and even characters for real money. Ebay only helped to fuel this revolution. But the sale of in-game content in the real world has been traditionally looked upon as a bad thing. Game developers have tried to stop individuals from profiting from their actions in-game, but was this ever really such a bad thing to begin with? From the developers’ perspective, this could upset the in-game economy, but for a game such as Second Life, the game world thrives from this sort of action.

Given how long the sale of in-game content has been going on, I am very surprised it has taken someone this long to create a game where this behavior is encouraged. A game called Project Entropia attempted to make a simplistic version of working real money into a game possible, but never took off, but then again, it never offered the freedom of Second Life. Aside from possibly research information and product marketing (and even then they will only reach on a certain type of person and percentage of the population) I am not sure why a business would want to waste time with Second Life, but hey, if there is money to be made in Second Life, the entrepreneurs will milk it.