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Recently read http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a... where

• justinhj 14y ago
  It would be very difficult to run a game like this which requires large numbers of users to make money in a clandestine fashion. I worked on the tech for an MMO that launched in S.Korea a few years ago and even then we had to be careful to make sure that purchased game money could not be exchanged back for real money. I seem to remember also adding features for enforcing a law that under 18's could not play after certain hours.
  • guard-of-terra 14y ago
    I find it very funny (in lulz sense) that some countries have extensive organisations devised for deciding who gets to play video games, when and how. (All kinds of age/violence ratings) You can see their icons on games' websites, it's annoying how people get paid for making monkey faces and pretending to be important. Don't you have any hard problems left in your society?
    • AJ007 14y ago
      The United States would have the same issues if it was not for the First Amendment. Businesses that fall into other categories have mind blowing layers of complex regulations. The idea that a company, or individual, would have to spend millions or tens of millions of dollars a year just to ensure that they are operating the business within the law is pretty wild. We are very fortunate indeed for the Bill of Rights. When you have armies of people whose sole life purpose is to create and enforce rules you end up with something, if it was computer code, would just crash immediately.
      • guard-of-terra 14y ago
        Well, USA has ESRB - the mother of all monkey face builders.
        • luchs 14y ago
          Why 'mother'? Most of these game rating organizations seem to originate in 1994.
          • guard-of-terra 14y ago
            Looking at wikipedia, PEGI and CERO were launched in 00-s.
• batista 14y ago
  >Isn't it same as banning sale of alcohols/drugs since they can be harmful? No. Alcohol and drugs are with us from the beginning of history, are very much ingrained in human society and culture, and support trillion dollar worldwide industries. In-game trading virtual goods is a niche novelty activity, and trading them for real money even more so. You can get the same satisfaction out of the game trading them with token money. >It will push the activity to go underground. Games cannot really go "underground" though. They are sold in stores or accessed online and depend on massive communities of millions of players. It's not like Sims of Farville can go underground suddenly. Nor are they as essential and addicting as alcohol/drugs.
  • mistercow 14y ago
    >In-game trading virtual goods is a niche novelty activity, and trading them for real money even more so. There are some very successful entrepreneurs who made their fortunes off of in-game trading that would disagree.
    • EliRivers 14y ago
      Do they have multi-billion dollar globe-spanning industries and vast amounts of lobbying power? A handful of people making lots of money does not make it any less a niche or novelty.
      • mistercow 14y ago
        A handful of people making money does make it not a novelty activity. It's still a niche, but it's not a novelty. You aren't going to see an organized crime ecosystem on the level of the consequences of alcohol and drug prohibition, but I think it's reasonable to think that making it illegal will drive it underground rather than getting rid of it, especially when the market will continue to thrive outside of South Korea.
        • batista 14y ago
          >A handful of people making money does make it not a novelty activity. It's still a niche, but it's not a novelty. How so? A handful of people make money out of ANY novelty. A handful of people making money of it, is actually, the very characteristic of a novelty. A handful of people made money off of hula-hups, the rubik cube, and yo-yos...