Imagine if Wal-Mart tried to offer one-half of its customers one price and the other half a different price. Or even if they tried to change the price for a wee

Imagine if Wal-Mart tried to offer one-half of its customers one price and the other half a different price. Or even if they tried to change the price for a week to see what would happen. Uh, they do exactly those things. 1) Wal-mart, Sam's Club and ASDA often sell identical items, but for different prices - different demographics, different prices. 2) Not all 'offers' are to drive stock levels down, many are a case of 'trying a different price point for a short period to see what happens', granted raising prices this way is hard, but again, wal-mart have done it in the past, which is why we so often see those 'Regular price $4.99, Now: $6.99' entries on Failblog and DailyWTF. Also, the author misses out one of the most important reasons why NO MMO manages to adhere to real-world economics rules, even the economic focused MMOs like Eve, Goonzu, SL, Entropia, etc, and that is, people don't have the same 'value' to their in-game money, they know they can walk away from activities that are money sinks for small periods if they run out of currency to fund those activities. Overspending and then not paying your rent for a month or two, or not being able to afford to buy food, tends not to work so well in the real world. So because there is far less risk involved, people treat in-game currency with less of a seriousness, and are willing to do things that economics and common sense forbid in real world economies.