Can you make a real living buying and selling goods which only exist in the virtual world of an online fantasy game?
Many thousands of people make a very good living writing, creating and running computer games.
Rather fewer people earn a wage playing games professionally by taking the top cash prizes at tournaments around the world.
But Julian Dibbell is not trying to support himself, wife and daughter by programming or playing.
Instead in April 2004, he will declare to the US Internal Revenue Service that his main source of income is the sale of imaginary goods.
Mr Dibbell is buying and selling virtual cash, weapons, armour, homes and other artefacts from the Ultima Online game for Earth money from his home in San Francisco.
Many players of massively popular multiplayer online role-playing games such as Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, make a little cash on the side by selling some of the things they find while adventuring in these virtual worlds.
But Mr Dibbell is turning this occasional trading into a fulltime occupation. He is, as he puts it, trying to get rich by literally "selling castles in the air".
People began adventuring in Britannia - the world of Ultima Online - in 1997, which makes it the most venerable graphical game on the web.
It has more than 225,000 active players, who spend up to 20 hours per week in Britannia.
The game has a broad fantasy setting, familiar to anyone who knows Tolkien. Players can choose a life of adventure or a more sedate or sedentary occupation such as weaver, weaponsmith or tailor.
Mr Dibbell had good reasons for picking Ultima Online for his virtual business empire.
"I was playing the game every spare chance I could. Finally, I thought I should figure out some proper reason to do this before my wife pulled the plug."
Britannia also has a well established economy and is not prone to the deflation and economic surges that seem to be afflict other game worlds.
Mr Dibbell says that the trading system in Britannia is engineered to make it hard for someone to hand over cash and get nothing in return.
Also Origin, the makers of Ultima, are happy for the trading to go on. Other games, such as EverQuest, have tried to ban sales of artefacts and characters with varying degrees of success.
To see if the idea of making a living by selling artefacts would work at all, Mr Dibbell set himself the task of making $1,000 of Ultima Online trades in three weeks - while his wife and daughter were away.
He made it with only minutes to spare.
And now it has become his job.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3135247.stm
Many thousands of people make a very good living writing, creating and running computer games.
Rather fewer people earn a wage playing games professionally by taking the top cash prizes at tournaments around the world.
But Julian Dibbell is not trying to support himself, wife and daughter by programming or playing.
Instead in April 2004, he will declare to the US Internal Revenue Service that his main source of income is the sale of imaginary goods.
Mr Dibbell is buying and selling virtual cash, weapons, armour, homes and other artefacts from the Ultima Online game for Earth money from his home in San Francisco.
Many players of massively popular multiplayer online role-playing games such as Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, make a little cash on the side by selling some of the things they find while adventuring in these virtual worlds.
But Mr Dibbell is turning this occasional trading into a fulltime occupation. He is, as he puts it, trying to get rich by literally "selling castles in the air".
People began adventuring in Britannia - the world of Ultima Online - in 1997, which makes it the most venerable graphical game on the web.
It has more than 225,000 active players, who spend up to 20 hours per week in Britannia.
The game has a broad fantasy setting, familiar to anyone who knows Tolkien. Players can choose a life of adventure or a more sedate or sedentary occupation such as weaver, weaponsmith or tailor.
Mr Dibbell had good reasons for picking Ultima Online for his virtual business empire.
"I was playing the game every spare chance I could. Finally, I thought I should figure out some proper reason to do this before my wife pulled the plug."
Britannia also has a well established economy and is not prone to the deflation and economic surges that seem to be afflict other game worlds.
Mr Dibbell says that the trading system in Britannia is engineered to make it hard for someone to hand over cash and get nothing in return.
Also Origin, the makers of Ultima, are happy for the trading to go on. Other games, such as EverQuest, have tried to ban sales of artefacts and characters with varying degrees of success.
To see if the idea of making a living by selling artefacts would work at all, Mr Dibbell set himself the task of making $1,000 of Ultima Online trades in three weeks - while his wife and daughter were away.
He made it with only minutes to spare.
And now it has become his job.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3135247.stm