They got game

A thread running on the EverQuest Guild message boards right now talks about this very issue -- and there's little to no hostility over it. "If they want to miss out on the fun of building their own character and waste $1,000, then I don't really care," posted "Falpus." Another poster joked, "I wouldn't sell my guy for [$1,000]; someone else's guy -- that's different. Hey, anyone have a level 50 character I can sell?"

EverQuest fan Holmes, however, isn't making any jokes about the auctioning. "I think it undermines the quality of the game. I have played on text MUDs [multi-user domains] for years, and when a character is sold, the rest of the characters resent the character. The new owner did not earn that character or put in the many hours to get it to where it is now. The distrust for the character turns to distrust of the gods [in the game] and the game itself, as it leads to assuming the gods themselves are selling characters and items, and then players leave," he says.

"There are two types of players who make up the RPG community," adds Holmes. "You have the players who want to role-play and have fun, which I would say is about 75 percent of the people, and the other 25 percent who will do whatever it takes to make sure they have the best character possible." Here Holmes is adamant: "No one likes the 25 percent and the 25 percent don't even like each other."

A 19-year-old student named Serge takes a more world-weary view of it all: "I don't have any problems with selling items; I'm not particularly happy with it, but it was obvious people would do it. Buying items ... well, there's a sucker born every minute."

But, Serge figures, players stand to benefit from the market for items and characters. "Once you tire of the game, your time spent playing it isn't a complete waste," he says. Serge figures that in five years, time spent playing the game could be a whole new career; he predicts people will be making big money on gaming.

"Demand [for in-game items and characters] is not an issue after a certain point," he argues in an e-mail. "There are enough new players coming in so that there will always be a 'floor price' for low amounts of platinum. (If your 5,000-platinum auction doesn't get enough, auction off 100 platinum lots and it will.) ... In the next few years, I think you'll see a lot of people making in the $50,000 a year range just playing games."

Ruekilla agrees that making a lot of money is possible. "At level 50, my character made around 5,000 plat a day," he says. "I could sell 35,000 plat a week, selling at about $800 a bundle, so that means $5,600 a week. " He admits that this is only possible "if you're lucky and can find people to buy all that platinum. Making $1,000 a week is totally realistic though," he adds.

The idea of going pro has long been pushed by the Professional Gamers' League (PGL), which was formed in 1997 with the goal of turning gaming into a spectator sport and building a stable of "professional gamers."

Several years ago, Thresh, a master Quake player, was heralded as the first real "star gamer," the Michael Jordan of the PGL. He won Quake developer John Carmack's Ferrari and big prize money in Quake tournaments -- and the hype was hot in both the mainstream and gaming press. But though the PGL is still holding tournaments and awarding prizes (Bon "Kuin" Danan recently won $10,000 in a Quake II tournament), it just hasn't taken off the way some hoped it would -- and the buzz about pro gaming has all but disappeared.

Aren't the young men who think they can make a living playing RPGs and selling characters overly optimistic?

"I seriously doubt that there would be enough of a market to make a living selling RPG items or characters," says John Gray, a computer consultant, who at 31 has racked up 15 years of RPG experience. "Earning the items to be sold would be a very time-intensive process ... If you could make a living doing that, I'm probably in the wrong career!"

It would indeed take a lot of time and energy to earn a living building characters for others and selling items -- enough that the pleasures of gaming might simply be converted into the stresses of work. That's probably why most of the people you are likely to encounter while playing EverQuest are doing just that -- playing.

In fact, a few weeks of probing the gaming community turned up not one soul who is actually succeeding at it. Instead, the waning demand expected by Jim is already noticeable. As recently as three weeks ago, a quick scan of eBay turned up a half-dozen items selling for $800 or more; on Friday, there were no EverQuest-related auctions to be found at such prices. And platinum pieces, which sold for a dollar apiece two months ago, are now often priced at three to the dollar.

What would-be pros would need to stay in business is a constant stream of new RPGs, creating fresh demand for new items and characters. But the major-hype games don't come out every day; the next one expected to be a big deal -- Asheron's Call -- isn't scheduled until this fall. Another approach would be to figure out a way to auction on eBay pieces from other game genres -- like first-person shooters, 3-D action-adventure games, racing games, sims and the whole lot. But that would take a monumental shift in the gaming industry.

It's too early to consider character building a true profession, but that's not stopping the dreamers. Jim, for one, plans to use his formidable gaming skills to supplement his income for as long as he can.

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