The billion dollar virtual economies created by massively multiplayer online video games are something very few people saw coming in the 80s, when video games were just beginning to hold their own against other popular forms of media.
Even more surprising is how fast these virtual economies sprang up, and how people around the world are now making a living farming for loot in video games like World of Warcraft and EVE Online.
This episode of the PBS series Off Book focuses on the strange virtual economies created by video games, and how this internal economic snafu has become quite a headache for both the game studios and international law enforcement officials. Dern gold farmers, dey tuker jobs!
-Via Laughing Squid