Virtual Cash for the Non-Serious Gamer

The idea of spending real money to play in the virtual world is not a new one, but it's sure one that I have trouble getting my arms around; I'm cheap enough in the real world. In 2005, a MakeZine article looked at Second Life, the group virtual simulation where you can buy Linden dollars to spend on stuff—land, houses, clothing, and goods—in this elaborate virtual world. They found that the site's then 167,000 residents spent over $135,000 in 24 hours. Six and half million dollars in transactions took place in about 20 days. According to a recent New York Times article, Second Life recently reached as much as $500,000 a day in Linden dollar spending. Now Congress is even holding hearings on whether or not to tax virtual assets and incomes.

Second Life is not alone. Other gaming sites, like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and Ultima Online, each have their own currencies as well. Game players on these sites tend to be serious fans devoted to working within the rules of these simulated worlds.

Today, the diehards are being joined by a site for a much more casual gamer. Club Pogo, a subscription site where the most popular games are more of the Bejeweled and Poppit ilk, begins offering Pogo Gems, their site's own virtual currency. The currency can buy you a number of things, including additional special content called badges, more elaborate avatars, and a Chinese menu of extra gaming challenges. The site is filled with word games, puzzles, and quick experiences.

I spoke with Andrew Pedersen, the VP and executive producer of EA (owner of Pogo.com) who told me that there are 14 to 15 million unique players (a majority of them women) visiting Club Pogo and playing for an average of 12 hours a week. Gems, he says, are a way of giving them more. I asked Andrew whether or not he thought that people who'd already paid $5.99 a month to play at the site would feel "milked" by asking them to buy additional currency. Citing the success of other gaming sites and the success of the adoption of paid avatars by gamers in Asia and Korea, Pedersen felt Gem currency is way to give people more of the content they want, and make Pogo a richer community. (No pun intended.)

I guess I'd be the virtual miser in my online gaming life. Shelling out real bucks for fake currency, especially after I've paid my monthly dues to play, is not my thing. What about you? Are you budgeting for virtual currency this year?