Over the past month or so I’ve run in to stories of several people making an absolute killing from selling assets in online games and virtual worlds. Several affiliate marketers have even raised the question, “how can we make money off this?”

Lets first classify the two distinct “games” that are money makers for third parties. The first type is the MMORPG - Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game. This includes popular games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest (1 & 2), Ultima Online, and a very long list of wanna-be’s. The second type of “game” is the virtual world which does not really involve any game play at all. The market leader here is Second Life. The entire game basically involves building new 3D objects and talking to people.

So is this just a fluke or is there really a lot of money to be made brokering virtual property online? Today the largest online game, World of Warcraft, has 6.5 million players. Curiously, the most hyped online world, Second Life, comparitively has around 70,000 (according to MMOGChart.com — “official” stats contradict this.)

Currently online role playing games, such as World of Warcraft, provide the largest opportunities for internet entrepreneurs. The main market here is selling in game currency (gold or credits) and items (such as weapons, armour, etc.)

There are many pitfulls to farming and selling virtual items. eBay recently issued a blanket ban for virtual items (with some exceptions made.)

With uncharted and dangerous territory comes windfall profits. There are various stories being thrown around about online developers and gold farmers raking in millions of dollar over the years. Thats enough money to be serious about.

Much like blackhat search engine optimization, those in a position to benefit the most are programmers who can identify loopholes and exploits in the system. However, if you have the starting capital and drive to succeed, you can profit from this massive emerging market too.

As a publisher there is money in it for you too! Gold sellers are paying top dollar for traffic. Just do a search on Google for “world of warcraft gold” and you’ll see the competition both in PPC and organic listings.

Here is an idea — take a look at mmorpg.com’s listing of upcoming games, and start building the pages and backlinks for sites now. You don’t really know what games will boom or flop, so following one game may not pay off, you need to follow them all.