
10-month-old startup raises $20 million to sell imaginary (sorry, virtual) goods - drm237
http://www.bloggingbuyouts.com/2007/12/19/10-month-old-startup-raises-20-million-to-sell-imaginary-sorry/
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rms
Certainly this is a viable business. Their difference from competitors like
<http://www.igxe.com> is that they negotiate agreements with the owners of the
game. I don't know what they need 20 million for, but those $3 a bottle fruit
juice drinks do taste very good.

<http://www.livegamer.com/>

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Goladus
The value of virtual goods are strongly tied to the virtual world they are
associated with. Facebook gifts only matter because Facebook matters. WoW gold
only matters because WoW matters. The key to selling virtual goods is the
virtual environment where they matter and can be made artificially scarce
without pissing anyone off.

There's not enough information in that article to evaluate the virtual goods
market. It sounds like this is more like a 3rd-party virtual-goods service and
not actually a game itself, which is something that has been around for quite
awhile.

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mattmaroon
I'm not sure whether I should be inspired by this or want to stab myself in
the eye, but just in case I think I'm going to go eBay up a rusty fork.

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bayareaguy
Halting State by Charles's Stross ([http://www.amazon.com/Halting-State-
Charles-Stross/dp/044101...](http://www.amazon.com/Halting-State-Charles-
Stross/dp/0441014984)) explores what happens when some crooks steal all the
virtual goods in this kind of company. WoW meets NUMB3RS in an interesting
way.

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trekker7
Kids used to play basketball after school in my neighborhood. Now they're
inside logged into Facebook or watching YouTube videos. I guess virtual worlds
are the next step.

