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This article quotes research from the world bank estimating that $3billion a year is spent on power-levelling. I find this to be a totally inaccurate and bogus estimate. The calculation though would be possible if based on the known number of actual MMO players for all significant games like WoW, Eve, Runescape etc. And then to also have an estimate of the average cost to request someone to power-level you. (I don't condone this as it ruins the gaming experience, but it raises some interesting questions about what possible proportion of people might be using such a service).

Can anyone find a link to credible research that quotes the number of paid MMO players globally ?

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Interesting question. I do think it's noteworthy to mention that this article does include gold farming and object making. I'd bet that gold farming and gifting high end gear/objects for real world cash is where the money is being made. Although, that's more of a hunch than a credible/researched fact =] – Rohjay Apr 8 '11 at 8:36

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2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

I do not have credible research to link too, but I'll list what I've heard from someone that does this for a living.

Each MMO is different, this guy I know has been doing this for a living for the last 4 years, he power levels Final Fantasy XI, each char he makes sells for between $200 - $700 USD depending on what items/gold/build it is. He doesn't sell the char directly to players instead he works for a web site that does, he sells the chars to the site and they resell them at a higher cost. He said on avg he makes $6,000 = $10,000 USD per month, and has been for the last 4 years. (This is 8+ hours per day spent leveling chars)

He's said that FF chars sell for about the most of any MMO (except perhaps EVE). Other MMOs he does include WOW, Star Trek online, EVE etc...

The stats he gave me for last year from the site he works with, is that they sold 86,000 accounts last year alone. I believe he meant FF accounts, but could of been different types of games.

WOW max lvl: sells for about $50 - $150 FF max lvl: sells for about $200 - $700

So lets say we believe this: 86,000 * $200 = $17,200,000

And this is just one site that does this, imagine the gold farmers, and items selling etc..

So yes I believe it's very possible that across the world there is $3 billion made per year.

Anyways take this for what it is, just a personal account. I was even considering doing this for a living as it is a way to make money even if you don't fully agree with what it is, it's not fully illegal in all games.

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Heh. "it's not fully illegal in all games" sounds like a fancy way of saying "It is not fully legal in any game". – bwarner Apr 8 '11 at 18:51
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lol yep guess so – Viper_Sb Apr 8 '11 at 20:04
Interesting story, but on the face of it, is still not entirely credible info. – giulio Apr 8 '11 at 23:19
One thing about FFXI, the player base was reported be SE (being Square-Enix..) to have exceeded 2mil. If you consider 2mil x ~$10 x 12 months arriving at $240 mil per year just in account fees.. those fees, even of 'innocent' players are really a part of giving power leveling it's value ;p add in WoW and other paid MMOs and it is at least interesting and at most some sort of scale for a piece of the puzzle. – Garet Claborn May 20 '11 at 9:24
up vote 5 down vote

Given that the world population of MMO players is around 21 million, I can see that market being very lucrative indeed! I don't have exact figures for how many players spend money for other things such as power leveling, items, in-game cash, etc. however, since the figure of 21 million is the same population as Australia, Angola, Syria, etc, it is safe to say that the level of economy for that many people will easily surpass $3billion in transactions.

Keep in mind, there will also be the payment of accounts, and equipment, so while $3billion may change hands, the margins of that industry probably are much lower.

BoingBoing got the article probably from the Wall Street Journal, so that should lend more credibility to it. And that information came from the World Bank. They have started a much more extensive study into the "virtual economy" as they refer to it. You can download a PDF of the document from that last link, but it would support the $3Billion figure.

Given the World Bank document, that seems to be credible research. Hope that helps.

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