Play Money

Title: Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot

Author: Julian Dibbell

Pages: 336

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: I think that this book has been on my to-read list since it was published in 2006. I finally got around to reading it and it was interesting to read this book in the context of 2019 as opposed to when it was written.  The book was about the digital economies of online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Eve Online, Second Life, etc.  Similar to apps like Candy Crush or Farmville, a lot of the value in these games comes from simply spending time in the game and people are willing to pay for the items that are or can be produced by those who have spent enough time in the game to have obtained the expertise necessary to create rare items in the digital marketplaces.  This book gives background about these games and economies and outlines the author's attempt to create an income stream from the trading of these items that would be enough to live off of.

My Review: For the record, I've never actually played any of these games (or similar games), so I wasn't 100% familiar with what the book was about.  That said, I still found this relatively interesting, but this was a book that would have been far more intriguing during the heyday of these MMORPGs (massive multi-player online role-playing games).