Anodyne
Thursday, June 02, 2005
 
Virtual Power Brokers -- from the LA Times

"In some games, such as Second Life, however, entrepreneurs are sought out by other players.

Take Ailin Graef, who supports her aging parents and sends two children to private school with the money she makes selling virtual land.

Graef leases 224 acres of virtual land in "Second Life" — enough to occupy 14 servers — at $12.19 an acre. Graef develops the land by adding terrain features, zoning restrictions and other amenities, then sublets slices of the land to others at about $25 an acre a month. Much of her property is sold out.

Graef, whose online name is Anshe Chung, gave a tour of her virtual empire. First stop was a winter wonderland of gently swaying snow-tipped pines and ski cottages. Next was a wedge of land with soothing minstrel music and dotted with 19th century English cottages. Across the pond lay a plot of land leased by a group of Quebecois who have built chateaux and speak only French within the game.

Graef, 32, has a keen grasp of what people will buy and for how much. Climate, neighborhood makeup and proximity to roads and water are some of the factors that feed into her calculation of what kind of terrain to develop and how much to charge. Parcels in tropical climates are easier to sell, even though there is no such thing as temperature online."
- posted by cjb @ 2:58 PM


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