The runaway popularity of “Pokemon Go” has opened up a lucrative market. People who sell gaming accounts online are finding that profiles for the mobile game are selling for thousands of dollars.
One listing for “Pokemon Go” on a site called PlayerAuctions is for $999,999. It is for a custom order, so a buyer can tell the seller what they want from an account. The seller will then play the game for them to get the profile up to the requirements requested.
On a site called LeagueofTrading, a user managed to sell an account for $2,000, the co-owner of the site told CNBC, who said that Pokemon accounts are going for higher prices than any other game. Listed accounts are completed up to a certain level and sold on – the higher the level, the higher the price.
“A $2,000 account is an incredibly large order. We have only ever seen an order of this price once before which was an account for the game League of Legends,” James Smith said via email.
On PlayerAuctions there are several accounts going for over $11,000. One of these is claiming to be Level 30 with Pokemon that have “combat power” in excess of 2,000. Level 30 is relatively high and the combat power refers to the attack strength of the fictional creatures. A combat power of over 2,000 is also very high.
“Pokemon Go” accounts are also listed on eBay though the values appear to be lower.
Smith said sellers on his site have told him that playing the game and selling on their accounts is their full-time job.
Amir Hussaini told CNBC that he makes about $2,000 a month selling accounts, but he has made as much as $5,000. The 25-year old accountant operates like a professional with a team of players around him who all take a cut of the sale.
Hussaini has spent most of time on “League of Legends”, a very popular oinline multiplayer game, but said the rise in popularity of “Pokemon Go” has made him switch his focus. Since it launched last month, the game, which is made by Niantic, has raked in $200 million in net revenue globally on the App Store and Google Play in its first month, beating other top-earning games such as “Candy Crush” and “Clash Royale”, according to Sensor Tower. It was the fastest mobile game to reach 10 million downloads globally.
When looking at prices for other game accounts, “Pokemon Go” appears to trump them. For example, the highest-priced account for “League of Legends” on PlayerAuctions is $2,999.
“I have sold quite a few ‘Pokemon Go’ accounts. As ‘League of Legends’ is the most played online game, it still has the most demand. However, ‘Pokemon Go’ has created a high demand quicker than I have ever seen before. It normally takes games months if not years to reach this level of account demand,” Hussaini told CNBC.
Source: CNBC
