A Disputed New Business:Virtual Property Exchange
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 currencies
(gold,platinum,credit,etc.).
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(FFXI).He then noticed that a large number of
gils(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,the world's largest MMORPG. There, he has
leveraged his real-life experience into an online business. He
converts his game profits into real money on sites likeebay, cheap wow gold
gold,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.
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
exchange rate of several popular virtual currencies: <i>FFXI Gil (
Final Fantasy XI Gil</i> ) ($23.89/1M), <i>Lineage 2 adena</i> ($2.80/1M), <i>Everquest Platinum</i> ($0.24/1K), <i>Everquest 2 Gold</i>($0.017/gold), <i>WOW Gold</i> (
<i>World of Warcraft Gold</i> ) ($0.178/gold),
<i>Star
Wars Galaxies Credit</i> ($0.50/1M), <i>Guild Wars Gold</i> ($0.07/1K), <i>Second Life Linden</i> ($3.14/1K), 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.
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.
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?
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