According to Wired News, "The buying and selling of virtual currencies, weapons and other goods from massively multiplayer online games like EverQuest and Ultima Online may be off most people's radar, but it is truly big business.".

Internet Gaming Entertainment, or IGE, has more than 100 full-time employees in Hong Kong and the United States who do nothing but process its customers' hundreds of thousands of annual orders for virtual goods, the lion's share of which average nearly a hundred dollars each. And demand is so strong, says IGE CEO Brock Pierce, that the company is hiring about five new people a week.