Want to get rich quick? Have you considered selling virtual items? What about virtual items for a game that hasn’t been created yet? If you play your cards right, you can make a decent pile of cash – like Chinese developer Snail Games, who has netted a handy $21,000 for upcoming game Age of Wulin – which is not quite ready to play yet.
Adventurers and heroes of the martial arts world are called the Wulin.
They are masters of Kung-Fu and also follow the code of Xia, which
stands for duty, honour, righteousness, courage but also mercy.
Are you one of them?
Age of Wulin is a free-to-play martial arts MMO which kicked off closed beta testing in mainland China on December 25th. As part of pre-launch preparations, the developers decided to hold an auction for various virtual bits and pieces – and we’re guessing they weren’t quite anticipating the level of interest the sale gathered.
One of ten sheathes for the in-game Hook of Departure was snapped up for $1,600, before a Lordly Spear sheath (one of five) sold for $2,500 (note: these aren’t actual weapons, merely virtual scabbards). These two sales pale in comparison next to one lucky gamer, who was so determined to pick up the perfect in-game item – the one-of-a-kind Dragon Slaying Sabre Scabbard – that he handed over almost $16,000 in real money – before seeing how it works.
Sure, we’ve seen plenty of bizarre and expensive microtransactions, and in this world where free-to-play is becoming more and more popular, they’re only going to become more and more common. It remains to be said though, spending your hard-earned real-world money for something which hasn’t launch – and, by definition – may never launch (let alone stick around for any great length of time), seems a little obsessive.
We’re also not sure if the man’s new sword will be in some way bound to his character – or if he’s likely to lose it the first time he dies and someone loots his fallen corpse.