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Continuing with the gaming trend here….The Personal MBA author, Josh Kaufman, posts a list of the business skills/concepts you can learn while playing World of Warcraft.

I don’t know about other MMORPGs but WoW has an incredibly rich economic system. By rich I mean that there is a lot to dive into. It is a world of buyers and sellers. You find items, you “farm” items like ore and herbs, you “craft” items like armor and gems and then you can sell them. You can also day-trade in a way. There is an Auction House…think ebay but for Orcs and Elves.

People have developed pieces of software that scan the Auction Houses. You in turn, can look for values. Items that are selling below their value. Then you flip them and sell them for high margins.

Kaufman relates that you can learn about:

• The Value Chain
• Product Pricing
• The Law of Supply and Demand
• Arbitrage

From a non sales and marketing perspective, there is also lessons to be learned about achieving goals. The game is very goal-oriented: finish the quest, find an item you need, make money to buy your Epic Mount.

Lastly, you have the ability to develop your character’s brand. You can specialize in a number of different ways. Not all wizards are the same. Nor are all blacksmiths. You can be a fire wizard or frost. You can be an armorsmith or weaponsmith. Each choice brings benefits and limitations.