Professional Gaming: Making Money Selling MMO Accounts

A lot of young people today spend a large amount of their free time gaming. This has lead to a surge of students training to work in the games industry; there's nothing better than playing games for a living right? Unfortunately actually playing the games rarely comes into question even though it is the dream job a huge proportion of people want.

If you are prepared to dedicate your time properly, then it is possible to make money gaming and live the envied life of a professional gamer.

If you play MMOs you know that a huge number of players simply give up after a week or so of gaming after they become overwhelmed by the monotony of grinding. Some of these players want the money and power that high-level players have, but don't want to spend such a long time getting there. This is where you can step in.

If you're a true gamer and you hold the belief that the ends justifies the means and are prepared to grind your character to the bone in order to get to the level or attain the weapon you've been fantasizing about you might be able to make some money.

Since certain people want high level characters and certain gamers like levelling, the two together make perfect sense. You simply level the character and sell the account it is on to a willing buyer.

Making a profit is also a huge factor in this whole process. If you're selling an account from a free game all you charge for is the time it took you. If you're selling an account from a game with the freemium option (e.g. Las Chaos) you should charge for each item you bought along with the time you spent levelling the character.

Then of course there is the games with a monthly charge; World of Warcraft being the most famous example. If you are doing this as a side-project this could get tricky. If you want to make a profit then you'll have to charge for the payments you made for the monthly charges and the time it took you. If you're not spending a huge amount of your time your profit margin could rise considerably and leave your account too expensive; remember you will also have to contend with the prices that other gamers are offering.

Some people take more than levelling into account when they are preparing to buy a character. Having rare equipment, such as armour or weapons obviously makes the account more desirable. This also hold true of the account contains a lot of in-game gold. Also having a high level mount can drive the asking price of your account skyward.

Certain class types are more popular than others. Classes that fair better solo tend to sell far better than those who depend on group support. Think about it logically; why would someone pay a considerable amount of money to buy a character that relies on being in a party with other players. The majority of people interested in buying are into solo gaming so it is very wise to choose your class to reflect this. Of course you might come across the rare breed of buyer who wants an account to contend with their friends' but without the hassle of actually working at it.

Classes that fair best solo are classes that have high attack and defense, either physical or magical. In Last Chaos Titans and mages for example sell very well because they can survive well outside of a party. Healers usually need a party to survive in-game once they reach the higher levels as their defense is not very high. Healers are basically built to play in a party as their powers are developed in order to support other players. This usually means that a healer will be hard to sell.

Selling online is relatively easy. There is a huge number of sites willing to help you sell accounts, and a small number of them will pay for certain accounts upfront. Developing a really marketable account is difficult if you don't do some research. People want different things from different MMOs. Hopefully you've been playing an MMO before this, and if you have been any way involved in its online community you will have some kind of idea what people are trying to acchieve while they play.

There is a huge selection of sites available to buy and sell MMO accounts. Rpgbids.com is a great general site filled with numerous accounts from different games including World Of Warcraft, Last Chaos, Twelve Sky, Archlord and many more. PVP accounts for archlord tend to sell for a measly $25. The site also has a large amount of Deicide online accounts for very little (10$ - 20$).

More popular games such as World Of Warcraft sell for much more; a really maxed out character should easily sell for $300 but with certain equipment this can rise to $700. World of Warcraft accounts are the most sold. MMOGA.com has a huge range of generously priced WoW accounts, as well as great prices for WOW gold, which is great for buyers but means more compeditiveness between sellers. Buymmoaccounts.com is usually the first site to appear on a search page but deals exclusively in WoW accounts.

World of warcraft accounts also sell at such high prices for another reason; some players who are leaving the game for good want to sell their accounts and price them high because they've been working at them for years. If you have a good quality account with a maxed out character you could make $300 with the right equipment, but unless you're selling a personal WOW account that you've worked at for at least a year don't try for $700.

Accountgear.com allows its members to swap accounts as well as buy and sell them, the site has a good selection of accounts from Final Fantasy XI, WoW and WoW Europe, Warhammer Online, Age Of Conan, Lord Of The Rings Online, Everquest II, Lineage II and Vanguard. Recently Runescape accounts are also selling very well for around 200$ - 300$ for a well levelled character.

Accountgear.com will also powerlevel your character to a level of your choice as well as their 'build an account' option which allows you to choose which level your character will be when you buy it.

It is important to remember that you won't get rich by selling MMO accounts; in fact some gamers will think of you as a sell-out. Making a good profit will take a lot of skill because it means you will have to powerlevel your character in order to actually make a profit for the time you put into the game. Selling MMO accounts is a great way to make some money part-time, don't start off thinking you can make a living doing this.

For some people there is nothing more satisfying than earning money from doing something they love. The most important thing you need to do it to pick the right MMO so that you have fun developing your character even if you don't make a huge profit.