Ebay and virtual property ? denied!
I for one was very pleased with the ruling the Ebay will no longer allow listings of virtual property, unless you are the sole owner and creator of the work.
Sure, the black market trade in online game items will continue, but it's a heavy blow for the companies selling this stuff. Honestly, if you want to pay someone real money to play a game for you, I've got a screenshot of an empty Pacman grid to sell you, only $50!
It won't kill the industry, but it does mean people will have to go to less reputable sites to do their dealings for online gold etc, and that will reduce the amount of players doing this stuff by a fair amount, as most will not want to use their credit cards on sites they've never heard of when the legality in this area is so blurry anyway.
I mean, can you imagine explaining this to a typical 95 year old british judge? 'Your Honour, I paid leetgold.com $400 for a level 70 elf mage with a glowing staff and a giant ostrich to ride around on, and they didnt send them to me...' 'Take him down, he's obviously on some kind of 'drugs' that the youth of today mess around with'.
For gamers tho, those who actually don't mind playing thru quests in a game to get rewards in a game, it can only be a good thing, as it will essentially reduce the numbers of stupid advertisers in the game, dumb letters in the in game mail, characters standing the middle of cities yelling 'buy gold from www.ihaveyourccnumbernow.com plz', and other such delights.
It also means that the economy may recover a little, as the fewer people there are just buying 1000 gold for real money, the cheaper things will get in game. Simply put, if you have a 1000 gold sat on your character, you wont mind paying 10 gold for a stack of metal bars. If however you've slowly built up 20 gold over a few days, you're probably not going to rush to buy a 10 gold stack, when it takes a character about 20 minutes to collect them.
It's like if suddenly all the rich people in the world started going to your sandwich shop and said I'll pay £50 a sandwich, pretty soon the store would quit selling em for £2 and just supply their £50 treats to their new customers. You don't get your lunch, but hey, supply and demand, market forces, where's the problem? You cant blame the sandwich guy for selling £2 stuff for £50 if he can.
Sure, the black market trade in online game items will continue, but it's a heavy blow for the companies selling this stuff. Honestly, if you want to pay someone real money to play a game for you, I've got a screenshot of an empty Pacman grid to sell you, only $50!
It won't kill the industry, but it does mean people will have to go to less reputable sites to do their dealings for online gold etc, and that will reduce the amount of players doing this stuff by a fair amount, as most will not want to use their credit cards on sites they've never heard of when the legality in this area is so blurry anyway.
I mean, can you imagine explaining this to a typical 95 year old british judge? 'Your Honour, I paid leetgold.com $400 for a level 70 elf mage with a glowing staff and a giant ostrich to ride around on, and they didnt send them to me...' 'Take him down, he's obviously on some kind of 'drugs' that the youth of today mess around with'.
For gamers tho, those who actually don't mind playing thru quests in a game to get rewards in a game, it can only be a good thing, as it will essentially reduce the numbers of stupid advertisers in the game, dumb letters in the in game mail, characters standing the middle of cities yelling 'buy gold from www.ihaveyourccnumbernow.com plz', and other such delights.
It also means that the economy may recover a little, as the fewer people there are just buying 1000 gold for real money, the cheaper things will get in game. Simply put, if you have a 1000 gold sat on your character, you wont mind paying 10 gold for a stack of metal bars. If however you've slowly built up 20 gold over a few days, you're probably not going to rush to buy a 10 gold stack, when it takes a character about 20 minutes to collect them.
It's like if suddenly all the rich people in the world started going to your sandwich shop and said I'll pay £50 a sandwich, pretty soon the store would quit selling em for £2 and just supply their £50 treats to their new customers. You don't get your lunch, but hey, supply and demand, market forces, where's the problem? You cant blame the sandwich guy for selling £2 stuff for £50 if he can.
posted by SenseofTumour at 10:37 AM
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