A lot of grown men and little boys dream of being able to make a living out playing video games. HunterCoin and VoidSpace were released. Games that reward gamers in digital currency instead of virtual princesses or golden stars are pointing towards a future in the United States where one’s position on a scoreboard can earn dollars, sterling, euros, and yen. You can see metaedge for more information.
A true story about a virtual millionaire and a real-estate agent.
Slowly, digital currencies are maturing in both their functionality and the financial infrastructure to enable them to be trusted as an alternative to traditional fiat currency. Bitcoin is the well-known and best-known cryptocurrency. But virtual currencies are being used in videogames for over fifteen years. Ultima Online, the 1997 video game which introduced a massive virtual economy to gamers was the first significant attempt. Gold coins could be earned by players through adventures, battles with monsters, and the discovery of treasure. The gold can then be spent on real estate, armour, weapons and other goods. Although the Ultima currency did not exist in real life, this early prototype of virtual money was still possible. It could be used to purchase armour, weapons or other items.
EverQuest launched in 1999. The game allowed for virtual currency trading between players. Even though the game designer prohibited it, you could still sell your virtual items on eBay. Real world phenomena were explored in Neal Stephenson’s novel Reamde (2011). Chinese gamers, also known as ‘gold farmers’, played EverQuest for a full-time job to get experience points and increase their power. These characters could then be purchased on eBay by Western gamers, who weren’t able or willing to work the extra hours required to level up their own characters. Based on EverQuest’s exchange rate calculated from real world trading Edward Castronova of Indiana University, a professor of Telecommunications who is also an expert in virtual currency, concluded that EverQuest was, in 2002, the 77th most wealthy country in the globe. This was somewhere between Russia or Bulgaria. Also, its GDP per person was larger than India or People’s Republic of China.