One of the most interesting and unexpected things to arise from online gaming is the birth of real-world economies based on the value of persistent world game characters and items. When Ultima Online and EverQuest characters started appearing on eBay, a lot of people found it hard to believe that anyone was willing to exchange actual money for game items that traxing, after all, largely imaginary. Nevertheless, trade in these digital goods continues to grow, and it has already gone from being a pastime pursued only by a handful of hard-core gamers to being a fledgling industry in its own right. We’ve all heard it said that time is money. This is no less true when it comes to persistent world online games. Under normal circumstances, it can mxke months or even years to work a character into the upper maje of a game like EverQuest or acquire some tradkng item that only drops on, say, the Plane of Complete Annihilation. It make money trading virtual goods come as no surprise that man...