{"product_id":"2000003478491","title":"Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePlay Money\u003c\/i\u003e explores a remarkable new phenomenon that's just beginning to enter public consciousness: MMPORGs, or Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games, in which hundreds of thousands of players operate fantasy characters in virtual environments the size of continents. With city-sized populations of nearly full-time players, these games generate their own cultures, governments, and social systems and, inevitably, their own economies, which spill over into the real world. The desire for virtual goods-magic swords, enchanted breastplates, and special, hard-to-get elixirs-has spawned a cottage industry of \"virtual loot farmers\": people who play the games just to obtain fantasy goods that they can sell in the real world. The best loot farmers can make between six figures a year and six figures a month. \u003ci\u003ePlay Money\u003c\/i\u003e is an extended walk on the weird side: a vivid snapshot of a subculture whose denizens were once the stuff of mere sociological spectacle but now-with computer gaming poised to eclipse all other entertainments in dollar volume, and with the lines between play and work, virtual and real increasingly blurred-look more and more like the future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gildan Media Corp","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47092685963504,"sku":"2000003478491","price":29.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2000003478491_p0.jpg?v=1763537341","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2000003478491","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}