market value of virtual QQ assets

QQ号为什么值钱？“Why are QQ numbers worth money?” is the title of a December 4 article in the Fan Group’s Computer Fans《电脑爱好者》 .  What kinds of QQ numbers are considered the best? How is the value of numbers calculated?  The anonymous author sheds some light on these and other questions, with the caveat that the market experiences periodic changes.  Above the break looks at QQ numbers themselves; below the break looks at the value of other assets such as gaming and discussion forum rankings:

Five-digit numbers
These numbers started being issued in 11/98, beginning at 1, although Ten Cent (QQ’s parent company) held back # 10000 to use internally.  In the year 2000, the company aggressively retrieved numbers 1 through 9999, which wasn’t very difficult since there were only a few dozen accounts that were still active.  10001 – 10006 were reserved for internal use.  It was around the same time that they instituted a password system, which was really just an excuse to take back those 5-digit numbers.

88888, 99999, and 10000 were all given out, but were occupied by Ten Cent employees; still they were doomed to the same fate, as the numbers were reclaimed by the company.

10201 to 10999 are very valuable numbers– it’s very hard to get one of the 798 of them. If you want to find out the value, go check out Taobao.

AAAAA numbers
There are a total of nine of these types of numbers: 11111, 22222, 33333 and so on.  You can’t get these through ordinary means. 88888, the number of the Ten Cent CEO, sold on Taobao for 260,000 yuan (~US $32,500)!  Enough to buy an imported luxury car or a large apartment.

AAAAB or BBBBA numbers
There are 180 of these, such as 98888, 99998.  They are also rare, and priced slightly lower than AAAAAs.

Inverted numbers
Such as 98889 and 89998, which read the same way backwards and forwards. These are also pricey.

Straight numbers
1234567 2345678 3456789.  “Dragon” numbers [in mahjong].  The average person couldn’t get one of these either.

Conceptual numbers
Numbers that sound somewhat like sentences in Chinese: 5201314 我爱你一生一世 “I love you my whole life a whole generation”; 88520 爸爸我爱你 “Dad I love you”;52077 我爱你妻妻 “I love you, wife,” etc. Young people seem to like these!  They cost about the same as 2 HD TVs.

Birthdays, cellphone numbers, license plate numbers
These are only useful to individuals.  Online numbers are virtual things anyway, but if someone wants it it becomes valuable.

II.  The market value of online history, gaming levels, and ranks.

The author points out that there are other virtual assets that are valuable, beyond numbers.  How long you’ve been on QQ, represented by how many “suns” you have (1 yr = 1 sun).

In QQ’s online games, people spend a lot of time and money to achieve high levels, which gives them market value in the virtual asset world.

QQ Membership, QQ Tribes, and QQ Pets all have their own function in the virtual market, as well. For example: QQ 88888.
Membership for 1 year: 120 yuan.
QQ dollar account, 100 dollars: 100 yuan
Game dollars account, 15 million dollars: 100 yuan
Online storage: 10 yuan/month or 120 yuan/year
QQ Tribes: membership 1 Qdollar/2 days, or 180 yuan/year
QQ Pets: in general one wants to get to level 15, which costs a minimum of 80 yuan

Total: 600 yuan  (~US $78) for 1 year.

Forum ranking
Mostly a function of longevity.  Ten Cent awards 1440 points for every 24 hours of being logged into a forum.  Thus 100 days of log-in time = 14,000 points.  To reach the highest level of forum ranking, one needs to accrue 50,000 points, which will take more than 1 year.