While reading Reader's Digest...

[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

[Xanoth]

interesting article, its nice to see them point out that "real" money is virtual too.

while i still dont agree with this practice being done in games not designed for it, i would be interested in seeing how well games work that are (station exchange doesn't really count), i know a few are out there or in the works.

and some people will respond "stupid kids" to anything...

[Pirotess]

I dont agree that real life currency is virtual. I'd say its more representative than virtual for convieniencies sake. None of us want to lug around gold bars to buy things but supposedly a fair amount of our hard currency is backed by precious metals in reserve. Im sure not all of it is but saying its entirely virtual is a minomer too.