As I am slowly looking at playing World of Warcraft in my extreme “spare time”, I’ve been poking around the net at my old “stomping grounds”. I ran into this, where they talk about a new feature in World of Warcraft called the Dressing Room, where you can see how your character would look with items you’re interested in buying.

Imagine if your mother caught you staying up late, gaming!!!

Read reply #3 and #5

It seems that with Summer in the air and the birth of my son, Benjamin, World of Warcraft is the last thing I want to do with my computer. I’d rather play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or mess with photos and videos.

Two nights ago, I had the chance to have a fascinating chat with a Chinese Civil Engineering student that attends Hunan University. I always like to ask the farmers I see in the game if they are farmers. This dude actually wrote back, and he had good English. I was so happy!

Unfortunately, this farmer only earns about 800 RMB ($96) per month playing 7-12 hours per day. He said he was unhappy. He said his friend told him about the job. Man, that’s some pretty shitty money.

Regardless, I am quite fascinated by this notion of turning virtual resources (gold and items in World of Warcraft) into real money. There are companies overseas, mostly in Asia, that pay game players to play these games and “farm” in-game currency by killing monsters and selling items looted from these monsters. It’s amazing because the impact this has on the game is immeasurable. Also, the impact this has on small economies is immeasurable. If I was a student of economics, pursuing a PhD, I’d love for this very topic to be the subject of my dissertation.