Crestfallen Studios

The Gross National Product of EverQuest, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be $2,266 U.S. per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia.

It was the seventy-seventh richest country in the world. And it didn't even exist.

Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, became fascinated by The Sims Online last year and founded a blog — "The Alphaville Herald" — that reports on interesting social situations inside the world. Last November, he discovered something truly strange: The game had a chain of cyber-brothels, run by a family of avatars, all played by a character named "Evangeline." Evangeline had organized a handful of Sim women to perform hot-sex chat inside the game for customers, who paid in Simoleans. "Girls set their own prices," she told Ludlow. "Bj's" were 20,000 Simoleans, the equivalent of roughly $4.50 (U.S.); Evangeline reserved the richest customers for herself, making up to $40 or $50 (U.S.) a trick. Ludlow later discovered that some of Evangeline's "girls" were underage girls in real life, and that Evangeline herself was a seventeen-year-old boy living in Florida. When he blogged about his findings, reporters nationwide snapped to attention, and soon The Sims Online was on the front page of The New York Times.

"There.com, for example, is a 3-D world devoted to nothing but chatting and socializing"
...
"One of the leading clothes designers is making $3,000 to $4,000 a month,"

Sarcasm wrote:

Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, became fascinated by The Sims Online last year and founded a blog — "The Alphaville Herald" — that reports on interesting social situations inside the world. Last November, he discovered something truly strange: The game had a chain of cyber-brothels, run by a family of avatars, all played by a character named "Evangeline." Evangeline had organized a handful of Sim women to perform hot-sex chat inside the game for customers, who paid in Simoleans. "Girls set their own prices," she told Ludlow. "Bj's" were 20,000 Simoleans, the equivalent of roughly $4.50 (U.S.); Evangeline reserved the richest customers for herself, making up to $40 or $50 (U.S.) a trick. Ludlow later discovered that some of Evangeline's "girls" were underage girls in real life, and that Evangeline herself was a seventeen-year-old boy living in Florida. When he blogged about his findings, reporters nationwide snapped to attention, and soon The Sims Online was on the front page of The New York Times.

"There.com, for example, is a 3-D world devoted to nothing but chatting and socializing"
...
"One of the leading clothes designers is making $3,000 to $4,000 a month,"

Yes, It was.

Burning_Flame wrote:It was already put up on the forum, thats probally why.