Can You Make Real Money From Online Games?

Can You Make Real Money From Online Games?
By Paul Middleton

This article isn’t on how you can make money online playing gambling games poker or blackjack. You can make money with these games if you know what you’re doing but there’s a high element of luck involved.

It also has nothing to do with creating your own games or working for a company that does.

This is about partaking in massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) such as Second Life, World of Warcraft and Everquest to name but three. These games are made up of millions of real people across the world who participate

Second Life has its own “virtual” economy where residents pay each other (Linden dollars) for services, land and goods. Linden dollars can be traded for real life dollars. An Article in September 2006 Popular Science magazine said that that Second Life has a GDP of $64 Million (and that’s real world dollars!). As I write this in May 2007 I can see $1,417,878 have been spent in Second Life in the past 24 hours!

World of Warcraft (WOW) and Everquest are MMORPG fantasy games (think Dungeons & Dragons) where people have characters they develop that explore, fight monsters and perform quests. People are impatient and don’t have the time to develop their characters so are willing to pay for things such as in game currency (WOW gold for example - Google it and you'll see) weapons and armour etc. There’s also people who will make money from developing a character for people. Therefore a gamers character can be developed in terms of status and experience whilst its creator works in the real world allowing them to progress quicker than they would otherwise (at a real world cost).

This way of making money online is relative new and expanding each day. If you haven’t already try one of the above games and see what oportunities it gives you. A good place to start is with second life www.secondlife.com as this (for a basic account) is free to sign up for.

Paul Middleton is a successful Internet entrepreneur. He shares some of his secrets on his website where he shows people how you can make money online working from home. Included are details of how to make money in Second Life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Middleton

Starting a Business in Second Life

Starting a Business in Second Life
The virtual world of Second Life is a friendly place for businesses, as it offers most of the advantages of our real lives when you’re about to start one. But, just as in real life, the competition is stiff and only the strong survive. Usually, people start out a business in Second Life with one of the following three purposes, that we’ll discuss over the course of this article: for profit, for advertising or for creating a real life business. Let’s talk a bit about each of these options.
Starting a Profit Business in Second Life
As you probably already know, Second Life uses a currency called the Linden Dollar, with 270 such Linden Dollars being equivalent to a US Dollar. Linden Dollars can be freely exchanged using the in-world currency exchange programs, or using a third party one. The point is, you can actually make money in Second Life, then translate that money into real life cash.
If you aim on starting a business for profit in Second Life, you will want to find a niche market that people need in-world. It doesn’t really matter if “car parts” is a good niche in real life, in Second Life it will be useless. If “cotton candy” is what everyone in the virtual world needs, then that’s your niche. The point is that you shouldn’t base your profit-generating business on what could work in the physical world. If you manage to make a name for yourself and sell your stuff, you’re bound to make a profit you can cash in on.
Starting a Business in Second Life for Advertising Purposes
Don’t worry, this is not something new, it’s not something I just came up with. Advertising through a virtual Second Life company is what many of the real companies do. Basically, if you already have a business in real life, you can create a dummy of it in Second Life and promote it to the people in the game, which could be tomorrow’s real customers. And of course, there’s a big psychological advantage when someone that has seen your business’ name in-game will see it in real life: “Oh look, I know that store from Second Life, let’s go buy from them”.
Starting a Real Business through a Virtual Second Life One Last but not least, some businesses in Second Life will have an inverse development as the above advertising ones. In this case, we assume you don’t have any real company or business, but you want to create one in the future. Second Life is a good way to create a basis for it to land on when you’ll have the money or room to make it happen. Some pre-advertising will help a lot, but make sure you’re consistent in following your business’ traits in game, to the real life one.
In conclusion, I must state that you won’t need a lot of technical or law-related knowledge to start a business in Second Life, which will most likely differ if you want to start one for real. So although Second Life businesses are a good way to practice or advertise, they don’t resemble real businesses in all aspects, especially the uncomfortable ones. Think about it, your Second Life business goes bankrupt, so what? But what if your real business goes bankrupt? You can’t simply get a new avatar and start over.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fraser_Wheaton