Unlike many of the guys you see writing for PC Powerplay, my background is not professional writing or journalism. The lectures I was skipping during my university days were actually law and commerce subjects. This is the reason that when I'm not writing about games I work as a marketing consultant. It is also the reason why I find myself so incredibly fascinated about the way commerce works in MMOs.

MMOs are largely the purest examples of a true market economy in our world. Because it is all 'just a game' there is little to no regulation and the perceived value of products all comes down to supply and demand. It isn't an aspect of MMO gaming that appeals to everyone but I'm fascinated by it. It is one of the many reasons I have so much love for EVE since so much of the game is focused on market movements.

Now the World of Warcraft economy may not be as complex as EVE's but it is still complex enough that if someone wants to spend the time working on it they can make a healthy profit via manipulating market conditions to their advantage. This is exactly what I got up to on Saturday before heading off to the pub.

I didn't have much money so I needed to start small. I had a quick look around the Auction House and noticed that light leather was selling quite cheaply. Furthermore there was not an obscene amount of stock available. Now light leather isn't exactly a high demand item as it is quite easy to farm but it still does get bought, mainly by people looking to boost their leatherworking skills. So I took my small amount of savings and bought up every single stack that was for sale. I then put all the newly purchased leather back up for sale on the Auction House with a generous mark up. If you noticed stacks of leather suddenly selling on Frostmourne at higher than normal prices you can blame me.

The good news (for me) is that the vast majority of it sold while I was out cavorting around Carlton on Saturday night. Not all of the stock sold but that stock which did brought in enough profit to cover the unsold lots and then some. I then took what was left Sunday night, turned it into medium leather, then heavy leather and finally heavy armour kits which I sold for a number of gold coins.