Virtual weapon brings real money
By Ken Ho

Nowadays online games are the most popular entertainment among teenage boys, they spend many hours a day playing them just because they could gain their treasure--virtual weaponry.

"Online games are not necessarily a social problem; the activities that people do online for pleasure (hopefully after work and studies) became a (social) phenomenon,'' Lecturer of the University of Macau, Raymond Lai said, "Not all game titles are about violence; it depends on what games people choose to play and when people choose to play. The technology itself is 'neutral'."

Kin turns on his computer immediately once he is back at home.

The types of virtual weapons vary according to individual games; if a game is set in a modern background, players could get some modern weapons such as guns, bombs and so on. If a game is set in an ancient time, the weapons would be a big knife, an axe or a sword, etc. Each type of arms is rated by levels. The higher the level of a piece of weapon is, the more it would be worth.

Kin, a 12 years old primary student, has played online games for around two years. In the first two months he just spent one to two hours, but gradually he became more addicted to it and he could spend more than seven hours on doing it per day. "That's so exciting, because you can do whatever you want in the game," Kin said. "I use MOP80 per month to buy the point card."

Some teenagers only want to gain the virtual weapon for fun, while some would sell the weapons to earn money. Lately this kind of trade has become a new trend. This is a new way for teenagers to earn a lot of money in a very short time, that gives more incentives to teenage boys to sacrifice their night time to play online games. "I will spend my night time to earn one weapon if it is worth it," said Kin. "Normally a piece of high level weapon costs around MOP500, but last time I sold a 60-level knife for MOP1000."

Recently, boys are attracted by one of the most popular games "Ragnarok Online", also called "RO" in short. Kin explained, "Before you play this game, you have to buy a CD for installation and it includes an account called 'points card'. There are two kinds of point cards, one is a monthly card costing $80 and the other costs MOP40 for 10 hours." Kin normally buys the monthly one. "I will turn on my computer immediately when I am back home each time.''

"Playing this game also helps me to earn money,'' Kin said. He explained that when he earns enough virtual money, he could buy some expensive virtual weaponry. After he gets them, he will ask around via a chat centre inside the game site whether some people are interested in his weapon or not. If someone makes an offer, Kin will meet him in a net bar in Macao. 'He gives me money and I would use the computer in the net bar to send the weapon to his character.' For such virtual weapon deals, Kin said that they could bring him at least MOP1000 per month.

By doing so, they re-injected a new image into the "virtual" world and made it equal to the "real" world. Some intangible things were gained and sold for the eventual attainment of tangible things--money.