One of the longest standing aspects of the game, and something which has been around since the beginning, is the Auction House. For anybody who has not played WoW, the Auction House is exactly what it sounds like, a place for players to go buy, sell and trade the items they collect and craft during their time spent playing. Very similar to eBay.
The auction house itself, if players choose to spend time with it, can be a very rewarding aspect of the game, so much so, that some players devote almost all of their time to buying and selling to try and acquire more in-game wealth.
So the question is, can the lessons learned through the game be transferred to real world applications? And i believe the answer is yes. When using the auction house as a means of acquiring wealth, some players stick to selling the items that they pick up and craft through their daily tasks in the game, however, there are those who spend hours and hours analysing the market, seeing which items are falling in price and anticipating the next time that price will rise, trying to pick the best time to invest their money in the item to make maximum profit. Does that sound familiar? If so, that is probably because this is the same process that real world investors go through. Calculating risks, anticipating rises and falls in supply and demand, and choosing the opportune moment to sell. And if things go bad, knowing when to cut their losses and move on.
There are various blogs and websites across the internet dedicated to documenting players success, and giving people new to the market advice on how to get started.
One particular site, which i have used myself, is The Undermine Journal. This site analyses market trends, and provides a detailed analysis of the sales of a given item on any players server. Players are then able to use this information to decide on a price for an item, decide what is worth investing in, and decide when to sell.
Obviously this is a very watered down version of the real life stock market, but the same principles apply. And important lessons can be learned from the auction house.
A good anecdote for this, is when my girlfriend was planning on selling her motorbike. She had the bike listed for £1000 and within days of listing it, received an offer from an interested party for £700. The buyer stated that "the money is here right now and then the bike is off your hands". Now when i first started playing WoW, i jumped at the opportunity to sell an item, even if it meant taking less than i had originally intended to sell it for. But as i became more attuned to the market, i learned an important lesson. Never ever back down from your original price just for a quick sale. Potential buyers will often play on the fact that sometimes people just want to get rid of their possessions, and will try to exploit this and get the seller to lower their price. But one piece of advice i would give to anyone, is that "if you've had interest in the item after two days, dont take the offer just yet, wait it out, see who else is interested.".
This advice has made me more money than anything else. Often what happens is, you walk away from the buyer simply saying "i can't take any lower than £XXX" and they come running back with a higher offer.
In my opinion, despite the bad press that World of Warcraft has received over the years, i believe there are some lessons that can be learned from it.
For anyone who is interested in learning more about making money in World of Warcraft, there are a number of sites, which i will list below, that are worth a visit. You'd be surprised how much information people have to share.
Gold Making Blogs and Websites:
- The Undermine Journal - Market analysis tool.
- Just My Two Copper - Blog written by a long time player of WoW who has a lot of useful knowledge.
- The Consortium - Forum where some of the wealthy players of WoW gather to share tips.
- Power Word: Gold - A directory of blogs which discuss gold making techniques in WoW
Thanks for reading guys!
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