In Search of Fortune: Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost

Welcome to ‘In Search of Fortune’, a new monthly series where I discuss my gold goals and in-game money making strategies.

So many times I’ve been told by friends about how their farm is “free”. I specifically remember early on in the World of Warcraft Cataclysm expansion, I was making money hand over fist by buying all the herbs on the AH and crafting Darkmoon cards… then eventually buying all the cards to make all of the decks. Ignoring the fact that I was making more gold overall, he insisted that his farming ore was at least as good because it didn’t cost him anything. His logic was that I had to spend gold to make my gold, whereas farming is didn’t cost any and therefore was as good.. However, I explained that my gold making took 15 minutes a day and he needed to farm ore a several hours per week to even come close to the amount of gold made.

This was when I first told him about opportunity cost:

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