Trading Virtual Game Currencies for Real Currencies

I have been playing games since I was 6 and in all that time I do not think there was ever a moment I did not wish that all the money I had just made in the game mysteriously spit out from the front of the cartidge/disc loader so that I could enjoy its benefits in meatspace. Alas the physics being what they are, I was never to realize virtual profits physically.

That all changed however when a year or so ago I turned my first profit in 2nd Life. It wasn’t much…a few bucks…but the point was that I knew technically I could have converted those bucks into cold hard USD via the LindeX. I blew that profit on something else…a new mech suit perhaps…but I saw that money being slipped through the vents of my notebook. The physics have changed indeed.

The banking and trading industries have spent the better part of the last 2 decades digitizing ‘the system’ while game developers have been rushing to develop the latest virtual experience. So it is the furthest from curious that since they both rely on our universal calculators that they should come to co-evolve.

People are becoming quite comfortable with the idea that one can make a living in a virtual world, working for real dollars. However, what sets 2nd Life apart from other so-called virtual economies, is that one has the ability to exchange 2nd Life currency into USD.

Other MMORP games have round-about exchanges, such as selling items, players or currency through auction-style websites. This eventually makes playing a game for a virtual item profitable in the real-world. There is an increasing number of ways people go about making real money from virtual worlds…in fact, there are warehouses with people in them ‘working’ in virtual worlds for real dough. That is their job — I am sure cross-game virtual mobs are beginning to form as I write this.

A meta-economy is beginning to develop between the virtual economies and the physical ones.

(interestingly enough, they are in fact one in the same — however, this virtual/physical devisor makes for fascinating discussion now…as soon we will hardly notice)

As I said, 2nd Life with its LindeX is different from the rest and as such can act as the gateway for the others — providing a more direct link between other virtual currencies and USD.

A trader would need to establish their 2nd Life account and say their EVE Online account — then they would need to initiate a trade by looking up the current exchange rate and then msging a local game entity with the amount they want to exchange in local virtual currency (ISK for EVE) with what they want to convert it into (L$ for 2nd Life). The agent would be connected to a network of agents receiving in local and then funding intervirtually — the exchanged money would be sitting in the trader’s 2nd Life wallet ready to be converted ito USD via Lindex.

Fascinating idea….but probably not for long.