Everquest is the 77th richest country in the world

[mouse7]

"...As Castronova stared at the auction listings, he recognized with a shock what he was looking at. It was a form of currency trading. Each item had a value in virtual "platinum pieces"; when it was sold on eBay, someone was paying cold hard American cash for it. That meant the platinum piece was worth something in real currency. EverQuest's economy actually had real-world value.

He began calculating frantically. He gathered data on 616 auctions, observing how much each item sold for in U.S. dollars. When he averaged the results, he was stunned to discover that the EverQuest platinum piece was worth about one cent U.S. — higher than the Japanese yen or the Italian lira. With that information, he could figure out how fast the EverQuest economy was growing. Since players were killing monsters or skinning bunnies every day, they were, in effect, creating wealth. Crunching more numbers, Castronova found that the average player was generating 319 platinum pieces each hour he or she was in the game — the equivalent of $3.42 (U.S.) per hour. "That's higher than the minimum wage in most countries," he marvelled.

Then he performed one final analysis: The Gross National Product of EverQuest, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be $2,266 U.S. per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia.

It was the seventy-seventh richest country in the world. And it didn't even exist.

Castronova sat back in his chair in his cramped home office, and the weird enormity of his findings dawned on him. Many economists define their careers by studying a country. He had discovered one...."

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/04/05/06/1929205.shtml

[UnAmericanJoe]

1. The sheer stupidity

Of gaming geeks can never be underestimated.

[mouse7]

2. You have no idea.

What's even worse is that it's not even fun. It's boring and tedious repetition of the same tasks over and over and over again.

I bought the game and gave it away before the free month had even run out.

[Speck Tater]

3. Them's fightin words

to we citizens of Norath!

But it looks like Worlds of Warcraft is going to blow EQ away anyway.

[mouse7]

4. I'll keep an eye on WoW reviews, and then decide

I'm very leary now. I'm still seeing MMORPGs makers pretend that level grinding the same things over and over again is content. It's not. I'm not paying someone good money to bore the hell out of me. I'm not going to wait for content that never shows, either. They can either start a game right, or forget me as a customer.

[Speck Tater]

6. re: WoW

My daughter is a beta tester for it and what I've seen looking over her shoulder is VERY impressive. I'm ready to drop EQ and switch to WoW when it comes out.

[mouse7]

5. self-delete

[KamaAina]

7. Does it have free elections? A free press?

Does it invade other online gaming worlds to steal their platinum pieces?

No? Intriguing... 'specially since the immigration requirements consist of a Pentium or better, and a decent online connection :-)

[proud patriot]

8. My husband plays EQ

:hi:

[Squeegee]

9. I'm waiting for...

World of Warcraft!

[toddzilla]

10. i sold my diablo II account for like 70 bucks..

people will pay money for just about anything i think.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

11. Oooh, Diablo II. The urge has struck. I must play.

Thanks for reminding me!