Our gamers have learned to turn their hobby into a business. They win huge sums at esports tournaments, and selling game characters easily brings them $1,000–2,500 a month.
The real world has serious competition — today around 200 million people worldwide devote several hours a day to online games. According to forecasts by the IT consortium Intecracy Group, the number of players in online worlds will grow by 30–40 million a year (these figures are also confirmed by research from the marketing firms J'son & Partners Consulting and PwC). The global trend applies to Ukraine as well. Nobody counts online players in our country (all studies lump us together with Russia and Belarus), but the popularity of internet games among our compatriots is indirectly confirmed by the fact that in this year's series of online esports tournaments, Ukrainians took second place in the online games category, and two of our fellow countrymen made the top ten highest-earning cyber gamers.
Money as an incentive
One of the reasons online games are so popular is that players can make money from them. During the game you have to complete tasks of varying difficulty, collect gear and earn virtual money. A character can be leveled up and then sold, or the items earned in the virtual world can be sold to another player. There are services that exchange virtual money for real money — a professional player's income amounts to several thousand dollars a month. Big money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) can also be won at esports tournaments — more than ten multiplayer online game competitions are held every year.
A hidden threat
The virtual world often captivates players so strongly that they lose their sense of reality, which seriously harms their everyday lives. For example, research conducted in 2005 at Charité University (Germany) showed that gamers react to their favorite games much as alcoholics and drug addicts react to their substance of choice. Judging by the fact that players spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on virtual items, the comparison is more than apt.
Life is a game
Professor Jesse Schell of Carnegie Mellon University believes that the principles of online games will soon carry over into the real world: "Soon chips will become so cheap that they can be put into any object. Your toothbrush will track which toothpaste you use and award points that can be exchanged for a discount at the supermarket, and you will be paid for mentioning a bar on social media. And the system will penalize you for visiting a 'rival' venue."
Big business
"Ukraine is home to more than a dozen online game development centers whose games are played by internet users all over the world," says Ruslan Olkhovsky, head of the IT company Softengi. The thing is, Ukrainian programmers are considered more qualified than, say, IT specialists from India or China, while their salaries are lower than those of their European and American peers. Accordingly, foreign investors commission development here. A striking example is World of Warplanes, from the creators of the hit World of Tanks, whose online release is scheduled in a month. Projects of this scale employ about 300 programmers and designers and require investment of around $25 million. That investment pays off: World of Tanks, by various estimates, brings in $2 million to $4 million a month.
However, most projects are simple social network games that programmers develop independently, as a business of their own. "Development takes a few months, after which the game starts making a profit almost immediately," says Olkhovsky. The key to success is a good storyline: even if a game is beautifully drawn, if users find it boring to play, the project shuts down within two or three months.
Gains and losses
Yevhen M. (who asked us not to give his surname) got hooked on online games back in 2007. At first it was entertainment, like any offline game (one you have to buy on disc and install on your computer), but a year later he realized it could earn him good money. It all started when someone on the internet offered to buy his character for $1,000. "The amount stunned me, but I pulled myself together and checked around online. It turned out the real price was three times higher. Naturally, I sold it and started developing a new one," says Yevhen. But the games took up more and more of his time every day — he had to spend 8–12 hours at the computer, sometimes more. And all of it with no weekends or holidays.
"A year later my parents sounded the alarm. That was right after they got a letter from the institute saying I had been expelled for poor grades. Before that they had not noticed the problem, because I was living in a rented apartment in another city and supporting myself entirely through the game," says our hero. His rehabilitation lasted several months and consisted of living in a village for several months with no computer at all. "By then I had already lost all my friends in the real world. It wasn't worth it," Yevhen concludes.
Victims and hackers
When players buy characters or extra features on online exchanges, they risk running into fraudsters. For example, someone decides to buy an artifact put up for sale, contacts the seller and transfers the money. The seller vanishes as soon as the funds arrive. It also happens the other way round: the seller hands over, say, a character or in-game currency, and the buyer never pays.
Andriy Yefimov from Kyiv, a seasoned player, says that to make such deals safer, the gaming world now brings in middlemen — respected or well-known players, or specialized online services with a good reputation. In this case the trade works as follows: the buyer transfers the required amount to the middleman's account, and the seller hands over the artifact or the character's password. The buyer then receives the item or character, and the seller gets the money. Middlemen charge 5–10% of the transaction amount. "I make about $2,000 as a middleman," says Andriy. But nothing can be done if a character is stolen. Hackers either guess the password or trick the owner into giving it up under some pretext (for example, by offering to level up the character for free). Once they gain access, all the "valuables" disappear.
Working from home
Oleksiy Lytvynov from Dnipropetrovsk has been leveling up characters in online games for five years. To do this, he has assembled a team of eight people working in two or three shifts. "The character's owner gives us his account details. We play non-stop, in shifts. In a short time the character builds up a large amount of virtual currency, artifacts and weapons," the entrepreneur explains. Depending on the game's complexity, the service costs $200–500, and the customers are people who do not want to or cannot play around the clock but want a strong character.
"In most online games, if you work on a character around the clock, you can develop it for sale in one or two months. After that it can be sold for several thousand dollars. For example, a month ago we sold a 'Soul Flayer' (a World of Warcraft character) for $2,500," says Oleksiy. According to him, the buyers are mostly from former Soviet countries. Admittedly, competition between such "studios" in the most popular games has recently grown, and prices for leveling up characters have halved in a year. Still, they manage to make at least $1,500 per person per month.
A psychologist's view
Escaping into the online world is a psychological disorder
"During a computer game, the area of the brain responsible for satisfaction is stimulated," says Tetiana Nazarenko, a psychotherapist with the All-Ukrainian Art Therapy Association. "The same area is activated when a person experiences first-order pleasure (sexual, for example) or second-order pleasure (for example, satisfaction with their financial situation). In rare cases, the virtual world can replace the real one, especially when a person struggles with self-fulfillment. Excessive enthusiasm for computer games is a type of psychological disorder that needs to be treated. Online games add the thrill of gambling, since they are played for money. And the person cannot stop. You should sound the alarm if gaming takes up more than 2–3 hours a day. It is especially dangerous for teenagers."