06-10-2006, 11:32 AM
Quote:The real-world marketing potential of online [Game] worlds is suggested by the active virtual commerce that already takes place within them...
Some avatar entrepreneurs, most notably fashion designers and land speculators, have been so successful that their creators have quit real-life jobs to focus on their virtual-world businesses. Linden Lab says that more than 3,000 people earn real-world money from their Second Life businesses, averaging $20,000 a yeara number skewed upward by the handful of residents who generate six-figure incomes in real-world dollars...
The combination of robust virtual-world commerce and the growing overlap of virtual worlds and the real world suggests opportunities for creative real-world marketers. So far, there have been few instances of real-world products being sold in virtual worlds to real-world users for delivery to their real-world addresses. But there have been some interesting brand-building experiments. In the Sims Online, McDonalds installed virtual fast-food kiosks, complete with automated employees working at the counter and able to serve up (free) virtual burgers and fries to residents who made their selections from a clickable menu..
full article: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrsa/en/iss...tml?type=F