Increasingly people who play MMOs are finding that notion of making money from within the game is a game unto itself. Professional game designer Brian Psychochild Green makes some great points about business in MMOs like WoW in an article entitled Business in Games.
While most of his article talks about this trend from a game designers perspective, he makes some excellent points which are worth repeating. So what are the 4 essential skills you need to make gold in WoW?
The Most Important Skills
Here they are in a nutshell:
- Knowledge is Power
- Know the Market
- Choose Your Business
- Take Advantage of Opportunities
Knowledge is Power
Making gold in WoW or any other MMO for that matter is not *magic*. It takes a lot of work and research to figure out what you can sell and what players will buy.
Check out what Brian has to say on this:
The first, and most important, is knowledge, just as you need in the offline world. You need to know what goods and services are in demand. You need to know what items will sell, and which items are eclipsed by better quest rewards. You need to know what stats a specific class or type of character will want in order to know if the stats on an item are worthwhile or not. If you find a caster weapon with physical stats, that might be better to sell to a vendor rather wasting auction fees hoping someone will buy it.
Know the Market
The market in any MMO is always in a state of flux. On certain days trade materials like ore are in high demand, on other days there is too much supply and the demand is less. Knowing the market requires that you take the time to watch the prices of the items that you are trying to sell. Here’s Brian’s take:
Another bit of knowledge you’ll want is to know what price the market is willing to pay for an item. Some of the first AH businesses in WoW dealt with buying up underpriced items and selling them closer to the going price. Enchanting materials were especially popular, since they cost nothing to list on the AH in WoW. The person willing to take a longer term perspective on selling the item (instead of the adventurer who just wanted to get an item out of his or her inventory) can make a fair amount of money. Learning what the going price is, and how that price can change over time, is important to knowing what will make money.
Choose Your Business
Sine professions are one way of making tons of gold in WoW, you’ll need to decide which ones to mater and then become an expert in that field. Know all there is to know about what crafted items are hot and which ones are not. Brian says the following:
With this knowledge, it’s time to choose your business. Following Gevlon’s lead, you might choose inscription as your tradeskill in WoW. Find something that is in demand and that you don’t mind doing. Find out what other people are selling, and try to avoid getting into too much direct competition. Be ready to adjust your strategies if someone else tries to move in on your territory.
Take Advantage of Opportunities
One additional way you can make huge profits in WoW is to check the in-game calendar and see what festivals are coming. You can make a killing if you harvest materials in advance and sell them on the first few days in the Auciton House.
Another amazing profit pipeline is taking advantage of the Darkmoon Faire where many rare materials and vanity pets are available which you can turn around and resell for mega profits on your server.
Here Brian talks about festivals in LotRO here but the same philosophy applies to WoW:
It’s also important to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. During the festivals in LotRO, I spent a fair amount of time collecting gift boxes in the game which had random items. Some of the items were rare recipes for cosmetic items that people will buy for quite a bit of money. I was able to make most of my money for my character’s horses by selling extras of these recipes on the AH. (This is part of where luck comes in. I wouldn’t have nearly as much money if I had not been able to get a few of these prized recipes.) Of course, keeping these recipes meant that I had to have inventory space to store the items if I got them while the market was glutted with the rare item.
Some very insightful advice from a video game designer on how to make lots of gold in WoW!
For more great gold making strategies like this one, I highly recommend checking out Luke Brown’s Gold Secrets Guide. It’s 369 pages jam packed with sure-fire gold making tips and strategies. I use the info in this guide each day to rake in obscene amounts of gold.
