Obsolete Laboratory

Anonymous writes "

By: Steven Golden
Will people pay real dollars for in-game virtual money to help their virtual
characters buy in-game goods?
One gamer, who goes by the screen name Haylo, said he spent $10 to $20 real
dollars a month on in-game platinum(all nonexistent, of course) to buy weapons
and other goods in Dark Age of Camelot
(DAOC), but would spend more if he could afford it.
Most video games have some form of currency. In many ways, the in-game
economy is similar to a real world economy - goods and services are traded to
mutual advantage and are mediated in currency (platinum, gold, credit,etc.).
"With all the things you can buy in game," a gamer said, "it's hard not to want
them, just like real-life stuff."
The average Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG) player is
27-year-old -- a demographic drooled over by marketers. Plus, nearly half of all
players have jobs, which often means they have more money than time and are the
perfect consumers of virtual assets. On the Internet, many gamers now buy
virtual money that only exist as data files stored in a server run by a game
company with real-world dollars, and the buying and selling of virtual
currencies may be off most people's radar, but it is truly big business.
An online broker, who goes by the screen name Rolala, was not a fan of online
games until his 15-year-old son became interested in
Final Fantasy XI. He
then noticed that a large number of gils which are the currencies used in FFXI
were for sale on eBay.
"I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their
assets at cheap prices," he said, "so I figured, buy low, sell high."
But Rolala found his moneymaking options in FFXI "very limited". He switched
to World of Warcraft. There, he
has leveraged his real-life experience into an online business. He converts his
game profits into real money on sites like eBay
and GameFees,etc. Earnings can be
considerable. He said he was on track to earn about $120,000 in real money in
his first year in this business.
Rolala's business is just one example of how increasingly popular online
role-playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the
real world and the virtual world are getting blurred.
"World of Warcraft", the
world's largest MMORPG, boasts more than 1 million paying users in North
America.There are many sites like "world
of warcraft gold guide" and "wow
gold free strategics", teaching gamers how to earn wow gold in game, however
many players are still willing to buy gold and weapons to help their virtual
characters get a higher virtual status more rapidly. Some virtual goods in World
of Warcraft have been sold for thousands of dollars. It obviously creates a
large real world market.
Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has
written a book on the subject, calculated that if you took the real dollars
spent within "EverQuest "as an index, its
game world, called Norrath, would be the 77th richest nation on the planet,
while annual player earnings surpass those of citizens of Bulgaria, India or
China.
Go to GameUSD, an exchange-rate
calculator for the virtual worlds, and do a search for the latest rates of
virtual currencies against the U.S. dollar, and let your jaw drop open. The
rates of some virtual world currencies are even better than that of the Iraqi
Dinar! For instance, here is the recent exchange rate of several popular virtual
currencies: Everquest
Platinum ($0.54/1K), Everquest
2 gold ($0.17/gold), Star
Wars Galaxies Credit ($4.40/1M), World of
Warcraft Gold ($0.098/gold),
Lineage 2 adena
($2.80/1M), Guild Wars Gold
($0.12/1K), FFXI Gil
($17.89/1M), Daoc plat
($3.40/platinum), Eve Online ISK
($0.40/1M),etc.
Right now, this business is one of the most hotly debated issues on the
internet. Many game companies such as Blizzard
who run World of Warcraft discourage profit from in-game properties, though none
have found a way to stop it.
Sony Online Entertainment, on the
other hand, encourages the practice (albeit within the confines of their own
"Station Exchange", their own forum for the sale of in-game properties). It
recently announced the first month's figures from "Station Exchange". According
to SOE, over 45,000 characters from "EverQuest 2" have been active on the
exchange and have spent over $180,000 USD in one month, half of which have been
spent on in-game gold and platinum.
Despite of different attitudes towards virtual currency trade, the number of
people who are getting into such business is rising, and the size of market has
been expanding very rapidly.The market also creates a competitive environment.
We could refer to sites like GameShopList,
a price comparison site, to see the fierce price competition between different
exchange sites.
For some ordinary gamers, however, such a capitalist approach spoils the
experience. Nick Yee, a psychology researcher from Stanford University, believes
many players dislike virtual currency traders because, by using real wealth to
buy virtual power, "they're breaking the fantasy-reality bubble, getting an
advantage in a way that other players can't".
According to a recent survey by IGN, an
internet media focused on the videogame markets, most gamers say they dislike
and avoid this business, believing that it gives players with more discretionary
income an unfair advantage.
But such attitudes are called into question by size estimates for the virtual
asset trading market, which is seen having a value of $200 million to nearly
$900 million in 2005.
One potential explanation for the disconnection between attitudes and money
spent may be that gamers are unwilling to admit they use the services, IGN said.
In terms of the law's concern, another issue is, who owns the virtual money?
Many virtual world designers maintain that anything created in the world belong
to the company. They refuse to recognise the rights of their players in the
virtual property for fear of attracting liability for its maintenance or
security.
But will this work in the long term? Players spend considerable time and/or
money acquiring such assets. In many cases they are the creation of the player
and even the intellectual property ownership is questionable. "As we spend more
time in these worlds, it's not enough for companies to say that 'we own
everything and we can turn it off at any time,'" said a gamer. "The question may
soon be should we have recourse against a game company for obliterating virtual
assets?"
With the rapid growth of virtual currency exchange market, should people
accord virtual property the same protection as property in the real world?

"


Create an account from 38.103.63.16	Home · Topics · Downloads · Your Account · Submit News · Top 10


All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2006 by Obsolete Laboratory. PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.