[extropy-chat] REALITY: virtual and intellectual property rightsand values

[Acy James Stapp]

Greetings all. I bring you a few semi-related thoughts on virtual
economies.

Recently, "Gaming Open Market" opened at
http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/. This is a currency exchange between
many of the different massively multiplayer games and the U.S. dollar.

Now obviously the use of these alternative currencies is currently
restricted to in-game property. Is there any reason that one of the
currencies with a relatively stable exchange rate could be used to
purchase real property? eBay has tons of auctions exchanging virtual
cash or virtual property for real cash, but I've never seen anyone pay
virtual (game) cash for real property.

At what point does the government come in and start taxing your in-game
income?

One complication would be game balancing. It's very hard to balance an
in-game economy, and (foolishly IMHO given the huge budgets) none of the
developers ever hires an economist to do so. Often simple adjustments to
the game can have dramatic consequences to the games economy. Bugs as
well can be introduced and exploited to give exploitative players huge
cash supplies, which devalues the rest of the currency.

There have been several legal actions in the U.S. about this but I can
not find any information on their outcomes at this time. 

More information can be found at http://www.nyls.edu/pages/1905.asp.

Acy

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Lorrey [mailto:mlorrey at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 27 December, 2003 12:04
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] REALITY: virtual and intellectual property
rightsand values


Well, the article does say that gamers do sell virtual assets for real
money on ebay. Such a public market mechanism should very easily
establish commodity pricing of such virtual goods, and thus act as a
benchmark of tangible value.

--- "Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc." <megao at sasktel.net> wrote:
> Might this not  have a kickback into the real world's intellectual
> property laws and valuations.  Proper valuations of non-physical
> property are off balance sheet and hard to prove value for in
> disputes
> over ownership?
> 
> "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
> 
> > I'm totally clueless about such things since I do not
> > play online games and don't own such things as a
> > Playstation or a Gameboy...  (Q.E.D. [1] I'll probably
> > be left behind when the singularity arrives).
> >
> > But I found it interesting that even a Chinese court
> > has determined that virtual holdings are subject
> > to compensation in the case of a wrongful theft
> > of said virtual property...
> >
> > Gamer wins back virtual booty in court battle
> > New Scientist 23 Dec. 2003
> > http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994510
> >
> > Robert
> >
> > 1. http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.
> >

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com