eBay METRICS
By Chris Smith
Good as Gold
A NEW BREED OF ALCHEMISTS has discovered a way to make
gaming gold and sell it for real money online. Players “farm” characters to get
in-game items and resources and then sell them on the web. And a surprising
economy is growing. One leading indicator is visible
on eBay, which periodically shuts down these auc-
tions for dealing in intellectual property. However, FEB ’05 TOTAL SALES:
we saw plenty of people go for the gold in one of the $527,127
hottest Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Games, World of Warcraft (Wo W), by Blizzard TOP 5 SELLERS
Entertainment. World of Warcraft claimed 1.5 million 21%
subscribers worldwide just four months after its ($111,482)
release. In three months, there were $1,288,938
in eBay sales of Wo W gold, and the top seller in
that period accumulated $111,404
in real cash.
OTHERS
61%
TOP SELLER 8% ($43,685)
TOP SELLERS: In February 2005, the top seller accounted for 8% of the sales on 1, 261 listings and had an 85% success rate.
Jan ’05 Feb ’05
$241,905 In February the average sale price $519,906 $527,127 Avg. price: $36.27 Avg. price: $44.22 Avg. price: $44.16 was $.33 per unit of gold.
Listings: 13,598 Listings: 22,506 Listings: 18, 081
Success rate: 46.4% Success rate: 49.8% Success rate: 63.7% Nearly 60% of all listings were for
100 gold pieces.
REVENUE GROWTH: Wo W gold sales on eBay
jumped from $241K in December to $519K in January, followed by a slight bump to $527K in February. Gold must be purchased for the
specific server used by the player.
PRICES FOR SPECIFIC AMOUNTS OF GOLD Based on February 2005 data, the best value is 400 gold pieces at 30 cents per piece. All quantities are in gold pieces.
500
Avg. price: $155.50
(.31 per unit)
100
Avg. price: $33.52
(.33 per unit)
Num. sold: 16 Num. sold: 79 Num. sold: 7,250
0 1000 Revenue: $4, 999 Revenue: $12, 285 Revenue: $243,048
0
0
50 20
10
0
Avg. price: $21.04 Avg. price: $9.56
Avg. price: $7.6
(.42 per unit) (.48 per unit)
(.77 per unit)
0
Num. sold: 620 Num. sold: 331
Num. sold: 226
Revenue: $13,045 Revenue: $3, 165
Revenue: $1,736
0 best value: 400 *
0
0
100
90
80
8
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
25¢ 35¢
45¢ 55¢ 65¢ 75¢ 85¢
Chris Smith is director of Business Development at Terapeak, which provided the data for this column. Chris can be reached at chris@terapeak.com.
References:
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