Why a "Virtual" Economy?

The New York Times article "The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer" by Julian Dibbell, outlines a virtual economy in which "Chinese Gold Farmers" play games like World of Warcraft in order to gain virtual money that can eventually be sold for real money to other European or American consumers. After reading this article, I was surprised by my relatively simplistic opinion on the issue of the "virtual economy" that was created. The article states that" the romance of this imaginary life stands in sharp contrast to the plodding, mathematical precision with which it proceeds," implying that the "real world" is real and the "virtual world" is less real. The way I see it, people conceive of value in different ways. To some people, paying $80 to go to a professional football game would be a complete waste of money. To me, paying that money to go to a football game gives me far more utility than I would get by buying a pair of new jeans for the same price, for instance. In the end, by being at the game, all I'm getting is an experience, and that experience means more to me than it would to some other people. In a similar vein, people who pay real money in exchange for virtual money are paying for an experience. They are paying for the opportunity to have a better World of Warcraft experience, or gain respect among peers, or whatever other goals a player might have. I would never pay real money for virtual money like the article describes, but that is because I would not get very much utility out of that transaction. For someone that gets utility by having that virtual money, this transaction makes more sense.

Everything I have learned about economics is that a market price is driven by the consumers' willingness to pay for that good. A consumer's willingness to pay for a good is determined by the utility that that person gains by obtaining that good. Just because someone pays for an experience in a virtual world doesn't make that person an irrational consumer. In fact, I would challenge the idea and term of "virtual economy." The market of paying for virtual money seems just as real as any other market to me.