Our decision to drop advertising that benefits the secondary market (Gold sales predominantly) has created ripples around many game communities. So much so, that when I threw out the idea of keeping a master list of "Gold Free" sites I was drowned in a flood of e-mail asking that we make it happen.

Here's the deal, we can't run around checking on every site to see if they are "Gold Free". If you work for or run a "Gold Free" site drop me a line. We'll check it out and if things look on the up and up then we'll add you to the list. Our crack team of readers is sure to let us know if you slip up, so no cheating! In a perfect world, this list would become the place for publishers to visit when they had advertising dollars to spend and for readers to visit to insure they did not unknowingly promote sites owned by gold selling companies or who promote gold sales.

Make no mistake, the secondary market is big business. This isn't a mom and pop show being run from some basement in Lower Slobobia. To quote one of the largest companies servicing the secondary market;

"Analysts estimate the 2005 marketplace for virtual assets in MMOGs is approaching $900 million. Some experts believe that the market for virtual assets will overcome the primary market—projected to reach $7 billion by 2009—within the next few years."

"According to data gathered by Advanced Economic Research Systems, a company that tracks eBay sales, through April more than $2 million was spent on World of Warcraft (WOW) gold this year. Most of the company's employees are dedicated WOW players, and CEO Anthony Sukow began to examine the statistics after making a questionable purchase of his own. "I have purchased some gold on eBay," Sukow admitted. "You're not supposed to do that." But that inspiration revealed that capitalism is going strong, even in fantastical realms that only exist as ones and zeros. "I was just amazed at the sheer volume of transactions," Sukow said. Sukow discovered that the top seller of WOW gold made more than $23,000 in April, just on WOW gold. And that wasn't even a good month--in January and February the number-one seller took home more than $44,000 each month. "

Sony Online Entertainment, the publisher of EverQuest and EverQuest 2 blocked the sale of items and currency on EBay. Sony then turned around and began selling the same commodities in-house as part of their Station Exchange program. ZDNet had this to say:

"And judging by the results of Station Exchange's first 30 days of operation, during which the system saw more than $180,000 in transactions, quite a number of EQ2 players have cashed in on the exchange, which allows gamers to trade real cash for virtual items used in the game."

So why don't more individuals enter the market and make some money rather than spending it? If the market is as large as stated then surely there is room for the little guys even if the 800 pound gorillas are already taking the majority of what the market has to offer. The answer is that they *are* entering the market, "farming" for gold and selling items. The difference is that they are selling the goods to the 800 pound gorillas, who then resell them to the end-user. It wasn't always this way. In the early days of EverQuest items were often traded on EBay. In fact, it was a lucrative revenue source for the online auctioneer. That all came to a screeching halt when Sony Online Entertainment asked that the sale of goods be blocked on the premise that the "intellectual property" belonged to them. One individual who was a participant in the trading of secondary market items was Julian Dibbell. TerraNova wrote this about Dibbell's experiment:

"Julian Dibbell reports that his year-long experiment in virtual item trading from the fantasy world of Ultima Online netted him, in its final month, a tidy profit of $3,917. Over the course of a year, that would be $47,000. The self-imposed challenge here was to beat his best-ever earnings as a writer, but that's not the only benchmark one could apply. Consider the following:

GDP per capita in both China and India: Below $700

Average earnings of short-order cooks: $17,000

US poverty line for a family of 4: $18,400

Average earnings of dancers: $27,000

Average earnings of drug abuse counselors: $32,000

Average earnings of firefighters: $38,000

Average earnings of museum curators: $40,000

Average earnings of secondary school teachers: $46,000

Trader Dibbell: $47,000

Average earnings of insurance salesmen: $54,000

Average earnings of computer programmers: $63,000

Average earnings of economists: $76,000

Average earnings of lawyers: $108,000"

When World of Warcraft appeared on the scene the sound of the secondary market players rubbing their hands together echoed across the planet. Then Blizzard blocked the sale of WoW items on EBay and the market, like water, chose the flow of least resistance. In this case that flow was directly into the pockets of the large secondary market companies. Blizzard then banned over 1,000 accounts for "farming" gold. The bannings had little effect, with the secondary market as strong as ever.

Banning accounts doesn't work. A gold farmer can have a character back to farming level in days. Publishers have a difficult job containing the secondary market, but if they are truly against the practice of selling their intellectual property then they need to do more. TenTonHammer.com dropped secondary market advertising as our best means of helping publishers reach their goal of slowing the tide. Game sites, publishers, fans, and the community as a whole will need to work together if the secondary market is to feel any repercussions. So far, that just isn't happening.

I'll write more about this tomorrow, touching on the "sweat shops" of Asia and the covert purchase of your favourite websites by secondary market companies.

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