MMO As A Second Income

We have all seen the news about Diablo 3 Auction House allowing you to sell your items and gold for real currency. While this is nothing new for online gaming, it does bring me to think about the subject; as it is a little controversial. MMOs generally require a great deal of time investment to make any sort of progression. This is for the average player, being amongst the top players on your server generally entails submitting the same amount of played hours per week as you would a job. This is just the way things are, if you want to be on top you must submit as many hours as possible, as soon as possible.

We pay to slave away at these games, and I believe that developers while profiting on this obsession; should also help support it. Opportunities like this in some current SOE MMO's, Second life, Diablo 3 etc, gives us an opportunity. There are many stories of people getting rich from games like Second Life, and we see gold farmers raking in millions of dollars' worth of profit every year.

It would be a little easier to call in sick to work if you could spend your day gaming, and earning a little bit of extra cash. Maybe you spend your holidays gaming, who needs a summer job, you can just sell your loot. Should developers start to look further into ways which allow players to sell the things which they work hard for? Developers can increase their profit margins, via taxes on sales and players can make anything from some extra change to a second income depending on commitment and farming skill.