Mark Choon

Up until a few months ago, I was an avid player of World of Warcraft. I spent countless hours, like many of the players in the game as well as my friends, leveling my characters, taking part in ingame quests both large and small. So what does a game have to do with business ideas? Well besides the game company, Blizzard, earning millions of dollars a year through gameplay subscriptions, many enterprising players have also made tons of money in the real world by making a career out of playing and trading items within the game.

Of course, thanks to the World of Warcraft’s Terms of Use, trading of in game items with real cash or the selling of ingame currency with real currency is considered illegal and tantamount accounts being revoked. However, during the course of playing the game, there were many times where players hear about accounts being suspended for such activities. The term “Asian farmer” is used to describe accounts which horde items and currency to be sold online for real cash. I guess this term came about thanks to some Asian players who had the insight to make real money from a game whether or not it is legal.

So the point of my post here is that, though there are many ways to make money illegally, I have found some people who have actually come up with a method to make it legally.

Player guides.

After surfing around some internet and affiliate marketing material and sites, I came across two player guides. Joana’s guide for the Horde and Brian Kopp’s guide for the Alliance. It dawned upon me that this is a very smart way of making some money and enjoy the game too!

Making player guides is not new. Way before the Internet was prevalent in our society, there were printed player guides for many games that were published and being sold in bookshops. I’m sure many followers of older games might have bought one or two guides for some tough games back then. With the Internet however, many of these player-made player guides for games are usually available for free.

So how do these two guides for World of Warcraft make money?

This is explained by the two guides’ unique selling point. Leveling FAST! In World of Warcraft, each character has to undergo quests to gain experience points. For an average player, leveling a character from start game level 1 to end game level 70 can take around 4 to 6 months of everyday play. Players want to reach the endgame stage quickly as this is where the coolest gear and weapons are available as well as the different game content available for play.

These two guides, Joana’s and Brian Kopp’s, claim to cut short that time into a very short time frame. On Brian Kopp’s site, it is guaranteed that one can reach the big 70 in 8 days! On Joana’s, she has claimed a 4 day 20 hour record for level 1 to level 60. Both these guides, radically reduces a player’s need to spend months of effort to reach the endgame stage.

Savings

Now how much savings do you think a World of Warcraft player would save if he/she gets these guides?
Let’s do a simple calculation:

• Both guides are on sale for USD$35 for Brian Kopp’s and USD$37 for Joana’s.
• World of Warcraft monthly subscription is USD$14.99.

If a player spends an average of 5 months to go from level 1 to level 70, that is 5 multiplied by $14.99, he/she spends $74.95. But if the player gets either guide, follows it and gets from level 1 to 70 in ONE month, the player only spends at most, $14.99 + $37 = $51.99!! Thats more than $20 savings in terms of monetary costs. Now that’s just savings in terms of money value, the player also saves 4 months of playing time! And don’t forget that these guides can be reused for other characters over and over again. Very good value for money I would say.

Here’s the links to both guides for you to check them out:

Joana’s Leveling guide for the Horde
Brian Kopp’s Leveling guide for the Alliance