Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

Another discussion on virtual properties

Just read some news on Chinese gamers’ network, a new profession is expanding rapidly – Professional Gamers. Here is a real story: 4 high school teenagers played several online games as a team to gather virtual properties like weapons, magic items and virtual cloths for one year, and they made over 80,000 RMB which is a lot of money for the Chinese teenagers. Here is a price list of some virtual items in a popular Chinese online game:
Ocean-Star Sword: 4,000 RMB
Golden Bo: 5,000 RMB
Black Magical Necklace: 6,000 RMB
Blue Magical Ring: 8,000 RMB
And mind you these are real money players need to play to obtain these virtual items. Some of these items are even more expensive than a real item in the real market. (e.g. a Pearl Necklace)

This tells us that there is a new generation of players/learners that us educators need to face in the immediate future. They are familiar, and some even addicted to a virtual environment – a world our generation created for them. They spend more time in learning, communicating and living in that virtual world than they do in the real world. We must adopt and study these behaviors and act accordingly or otherwise our traditional education will no longer be qualified in their world.