Replete with night elves, Orcs and dwarves, World of Warcraft is set in a fantasy world not unlike Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings. Thousands of players interact with one another in real time through the virtual environment, and earn gold credits through their team conquests. For Mr. Wang, adding the virtual currency he bought to his own hard-earned cache of gold meant that he could finally purchase his object of desire - a horse worth a princely sum of 900 gold credits. He is not alone. Many computer gamers around the world are paying hard cash to gain an edge over others in the online fantasy world. Other games which attract such "trading" include Maple Story, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call and Star Wars Galaxies.

Players have been known to buy virtual money, rare items in the game or even entire characters with their associated powers and accompanying weapons. As it takes a lot of hard work, not to mention time and luck, to attain these virtual goods, the high prices they command seem reasonable. However, World of Warcraft player Eric Chua thinks otherwise. "It does take a lot of time and effort to build a character to a level where you actually start to enjoy the gameplay," said the 29-year-old advertising brand manager. "But the current market rate is just not something I would be willing to pay for." A scan of auction site Ebay produced over 700 results for various items of the game on sale. The highest-priced item is a World of Warcraft account sold by a New Yorker for US$5,000.