Forget lemonade stands or garage sales. The mega bucks are in online gaming commerce. Just ask Wang Yue Si, a Chinese national studying in Japan. Wang started selling items such as weapons and currency for online games through an Internet auction site in April this year. Within a few months he sold a total of ¥ 150 million (about US$ 1.3 million) in virtual items.

How many lemons will it take to make that kind of money? While Wang's earnings may sound unbelievable, MMORPGs can be very profitable to business-savvy gamers. As early as two years ago, economists calculated MMORPGs have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia.

In the game Project Entropia, an Aussie gamer known only as Deathifier bought a virtual island in an online auction for US$ 26,500. In turn, Deathifier made money by taxing other gamers who came to his virtual land to hunt or mine for gold. He also sold plots to people who wish to build virtual homes. This was in 2004. With MMORPGs' popularity spreading like a mental disease in NYC, the virtual real state value must have quadrupled since then.

Call us old fashioned or just plain un-hip but if we're going to spend a lot of money to buy a piece of land, uh, we'd like our real estate real. But that's just us.

Unfortunately, there is a sour twist to the story of this self-made millionaire. Wang's student visa prohibits him from engaging in business. When a bank employee noticed Wang regularly sending money back home to China, the employee got suspicious and alerted the police. Because Wang didn't have the appropriate residency status, his lucrative online business was a direct violation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. Instead of laughing all the way to the bank, Wang is unhappily on his way to jail.