Multi-Player Virtual Games Becoming A Market Force

[DudeAsInCool]

Virtual Games Create A Real World Market

...Increasingly popular "massively multiplayer" computer games have created a shadow economy in which players can sell what they've earned in a virtual world for real-world money.

... More than 20 million people play these games worldwide, according to Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, and he thinks such gamers spend more than $200 million a year on virtual goods. One site, GameUSD.com, even tracks the latest value of computer-game currency against the U.S. dollar, an exchange-rate calculator for the virtual world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/#a007500