So many people really underestimate how lucrative RMT'ing on games can be. EQ is just not the greatest example because it's only lucrative in small windows and despite popular EQ forum belief, it's not viable to AFK farm for long periods of time without getting banned like other games. On a TLP launch, if you are actually trying and are efficient, you can make about 10-15k in the first month, and about 7-8k each month for the rest of classic. It's perfectly viable to make around 5k a month each month after that all the way through luclin.
I've never RMT'd professionally as the only means of living, but I know a lot of people who have or still do. They do it across several games and make a very good living doing it. For example, I have a friend who runs an afk crafting/farming/market script on the final fantasy online game. He runs it 24 hours a day and barely has to touch it, and consistently pulls in about 4-8k a month for the last 2 years on there. He runs similar script programs across several other games. All in all he averages about 15-20k a month and the only actual work he has to do is the actual RMT'ing of the stuff which is minimal hours per day.
For a few years on LoL before they shut all the scripting companies down, I ran AFK script bots on there and sold botted lvl 30 accounts. I didn't have to do any work with it other than keep the computers on with the script running, and do an account info dump once a week to the site I sold them to that took only a few minutes. You could make 3-4k a month doing this which is pretty nice on top of my military pay.
Point is, there is a ridiculous amount of people who make six figures a year RMT'ing in games. There's dozens of examples of people who have made in the millions from RMT'ing.
If you only want to talk about EQ RMT though, I would estimate that if you did it year around, and assuming they launch 1 TLP a year, you could easily make 60k-70k a year which isn't terrible especially if you live in states where cost of living is super low.
What year do you think this is? 2005? lol
The market in any mainstream game is cornered by the chinese? False. The companies with the largest sales in League of Legends were all US and Europe based companies, mainly ran by 1 or 2 people in their house. The companies with the largest sales in CS:GO again were American and European. Let's not forget 2 of the largest RMT companies during WoW's time, including one of the largest chinese gold farming companies were led by Americans. All of the most lucrative RMT market games now days have their markets separated to begin with by region, where it's not even viable to be paying people over in asia to do things on accounts in america.
Even when the largest RMT company for a game is led by people over in Asia, it doesn't mean you still can't make 6 figures in that game in America.
If you want to talk about EQ RMT, guild leaders are not doing more business than single player farmers lol. We can break it down by krono amount if you want to.
To make 60k in one year on EQ you would have to farm 6,000 krono in a year at $10 each. 25-30k of that you are making in classic on a TLP, which means in 3 months you would have to farm 2500-3000 krono. That equates to 33 krono a day. You are making 1500 krono in the first month of classic, which is 50 krono a day. There are several camps in the first month of classic, where you will average 50-80 krono a day. That means you only need to farm another 1500 krono in the remaining 2 months, which is only 25 krono a day. Which is again, extremely easy to do. That means for the remaining 9 months of the year, you only need to farm another 3000 krono, which is only 11 krono a day. 11 krono a day even towards the end of each expansion is pretty easy to do. At the beginning of kunark, velious, and luclin you can easily make 20-50 krono a day in the first few weeks, lowering to about 10 krono a day for the remaining time. Me saying you can make 60k in one year if you actually tried as an individual person is actually a low estimate, taking in to account that you would not play every day and take breaks for weeks at a time.
So many people really underestimate how lucrative RMT'ing on games can be.
If you only want to talk about EQ RMT though, I would estimate that if you did it year around
Ugh, just the thought of relying on EQ farming as a form of income makes me want to hurl. I'm sure we all know why games like EQ can be habit forming, especially since it is becoming common knowledge that random reward systems produce more dopamine in most people when compared to rewards based on a set schedule.
My own experience with RMT in EQ is fairly limited, as I farmed occasionally in a couple of expansions. I really only sold platinum and the occasional chase item to one particular company, never bothered to sell it to people directly. During my velious farming heyday I was averaging somewhere around $25 an hour but I just couldn't do it more than 3-4 hours a day because the repetition was just so boring. I'm sure others could do more, but I never liked playing more than one character at a time. That lasted a few months before I stopped completely. Some time later things got pretty insane though, due to my getting extremely lucky, I ended up with more platinum than I could ever liquidate. I sold a fair amount but stopped because I lost interest in the game.
I'm realizing now that if I spent the time to liquidate it, I could probably pick up a watch I've been fantasizing about purchasing for the last couple of years. It sounds like a really good idea actually. The people who farm video games full time to support themselves must have complete immunity from boredom. It reminds me of those guys whose job it is to work in those remote weather stations. Completely isolated, and nothing really to do but read books and watch their fingernails grow.
So $6000 in 6 months grinding 10+ hours a day? Risking a ban here or there that may destroy the stock.
Let's also add in the deficit you will run in take out food, energy drinks, coffee, etc to stay awake and grind. Let's completely ignore the massive negative health benefits this accomplishment will set you back in the long haul of your entire life.
I mean break that down into minimum wage terms and let's see the numbers working 40 hours a week at minimum wage.
I know the majority of you are grown up now and probably pull decent numbers per hour by now??
What are you even doing with this krono surplus? Selling them one by one for $? How are you avoiding ban? They are all over that. Oh, you're buying a shield of the immaculate with it? Nice. Buying a CoF in classic to do 12 dps more than the next guy? I don't get it
Don't let DBG win with this copy paste server....