Just Found This...

Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot​

Just found this book on Amazon while researching competing titles for the one I'm writing.

Just a heads up, the guy doesn't actually make millions of dollars (he makes millions of game currency that are still worth a lot in real life). However, his story does sound pretty interesting. He chooses to give up his life as an author and give it a shot at becoming a large virtual goods sales person. Throughout the process he meets all sorts of interesting people, makes about $47,000 in a year, loses his wife, and becomes part of a truly fascinating and little understood subculture.

The book was published in 2007. Despite being a little outdated, my guess is a lot of you will be interested in reading it since (from the description) it resonates so well with what many of you do. I haven't read it myself, but I'm probably going to buy a copy and go through it when I get a chance.

 

He wrote a book about it, so he didn't actually give up his life as an author I suppose.

Also, I don't think making $47000 is worth losing your wife/partner over, but that's just me.

 

Interesting, I hope you'll ACTUALLY finish your book, because I'm really looking forward to reading it.

 

From what you described of the contents, this guy wasn't really even a "top tier" goldfarmer, and the title he chose to use for his book is so misleading it just seems like he is trying to make a quick buck selling his book. I don't know the exact way it is written, but if he intended to sell it as a "guide" sort of book, any info he could give would be outdated by the time the book hit the shelves.

 

From what I understand, the book is essentially a memoir and discussion of what he came across during his experience. It's not meant to be a guide, I don't think. From the comments in the ratings, it seems he failed his goal and returned to writing afterwards. Regardless, $47,000 in his first year isn't too shabby, and it shows he was serious about trying to break into this market.

This is the only book I've found so far that talks about a person's experiences in the RMT (RWT) markets quite like this. The reviews are pretty good, and I am interested to see what he talks about. I'm going to buy a copy and give it a quick read. I'll let you guys know more about it once I'm done reading.

Thanks It's a pretty long process, so you're going to have to wait awhile longer. Good news is I'm going to start expanding the platform for the book soon. Part of that will involve a newsletter and/or blogging of some sort that will allow people to follow the process of writing this book and get some sneak peaks. I'll let you all know about it once it's up and ready.

 

Half way through so far. Will have a more complete review/summary for you all soon. I'm really enjoying it so far!

 

Been extremely busy in real life lately, so I haven't had much time to read. When I finish the book, I will post that review/summary.

 

Yeah, not at all..

 

Sounds like a story many of us on Sythe can relate to. When you're just starting on these types of markets, it can put strain on your personal relationships. Other people around you will seriously doubt your choices and assume you are justifying a video game addiction with a pipe dream of making any real money.

Once you've been doing it for awhile and find some success, things get a lot easier. People realize that you're actually earning respectable money doing a job which is much more interesting than the average. This success provided me with a lot of confidence, and in the end improved my personal relationships.

 

Seriously, it's such an odd thing to explain to people. I remember once trying to tell a friend that I had bought my new laptop ($1100) through selling some of my online gold and he looked at me like I was crazy.

 

Okay, as promised, here is my review and short summary of this memoir.


Rating: 9/10


This was an absolutely delightful read. Dibbell starts as a normal player, much like most of us, and eventually becomes fascinated with the trade of virtual goods. Throughout this memoir, Dibbell talks about his life as a writer for Wired and his brief, yet deeply insightful, journey into the bizarre and incredible world of real money trade that all of us at Sythe are so familiar with. Throughout this journey, you will learn about some of the history of real money trade in Ultima Online and some other games back before 2004 including stories about Chinese gold farms (some perhaps mythical and some indeed real including one mentioned in a New York Times article here), lots of botting and the intense drama between competing gold farmers, major glitches, some major gold store owners (including Brock Pierce of IGE, once one of the largest virtual goods dealers in the world), as well as insight into the academic world of analyzing these games.


Dibbell’s goal is to make more money in a year trading virtual goods on websites like EBay and his website Play Money than he has ever made as a professional writer. He does not achieve this goal, but he comes pretty far. He does pretty darn good considering he started from scratch and eventually ended up among some of the best traders. I’ll leave it to you to read the book and see just how it all plays out.


The memoir is concluded with a rather amusing recount of Dibbell’s conversations with IRS people as they try to figure out just how virtual games should be handled when it comes to taxes. Spoiler alert: the IRS was completely baffled.


There are some tangents that Dibbell goes on where he explores philosophical implications of what he is experiencing and pondering along his journey. In my opinion, some of these are good and some would have been better left out. If you don’t like this sort of stuff, don’t worry about it. You will still enjoy the majority of the book.


Overall, this book is great. Definitely worth reading! It definitely makes you think about the relationship between work and play (a central theme in his book), something I'm sure many of us have pondered at one point or another.


To clarify, Dibbell did not lose his wife because of his trading business. This unfortunate event just happened to occur at the same time as this project of his.