Question: Making Money playing Online games

[MarieWoodell]

I'll start by explaining why I'm interested. Recently I gave up my rl job to start writing full time and also start my own film production company. Unfortunately I don't quite get enough money from other sources (husbands job mainly) to stay out of work completely. This is were gaming comes in. One of the things I do to destress is game. I probably spend upwards of 20 hours per week playing a game of some kind. I've basically been exploring lately the possibility of making money by playing online games. Lately I have been playing Entropia and have managed to make money playing it. Not enough to withdraw yet but say a normal subscription game costs $15 to play each month I actually make that per month with out too much effort and its growing as the amount I have to use grows. Believe it nor not I have also enjoyed doing this but it is a far cry from the $350 odd I'm short of the bills every month.

So what I intend to do is basically see if it is possible to make a reasonable amount of money gaming no more than 20 hours per week. I'm quite happy to talk about how I do it to a certain degree but most of all my reason for posting here. There are a lot of gamers out there that will have played games I haven't and therefore have more of an idea than me. If you think you may know a way to make some money even if its a small amount but you don't have the time or means to try it suggest it and if it looks like it has potential I'll try it and then let you know what I think.

Now I'm entirely expecting the answers that come up here to be entirely negative but please stay with me on this one folks. At least for now.

Now in most games trying to make money is actually against the ToS for example gold farming in WoW. So before you lock and delete this thread 711 for being against the ToS and Eula for games I'm making that a condition. Nothing I will try can be against the rules so to speak. (What can I say I'm a sucker for a challenge)

Now I think its entirely possible that the above clause is going to limit me to RCE's like Entropia but I'm not entirely sure so If you think it doesn't please let me know.

I'm also not interested in paying up front for anything so all those blogs and ebooks promising to make you rich by following their guide on how to be paid to test games is not something I am considering. (All likely to be scams anyway)

What I will do In return is (If I actually manage to make money) update here regularly with how much I am making and from what games.

So please post away though if you intend to critisize please do so constructively.

And for those that are concerned its ok if it comes to paying the bills or not I do temp regularly to keep a roof over my head and will do so if this doesn't work I just want to try it since so many people think it might be possible.

[domchristopher]

I will certainly enjoy reading about this, as I too have tried to research the feasibility of doing this with various games. However, I have no qualms about "blackmarket" type trading. (I skimmed through GHQ's rules, and I didn't see any that indicated we couldn't discuss things not allowed by the EULAs of games)
I'm currently planning on trying out Guild Wars, since there's no monthly fee to try to make up each month (and it's one of game currencies mmofly.com buys).
Out of curiousity, what were you doing to profit $15/month in EU? Sweating?

Anyway, games that are technically RCE games have been discussed here: RCE Game List.
Perhaps you could try Everquest 2 on the couple of servers that allow real world trading. Second Life and the rest are not really places where you can "game", and I don't think Afterworld allows withdraws yet.
Outside of that restriction, I don't think WOW is a very good one to try. Although it has a large subscriber base, wow gold is worth almost nothing because of all the gold farming businesses. I would suggest trying Lord of Rings, since the platinum has a fairly high blackmarket value.

[MarieWoodell]

Originally Posted by domchristopher

I will certainly enjoy reading about this, as I too have tried to research the feasibility of doing this with various games. However, I have no qualms about "blackmarket" type trading. (I skimmed through GHQ's rules, and I didn't see any that indicated we couldn't discuss things not allowed by the EULAs of games)
I'm currently planning on trying out Guild Wars, since there's no monthly fee to try to make up each month (and it's one of game currencies mmofly.com buys).
Out of curiousity, what were you doing to profit $15/month in EU? Sweating?

Anyway, games that are technically RCE games have been discussed here: RCE Game List.
Perhaps you could try Everquest 2 on the couple of servers that allow real world trading. Second Life and the rest are not really places where you can "game", and I don't think Afterworld allows withdraws yet.
Outside of that restriction, I don't think WOW is a very good one to try. Although it has a large subscriber base, wow gold is worth almost nothing because of all the gold farming businesses. I would suggest trying Lord of Rings, since the platinum has a fairly high blackmarket value.

In Eu I was doing a combination of three different things. Some sweating, some trading and I also sold quite a few things for my soc that they would have just tt'd. I've got a long term plan to make more as well but until I know it makes money I won't say it here. Mostly trading so far though. EU is incredibly difficult to trade successfully in though. Especially since the recession hit but I'm hoping the cry engine, once all the bugs are worked out, will help that pick up a bit.

I was considering Everquest 2 when I found they had specific servers that allowed real world trading.

I also agree WoW is not worth it but do you know if its technically against the Eula to do so in Lord of the rings? I know its a tough one to define whether its allowed or not in some cases. Some just say the don't officially support it because it may go wrong and people might get scammed.

[domchristopher]

Originally Posted by MarieWoodell

In Eu I was doing a combination of three different things. Some sweating, some trading and I also sold quite a few things for my soc that they would have just tt'd. I've got a long term plan to make more as well but until I know it makes money I won't say it here. Mostly trading so far though. EU is incredibly difficult to trade successfully in though. Especially since the recession hit but I'm hoping the cry engine, once all the bugs are worked out, will help that pick up a bit.

I was considering Everquest 2 when I found they had specific servers that allowed real world trading.

I also agree WoW is not worth it but do you know if its technically against the Eula to do so in Lord of the rings? I know its a tough one to define whether its allowed or not in some cases. Some just say the don't officially support it because it may go wrong and people might get scammed.

I see. Yes, I believe it is mentioned in the LOTRO eula. it seems that the only games that don't mention it have a official way to exchange currencies.

[MarieWoodell]

Originally Posted by domchristopher

I see. Yes, I believe it is mentioned in the LOTRO eula. it seems that the only games that don't mention it have a official way to exchange currencies.

I'll try the ones that do have some kind of official line first then and see how that goes.

[BlkRb0t]

This is something which even I wanted to try, but given my hectic schedule I couldn't do it. The game becomes boring after a while too.

[demonseedgfx]

Not sure if its the kind of thing you are looking for but this is fun. http://www.worldgaming.com/

[MarieWoodell]

Originally Posted by demonseedgfx

Not sure if its the kind of thing you are looking for but this is fun. http://www.worldgaming.com/

Not really the gambling type and I don't have either consoles mentioned there so I'd probably get my butt kicked rather quickly but thanks for suggesting it.

At the moment I'm trying one of the free to play games supported by the livegamer site to see how easy it is to make the cash they are selling on site. At least until I can get entropia going again then I will probably divide my time a bit.

[MarieWoodell]

711 I think we have a spam bot of some kind. Either that or the previous post just doesn't make sense to me.

[Oman]

It is a spam bot. I checked. It has post similar in its other threads, or someone really messed up some kind of news bot.

The only people I have seen make a good amount of money from games, besides Second Life or Entropia Universe, are the serious gold farmers. I have several friends who make several hundred dollars a month selling gold. You just have to be really sneaky about how you do it because it is so easy to get banned in most games.

Personally I have only ever made money playing GuildWars, and I have never sold gold. They used to have a couple tournaments for money and my team won the first ever 5k at Gencon 2005. Also they have online tournaments that are constantly going on in their pvp section of the game. 1v1 and Guild tournaments that are for monthly prizes. If you practiced a lot I am sure you could make money off of it.

If you do find a way to make money gaming I would ove to hear about it.