Gamer Culture in Online Role-Playing Games

So there you are. You just bankrupted your cousin in Monopoly and you own half the board with hotels and matched colors all over. Your brother (or sister) is looking at your stack of money and knows that it is essentially over. You smile and think to yourself, "I have 2200 bucks right now, I got this in the bag." A few turns later, you win the game and you feel great. Now what if I told you that instead of handing that money back in, you kept it and you could exchange it for a smaller percentage of real world cash? Well tune in to the rest of this post because I'm going to be talking about how to make real world money from MMO games. In most MMO games, there are different types of virtual currency with which the users will purchase equipment, armor, skills, and other things. With some games however, there are ways to exchange your money that you earn in the game, and convert it to real world cash. For example, in Second Life , "Linden dollars can be purchase...

Welcome back fellow gamers! Today I want to discuss the importance of your virtual Avatar and how people feel connected to their characters. As I mentioned in my intro blog post a few weeks ago, I talked about how in World Of Warcraft, there was this creation screen you see above (link to it here ) and how interactive the creating process was. Unfortunately, that was only a small part of the whole process and there is so much more that goes into your avatar that you think only subconsciously. First off, for anyone new, this "Avatar" that I speak of is pretty much your user representation in the video game like the man standing in the picture above. When logging into the game for the first time as that character, that is who would appear to others and when you walked around in game, people would see that character. It does not look as appealing but do not fret, that is from multiple expansions ago in the case of that game and so the newest iterations currently look way mo...

One of the most interesting and also dangerous aspects of online multiplayer games is also one of the biggest parts of these games, its massive multiplayer aspect. The picture above is from a game called Second Life and it shows actual characters (run by real people) meeting up at a specific location at a specific time. This is what people do! There are millions of people who play World of Warcraft and you can see them all in the game. You can run by a famous celebrity (some have been known to play the game and others are less known to do it here! ) and not even know it! But the biggest danger that this possesses is the fact that it is all anonymous essentially and you never know who could be lying or trying to dupe you, and someone who is actually being friendly. The important thing is though, you CAN make friends and mess around in World of Warcraft for example, and it is really cool to do. When I first got into the game, I had my brother and my cousin who j...

Growing up in what I view as the whole explosion of the video game and social media era, I have been surrounded by screens and consoles since I was very young. From the Nintendo 64 to the Gameboy Color to the PlayStation 2 and continuing through the "next generation" consoles that I have now (Xbox 1 and Nintendo Switch), everything is advancing quickly. I was always so fascinated by video games and I haven't grown out of them even slightly. However, around the mid to late 2000s, my brother and his friends started playing an online computer game. He called it a multiplayer role-playing game of sorts and it was all about creating a virtual character or avatar and using abilities and exploration and doing quests. As the curious gamer I am, I decided to take a look at this game, "World of Warcraft". From the get-go you were immersed in the whole experience. As you read this, I want you to get a sense of the impact this game had on me personally before I tell ...