The online virtual worlds, where we all create our character ('avatar'), something like a second life on the Internet, not only bring huge profits to the editors of these games but have created a thriving trade in 'objects' digital , from clothing or decorated to their own 'avatars'. Thus, a gnome can reach $ 599.
The worlds 'on line', as the popular 'Second Life' , are becoming more numerous and varied. Millions of gamers around the world spend their free time developing these authentic 3D parallel lives, as they interact with other characters in an almost real.
The last to arrive, the virtual spa Laguna Beach has just launched the MTV U.S. television network is a copy in the network a reality TV success. In this environment, the 'avatars' may purchase goods 'necessary' to thrive in this digital world, but with hard cash.
Proceed in online RPGs ( MMORPG , 'Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game') has to do mainly with the number of hours one spends in front of the screen for the real ( some very sweet tooth ) or digital money.
So, have proliferated dozens of sites offering the 'avatars' more attractive to fashion games, like the famous 'World of Warcraft' (WOW for fans), 'Everquest', 'Final Fantasy', 'Lineage' or ' Second Life ' .
Prices may exceed five hundred dollars, for example in the case of 'a troll level 60'-the highest in WOW-or certain elves, wizards and dwarfs, creatures with great powers in these parallel lives.
A curious and growing market
Display of 'World of Warcraft'.
According to the company IGE , specializing in the sale of virtual goods, the volume of this market totaled $ 900 million a year , reports the AFP correspondent Laurence Benhamou. Thus, this market works thanks to both casual gamers who want to start from a higher level, such as those grown at its 'virtual alter ego' and then resell it .
For example, Jon Jacobs, aka Neverdie , which last year bought a vacation villa for $ 100,000 in Project Entropia (game that allows you to convert directly the real and virtual money and do business) to create a club and sell music and videos players. Another player, an Australian 22-year-old named David Storey , has paid about $ 26,500 for the purchase of an island in the same game.
Both players exploit their properties through 'tax', rights of way and organized meetings with other 'avatars' , a business that will remain always continue perceiving virtual money 'convertible' real.
The business has also attracted the attention of commercial enterprises usually operate in the 'real world'. In 'Second Life' textile group American Apparel has created a magazine vistual for 'avatars', where you can choose clothes, hoping that the owners 'real' characters buy in the stores 'real' clothes.
Also in Whyville.net , a world for children with almost two million online gamers, Toyota has launched a version of its range Scion pixelated young people 'avatars' can drive the streets of a universe that, like the real, begins to be 'wallpaper' of ads from companies like Adobe.
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