Warcraft Experience

The online game World of Warcraft is hugely popular with more than five million people now regularly spending time in Azeroth, trying to turn apprentice adventurers into fully-formed heroes. World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game and, as that lengthy title implies, gives gamers the chance to control characters in a large net-based fantasy world.

Characters can be one of several different races, that includes humans, orcs and cow-like creature called Tauren, and can take up a profession as warrior, thief, wizard, priest and so on.

But for some Warcraft players slaying monsters and gathering treasure is not enough. Instead of swords they are using economics as a weapon.

This is because for all its fantasy trappings, one aspect of Warcraft is alarmingly similar to the real world and that is the importance of money.

Money talks

Game cash in the form of copper, silver and gold coins helps characters buy better weapons and armour so they can stay alive longer and climb the ranks of their chosen profession.

Powerful characters need cash to buy their mount

And it is in the making of money that many players are starting to exploit the freedom of the game world.

Most Warcraft players’ efforts to build up a bankroll for their character revolve around the in-game auction houses.

In these virtual sale-rooms players earn cash by selling the loot that drops off monsters when they are killed. Others players auction off the raw materials they find in the game world so others can use them to make magic potions, magical items or other useful items.

But use of the auction house does not begin and end with bidding, buying and selling - many are turning use of it into as much of a game as adventuring in Azeroth.

Evidence for this can be found in the fact that at the recent BlizzCon conference, the biggest cheer about the forthcoming WoW expansion went to the news that it will give every city an auction house.

Read the entire article on BBC News.