Been playing this scenario out in my head - but I think that there are tremendous ineffeciencies in these markets. Anyone have any experience in these areas?
Has no relation to your question but it reminded me of this site that cracked me up when I saw it: http://www.getafirstlife.com/
Sure they are some opportunities but I don't think the opportunity cost is worth it. As it stands if you want to make money in WoW hire 20 chinese guys, make them play the game 24 hours a day and sell the items acquired for money. I also know WoW has 'traders' who buy underpriced items and sell them for more, sometimes they even manipulate the market. For Second Life hire 20 chinese guys, make them create content and new zones, homes, whatever, in Second Life for 24 hours a day and sell the stuff for money. There's a learning curve involved knowing what markets are hot, not to mention learning IF you can become profitable because you're basically competing against similar businesses. When I was young I used to take advantage of the commerce present in some of these games, more fun than money. Second Life could grow however, it's hot right now, has always been and it might grow a lot lot bigger. So do research if you want to position yourself. What's interesting is the amount of scams available in these games. Plus some games have something like 99% of their economy being scams pretty much, it's really interesting from a social science's point of view. These are after all really complex worlds populated by real people. Now THAT could be an opportunity, go and write a paper about comparing empirical data from WoW and Second Life.