GP Book Review: "Play Money"

Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot
by Julian Dibbell
reviewed for GamePolitics by Matt Paprocki


It was a simple goal for Julian Dibbell.

Fascinated by real-world selling of virtual goods, he sought to prove that he could make more money in one year trading items from massively multiplayer online games (MMO's) than he had ever earned as a freelance writer. The process of carrying this idea to fruition would, for Dibbell, become a blog and later, Play Money. The book details the ups and downs of his business endeavors over the course of his experiment in trafficking virtual items.

Having gotten his mind around the process of selling goods that don't even exist, Dibbell began his career in virtual commerce by trading gold and items from Ultima Online. He would stay with the seminal MMO for most of the book, only occasionally mentioning other titles such as Everquest.

Play Money is an easy and enjoyable read as Dibbell displays a flair for humor throughout. The author's dealings with real-life sellers of MMO gold and similarly valuable UO items are carefully recounted, including several rough spots when business ventures don't quite go as planned. Dibbell seems to have become acquainted with most of the major players in the real-money trading (RMT) business, and they are a sketchy cast of characters, indeed. Conversations are kept unedited in their original form, including one that barely raises itself above a four-letter word screed.

Although he mostly works from his PC at home, Dibbell's nascent MMO business occasionally takes him to far-flung places. One of his rather bizarre encounters led him to Mexico where he expected to be shown a sweatshop of UO farmers. The purported owners of the sweatshop, the shadowy BlackSnow Interactive, failed to show up, perhaps because the much-ballyhooed item farming facility was as ethereal as the Ultima Online gold traded by BlackSnow.

Dibbell also has a serious flirtation with a Chinese businessman as they attempt to set up farming operations, first in UO and later in Everquest. Marital discord, apparently caused in part by his dedication to the MMO business, sends Dibbell cross-country. Enroute to crash with his sister in San Francisco while he sorts out his life, the author recounts doing gold trades from a variety of WiFi-enabled truck stops along the way.

Near the end of his quest to earn a living playing Ultima Online, Dibbell's tale begins to run out of steam just a bit. Some late chapters turn out to be little more than cut-and-pastes from the blog he maintained during his quest for MMO riches. For those who followed his MMO career shift as it unfolded, the final 75 or so pages will look awfully familiar. Even so, the tale of Dibbell's risky MMO venture proves both educational and entertaining. There's a lot to learn here about hard-nosed business dealing as well as the vagaries of supply and demand in an uncertain marketplace.

Naturally, this is a controversial subject. Nothing makes some MMO fans angrier than the idea of selling gold and virtual items. And yet, it's a big business. Not to give too much away, but I should point out that the "millions" referenced in the title are virtual. Dibbell's actual earnings while far less, are still impressive, especially given that the things he sold never really existed.

Play Money's firsthand account is unique, original, and well worth the cover price, in real dollars, no less.