[Aadwen]

...I ran across this Article Titled "Only in America: Ideas, Trends, and Interesting bits from all over." One of the subtitles was Actual Cash, Virtual Reality. It was a short article explaining that people who play MMO's spend real money to buy fake money. Here is how it reads.

Quote:

Would you still enjoy Monopoly if it cost cold, hard cash to buy boardwalk? If so, maybe you'll like a growing trend in online gaming: paying real money for a piece of an unreal world. Some EverQuest fans, for example, bid in dollars to buy platinum pieces (the game's currency) at PlayerAuction.com, with $1 worth about 3,000 EverQuest coins. Crazy? Not when you realize "the value of the U.S. dollar is virtual as well," says economist Edward Castronova, author of synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. It's just a piece of paper the government says can be traded for goods and services. So if you think other players will give you cash for you game coins, he says, they have "real" value too. Even if they don't work in the soda machine.

End Quote:

I was sort of surprised by this. First off I would like to read this guys book and see what he has to say about the gaming world. Second, even though it's a small article, this is all some people will now about the subject. Seems that it will confuse more people then give them a real feel for what's going on. I can see most people reaction "Stupid kids" O'well I'll post about this guys book once I get it and read abit.

Aadwen