Certainly this is a viable business. Their difference from competitors like http://www.igxe.com is that they negotiate agreements with the owners of the game. I don't know what they need 20 million for, but those $3 a bottle fruit juice drinks do taste very good.

http://www.livegamer.com/

The value of virtual goods are strongly tied to the virtual world they are associated with. Facebook gifts only matter because Facebook matters. WoW gold only matters because WoW matters. The key to selling virtual goods is the virtual environment where they matter and can be made artificially scarce without pissing anyone off.

There's not enough information in that article to evaluate the virtual goods market. It sounds like this is more like a 3rd-party virtual-goods service and not actually a game itself, which is something that has been around for quite awhile.

I'm not sure whether I should be inspired by this or want to stab myself in the eye, but just in case I think I'm going to go eBay up a rusty fork.

Halting State by Charles's Stross (http://www.amazon.com/Halting-State-Charles-Stross/dp/044101...) explores what happens when some crooks steal all the virtual goods in this kind of company. WoW meets NUMB3RS in an interesting way.

Kids used to play basketball after school in my neighborhood. Now they're inside logged into Facebook or watching YouTube videos. I guess virtual worlds are the next step.