GOM and Ted Featured Across the Pond

Gaming Open Market and Ted's research are mentioned on the BBC's website. Good, quick article, plus a nice selection of links to other BBC articles on virtual goods.

Comments

[Ren]

1.

wadayoumean across the pond – there is no pond between me and Aunty Beeb

There is no pond

pond ?

ren

[DivineShadow]

2.

From one of the picture captions: "Second Life is about meeting and greeting".

What the .... ??

[Tom Hunter]

3.

More problems with the journalism:

"According to figures collated by economics professor Edward Castronova, 2003 saw more than $9m of trades on Ebay category 1654 which covers internet games."

These figures cover only the second half of 2003 something that is promenently displayed "Sales since 7/01/03 $9,400,239" If you read a little deeper Ed also says that this does not include Everquest which is bigger than any two of the games it does include and it does not include the Asian market.

I double the amount on Proskenion and then add another $6-8 million for Everquest, then add the Asia market and end up with $30-40 million in auction sales of virtual goods from these games.

As a side note Themis's "...lead author Nova Barlow. “Virtual property sales are already going to generate over $20m in revenue in 2004, on around $400m in trade volume,”
I am not sure exactly what Themis is counting when they make that statement but it is interesting.

Needless to say Mr. Hale is much more likely to make a living in a $30 million dollar market than in a $9 million market.

[Jamie Hale]

4.

"Needless to say Mr. Hale is much more likely to make a living in a $30 million dollar market than in a $9 million market."

Here's hoping. :)

[Edward Castronova]

5.

Tom> I double the amount on Proskenion and then add another $6-8 million for Everquest, then add the Asia market and end up with $30-40 million in auction sales of virtual goods from these games.

Yes, that's what I do, too, and get a $30 million estimate or so. Good to see some corroboration.

The $400 million in overall trade volume is based on the likelihood that in-world trade is significantly larger than eBay trade. I'm guiessing its a multiple of 10 or 20.

[Cory Ondrejka]

6.

DS> What the???

Yes, it is a picture of There with There's caption but attributed to SL. Funny, especially since the majority of trading on GOM seems to be L$.

[Lee Delarm]

7.

I predict that GOM will be around for a while (just because I feel like making a prediction I know will pan out).

GOM's "Money Traded" (RL) nearly tripled in the past week when Horizons and more recently SWG, opened up for trading on their site. I think they'll do quite well once the pace starts picking up.