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This is insane. I knew that people were making money selling crap from online games (even selling shares in virtual stock markets like blogshares).

But now people are actually earning a full-time living at it. Or at least they're trying. Apparently Ultima Online encourages this and people are making real money from it.

The amounts being traded are huge. Figures collected by economist Edward Castronova show that the total dollar value of what is being traded, excluding EverQuest items, runs into the millions.

Mr Dibbell has become an itinerant merchant wandering the land of Britannia seeking out gold and other goods to sell.

"I've discovered that there is a food chain and the producers are at the bottom and the merchants are at the top," he says.

"The producers are the teenage kids that have a lot of time on their hands but no money so they go out and hunt and loot and craft and produce the stuff that I am buying and selling," he says.

[via Chris Sells]