But value isn't something you get to declare or dismiss just because you want to or because a EULA says so. Various virtual gold pieces have real exchange rates to US$. It has real economic value whether you want it to or not. How is it not a currency? If one guy is spending hours earning virtual GP to buy a virtual sword, and another spends hours at a RL job to buy a TV, for how long can we pretend those are not the same thing? Especially if the former can decide instead to sell his GP for $ to buy a TV and the latter buys those GP in order to buy the virtual sword. A EULA somwehere that no one read may say that what's happening here isn't really happening, but over time, reality tends to win in the courts when it is at odds with legal structures.
No need to pretend. They are not the same thing. Tomorrow Blizzard can just up and decide to shut down World of Warcraft, and that sword you spent money on disappears. Because you never owned it to begin with. Basically, if your spending real money on fake items in a fake world, that doesn't give them value in the real world...it makes you a damned idiot. EDIT: At least if you harbor any false sense of "ownership" of them.
Whereas, to my knowledge, Sony can't show up at my house and decide they're going to take my TV and throw it in the ocean.
There are gray areas here, too, like iTunes purchases. Sure, Apple could shut down the iTMS (or I guess just iTS nowadays) tomorrow, and all your tracks you paid money for lose a lot of their value. But at the same time, you do have a license agreement with Apple for those specific tracks, which does transfer to you very specific rights as far as what you can do with them. And in this example at least, they'll continue to play on your currently authorized devices and you can burn them to a CD.
That sword in WoW, though? Absolutely gone. And you never had any specific rights to it to begin with.
Repeat previous post... you don't get to just claim value doesn't exist when by definition it does. For now, the legal structure of the EULA stands. But don't fool yourself into thinking that someone wouldn't have a case against Blizzard if they shut down that server.
What if my whole job and currency was WoW? I spent 8 hours a day earing WoW gold, and then convert it to $ every couple weeks. Do I pay income tax? How many people like me would there need to be before the government was like, "you guys need to be paying taxes!" And if I pay income tax, is it not then my gold? What if some of the vendors I shop at IRL start allowing me to keep tabs with them and just pay them in WoW gold, removing $ altogether? These markets already exist online and in limited fashion IRL. Who's paying sales tax?
We know the virtual economies and RL economies already mix in limited fashion. My question again is at what point is the blur so great that your answer, that Blizzard can just turn it all off, is no longer any better than telling me that my bank could just shut off the server that stores my checking account?
We know the virtual economies and RL economies already mix in limited fashion. My question again is at what point is the blur so great that your answer, that Blizzard can just turn it all off, is no longer any better than telling me that my bank could just shut off the server that stores my checking account?
Do I really need to address this? Please tell me you're joking. Or trolling. Or something.
EDIT: Fuck it, it's Yar, I'll bite. You have a contract with your bank, and there are laws written by our very real government that state you have a right to that money and that they can't simply "turn their servers off" and deny it to you. You have the exact fucking opposite with a company like Blizzard as regards World of Warcraft, which is to say a EULA that (I've not read it, but going by how they generally run) says they can kick you out at any time, take your stuff, whatever. You want to know when that line blurs? When the companies making these games start giving you real-world legal rights to your fake-world goodies. Which will not happen.
EDIT: Or, alternately, when banks start employing guys like this:
Repeat previous post... you don't get to just claim value doesn't exist when by definition it does. For now, the legal structure of the EULA stands. But don't fool yourself into thinking that someone wouldn't have a case against Blizzard if they shut down that server.
What if my whole job and currency was WoW? I spent 8 hours a day earing WoW gold, and then convert it to $ every couple weeks. Do I pay income tax? How many people like me would there need to be before the government was like, "you guys need to be paying taxes!" And if I pay income tax, is it not then my gold? What if some of the vendors I shop at IRL start allowing me to keep tabs with them and just pay them in WoW gold, removing $ altogether? These markets already exist online and in limited fashion IRL. Who's paying sales tax?
We know the virtual economies and RL economies already mix in limited fashion. My question again is at what point is the blur so great that your answer, that Blizzard can just turn it all off, is no longer any better than telling me that my bank could just shut off the server that stores my checking account?
What is the basic principle you're arguing for here? I see you arguing against in-game items not being counted as real unless the ability to cash them out is sanctioned by their owner, which if wrong, is at least a principle. What alternative do you offer?
Seems to me there are all manner of laws you could apply to this other than theft of property. We have assault, coercion, potentially fraud and identity theft. All of those get across the idea that what went down is not cool, without making the ludicrous leap into assigning real value to fake goods.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Anyway, part of the problem here is that online property, like it or not, is taking on the characteristics and implications of real property. People buy and sell it with real money. People work for it, spending time that might otherwise be engaged in other profitable activity. Businesses pay people to generate it and then sell it. And so on. How large does this virtual economy need to be, and how much effect can it have on the real economy, before issues like taxation and property rights are too big to ignore?
If people start killing each other IRL over virtual property, then wouldn't that necessitate governance, including property rights? Isn't that sort of why we have property rights and government?
I'll stab you unless you hand over X sounds like pretty cut and dry extortion to me. Does it really matter if X refers to a tangible good?
No, because (and correct me if I'm wrong) doesn't require that the attacker take a tangible good. Or even a valuable one, which is the issue here.
Theft generally does. Generally "theft" requires the taking of a good or service that has a tangible value, even if the good itself is not tangible.
Theft is a pretty broad term. It can refer to anything from extortion to armed robbery to simple shoplifting.
I would say a login ID/password does have tangible value. I'm not sure about this particular game, but the real-world value of a WoW login is $13-15 US a month and they have millions of customers. That's tangible value pinned to access to a service/good. I suppose that goes for any form of paid electronic subscription, from nytimes.com to porn sites.
I don't see how access to a service, even an electronic one, does not have tangible value. Especially if - unlike "stealing" cable - access to the service by the illegitimate user prevents access to the service by the legit user.
Granting property rights to a form of software access would be kinda weird. You'd potentially be able to charge a company for theft for nerfing an item.
You'd have to show somehow that the action was being done without your consent - despite the fact that you're still voluntarily paying $15 a month for access to the new service.
The right to access the service is not the right to have the same service provided forever.
Theft is a pretty broad term. It can refer to anything from extortion to armed robbery to simple shoplifting.
I would say a login ID/password does have tangible value. I'm not sure about this particular game, but the real-world value of a WoW login is $13-15 US a month and they have millions of customers. That's tangible value pinned to access to a service/good. I suppose that goes for any form of paid electronic subscription, from nytimes.com to porn sites.
I don't see how access to a service, even an electronic one, does not have tangible value. Especially if - unlike "stealing" cable - access to the service by the illegitimate user prevents access to the service by the legit user.
And ID/password has no value. It can be used to access items of value, in some cases, but the login combo itself is valueless as it can theoretically be replaced at no loss to, well, anybody.
Access to the system does have value, but it's not like it somehow gives the imaginary items within that system some value by extension. I pay the same subscriptions as a level one rogue as somebody does as a level forty...fuck, I don't even know any other classes in that damn game. Are there even rogues? I don't know.
So the value of a WoW subscription is in access to the game itself, not the particular items your character "owns."
Seems to me there are all manner of laws you could apply to this other than theft of property. We have assault, coercion, potentially fraud and identity theft. All of those get across the idea that what went down is not cool, without making the ludicrous leap into assigning real value to fake goods.
This is true of pretty much any scenario I can think of involving such a "theft." I can't think of any scenario that isn't better handled under other (and generally equally serious) criminal laws on the real world side and/or through the administrators of the game in question. Depending on the circumstances.
mcdermott on
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Granting property rights to a form of software access would be kinda weird. You'd potentially be able to charge a company for theft for nerfing an item.
You'd have to show somehow that the action was being done without your consent - despite the fact that you're still voluntarily paying $15 a month for access to the new service.
The right to access the service is not the right to have the same service provided forever.
Not if the item was your property in the same way a house or car is. The company would be legally bound to allow you access to your property, unchanged without your express consent. It's illegal for a mechanic to make changes to your car without your consent, is it not?
The way I look at it is that the company retains all ownership and rights to the virtual goods, but that doesn't really mean that they have no value. The items in question have a given value out of game; even though people are not supposed to, they will do buy the items for that amount. More importantly, however, if the actual company that owns the item were to start selling them (or selling the service to generate those items without transferring ownership ;-) ), that is the price they could start at. That gives the virtual good a real world value, even if the owner never intends to sell it, and I think that is where the judge is coming from when he called it theft. They didn't steal something of the boy's, but they stole something of value that had been put into his possession by the owner. Somewhat akin to stealing a rented item from someone.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
The way I look at it is that the company retains all ownership and rights to the virtual goods, but that doesn't really mean that they have no value. The items in question have a given value out of game; even though people are not supposed to, they will do buy the items for that amount. More importantly, however, if the actual company that owns the item were to start selling them (or selling the service to generate those items without transferring ownership ;-) ), that is the price they could start at. That gives the virtual good a real world value, even if the owner never intends to sell it, and I think that is where the judge is coming from when he called it theft. They didn't steal something of the boy's, but they stole something of value that had been put into his possession by the owner. Somewhat akin to stealing a rented item from someone.
I already mentioned this, and how it would change things significantly.
And a rented (like, say, a DVD) item is different because it cannot be instantly replaced. An in-game item can be...it's made of bits, not stuff.
Any attempt to define this as "theft" is going to be a stretch...and even if you make that stretch work, I question whether or not it's a good idea to do so when (according to the reports here) there are other equally serious criminal laws available to prosecute under.
The only possible motivation I can come up with (other than the judge just being a bit dense) is that by giving these items real-world legal value in this case, it opens up the door to start taxing transactions of the type mentioned in this thread.
Unless, as mentioned, their legal system is just that much different than ours in that it won't establish any such precedent for other cases. In which case I guess fuck it, it doesn't matter. But if we're talking about creating such a law in the US, it certainly would have far-reaching legal consequences that I'm not comfortable with.
The way I look at it is that the company retains all ownership and rights to the virtual goods, but that doesn't really mean that they have no value. The items in question have a given value out of game; even though people are not supposed to, they will do buy the items for that amount. More importantly, however, if the actual company that owns the item were to start selling them (or selling the service to generate those items without transferring ownership ;-) ), that is the price they could start at. That gives the virtual good a real world value, even if the owner never intends to sell it, and I think that is where the judge is coming from when he called it theft. They didn't steal something of the boy's, but they stole something of value that had been put into his possession by the owner. Somewhat akin to stealing a rented item from someone.
I already mentioned this, and how it would change things significantly.
And a rented (like, say, a DVD) item is different because it cannot be instantly replaced. An in-game item can be...it's made of bits, not stuff.
Any attempt to define this as "theft" is going to be a stretch...and even if you make that stretch work, I question whether or not it's a good idea to do so when (according to the reports here) there are other equally serious criminal laws available to prosecute under.
The only possible motivation I can come up with (other than the judge just being a bit dense) is that by giving these items real-world legal value in this case, it opens up the door to start taxing transactions of the type mentioned in this thread.
Unless, as mentioned, their legal system is just that much different than ours in that it won't establish any such precedent for other cases. In which case I guess fuck it, it doesn't matter. But if we're talking about creating such a law in the US, it certainly would have far-reaching legal consequences that I'm not comfortable with.
I dont even think this changes all that much. Its just paying more money to access a different aspect of the game quicker or something. I sort of look at a lot of this like going to the gym. You are paying money to go to the gym. You dont own the equipment you use there, the gym does. Maybe there are advanced machines that you can only use if you have been a member for a certain amount of time. In this analogy 'buying a sword of awesome from blizzard' would be like paying your gym some extra cash to be able to use the advanced equipment earlier. You still dont OWN that new equipment.
Also if you are putting in tons of 'work' to get your items, then you are doing it wrong. The 'work' (grinding etc) IS the game. There is value in grinding, there is value in your character having the sword etc. That value is 15 bucks a month. Same as the value of a lvl 1 character etc. because the value IS the game NOT the items/characters/status.
And as far as ebay and full time workers. You arnt selling anything tangible. If I pay a company for money, and they dont deliver I have no recourse, because it wasnt theirs to sell in the first place.
The way I look at it is that the company retains all ownership and rights to the virtual goods, but that doesn't really mean that they have no value. The items in question have a given value out of game; even though people are not supposed to, they will do buy the items for that amount. More importantly, however, if the actual company that owns the item were to start selling them (or selling the service to generate those items without transferring ownership ;-) ), that is the price they could start at. That gives the virtual good a real world value, even if the owner never intends to sell it, and I think that is where the judge is coming from when he called it theft. They didn't steal something of the boy's, but they stole something of value that had been put into his possession by the owner. Somewhat akin to stealing a rented item from someone.
I already mentioned this, and how it would change things significantly.
And a rented (like, say, a DVD) item is different because it cannot be instantly replaced. An in-game item can be...it's made of bits, not stuff.
Any attempt to define this as "theft" is going to be a stretch...and even if you make that stretch work, I question whether or not it's a good idea to do so when (according to the reports here) there are other equally serious criminal laws available to prosecute under.
The only possible motivation I can come up with (other than the judge just being a bit dense) is that by giving these items real-world legal value in this case, it opens up the door to start taxing transactions of the type mentioned in this thread.
Unless, as mentioned, their legal system is just that much different than ours in that it won't establish any such precedent for other cases. In which case I guess fuck it, it doesn't matter. But if we're talking about creating such a law in the US, it certainly would have far-reaching legal consequences that I'm not comfortable with.
I didn't say I agreed with it; I was just trying to explain where I thought the judge was coming from. I think that digital distribution is going to start wearing away at the importance of replacement cost/time when defining the value of a product.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Granting property rights to a form of software access would be kinda weird. You'd potentially be able to charge a company for theft for nerfing an item.
You'd have to show somehow that the action was being done without your consent - despite the fact that you're still voluntarily paying $15 a month for access to the new service.
The right to access the service is not the right to have the same service provided forever.
Not if the item was your property in the same way a house or car is. The company would be legally bound to allow you access to your property, unchanged without your express consent. It's illegal for a mechanic to make changes to your car without your consent, is it not?
I would just like to point out at this point that after every major patch blizzard makes you re-accept the EULA, because they have changed the service you are paying for.
I don't know if it has ever come up, but if you chose not to accept the EULA after a major patch you might be eligible to be reimbursed for your remaining unused months (you can prepay for up to 6 months game time).
I still think you guys are fooling yourselves about how long a EULA can stand in the face of larger reality. At some point these economies may become too large for the general populace to accept that the government doesn't respect it.
No one answered my income tax question. I could support myself at my current job, where I pay thousands of dollars in income tax. Or I could support myself gold-farming, paying zero in income taxes.
Obviously I understand that your bank says you have money in your account and can get it out, whereas WoW says you have nothing but online access and all virtual property belongs to them. But like I said, generally courts do not allow reality to be in direct conflict with legal structures for very long. Especially with property. If society believes something to be your property and operates as if it is your property, then it is your property. And in reality, both your bank and Blizzard are simply storing online data about you, data which you can at will convert into paper money, and vice versa.
EDIT: And doubly especially if Blizzard was like Sony, where they actively encouraged and supported a marketplace for the items in real currency. You can't tell people in a EULA it's all yours, but then set up an auction house that gives the distinct impression that people are buying property for themselves.
I still think you guys are fooling yourselves about how long a EULA can stand in the face of larger reality. At some point these economies may become too large for the general populace to accept that the government doesn't respect it.
No one answered my income tax question. I could support myself at my current job, where I pay thousands of dollars in income tax. Or I could support myself gold-farming, paying zero in income taxes.
.
Actually you can't. The moment you convert the fake item into real money, that's income and you (technically, in practice no one gives a shit until it goes above multi-grand level) have to report it. Want to pay for your EVE account by farming ISK, though? That's fine.
What if the guy who owns the local grocery store plays WoW and lets me pay him in GP? It has a real-dollar value anyway. What if those GP move throughout the RL economy several times before they get exchanged for $? How do I report that income?
If real world currency is changing hands, there is a case for taxation to occur. But I think you have to look at gold farming as a service (the modification of the game world) instead of an exchange of goods.
The gold farmer never sold anything but his time, because he never owned the gold himself. The same applies to items.
I didn't say I agreed with it; I was just trying to explain where I thought the judge was coming from. I think that digital distribution is going to start wearing away at the importance of replacement cost/time when defining the value of a product.
Oh, it already has. Steam, iTunes, etc. have done this, but in those cases it's still hard to press a charge of theft against somebody "taking" your property because regardless of what they do, you can still get another copy. You still own the rights to it. The most they can really do is try to hijack your account and take those rights as well, but then that falls under a different set of laws (which are equally serious).
In-game items, on the other hand, are a bit different...because while those can be "taken away" in that once given you no longer have them that entire structure is managed within the framework of the game, and it's all subject to your terms with the people running it. Somebody taking your items is either legit (PvP), a violation of ToS, or probably involves some other crime than "theft."
There's really just no need to define this as theft. At all.
Actually you can't. The moment you convert the fake item into real money, that's income and you (technically, in practice no one gives a shit until it goes above multi-grand level) have to report it. Want to pay for your EVE account by farming ISK, though? That's fine.
Yeppers. Once you sell an item, or anything on eBay you are making income and theoretically must report it [EDIT: provided there was actual income, since you can deduct the original cost of the item]. Regardless of whether it was tangible or not. Pretty much anytime somebody is giving you money, and I do mean any fucking time, it goes on your IRS form somewhere. In theory. That $20 grannie gave you for you birthday? It's a gift of tangible value that is within the $10,000 exemption per year per giver per recipient. But, in theory, you still must report it.
Though obviously small amounts fall through the cracks because the cost of enforcement is higher than any taxes that would possibly be recovered...so it's not like the IRS will come after you if you don't report the $100 profit you made selling that Wii on eBay.
Obviously I understand that your bank says you have money in your account and can get it out, whereas WoW says you have nothing but online access and all virtual property belongs to them. But like I said, generally courts do not allow reality to be in direct conflict with legal structures for very long. Especially with property. If society believes something to be your property and operates as if it is your property, then it is your property. And in reality, both your bank and Blizzard are simply storing online data about you, data which you can at will convert into paper money, and vice versa.
I think you're overestimating how much reality has shifted, and is likely to shift anytime soon. I don't think society at large really believes that your Sword of Casual Dismemberment in Everquest is really your fucking property. Aside from a few unshaven nerds, and apparently a judge in the Netherlands, most people will still laugh at this idea.
What if the guy who owns the local grocery store plays WoW and lets me pay him in GP? It has a real-dollar value anyway. What if those GP move throughout the RL economy several times before they get exchanged for $? How do I report that income?
As soon as WoW gold replaces the US Dollar as a significant portion of the economy, I think we can worry about this. As it is, at some point that shit's going to have to be turned into cash, and somebody will have to pay taxes on it...and likely that person will want to pass some portion of that on down the line, and it will even out. Unless there exists a community somewhere where I can meet all my needs with fake money.
As soon as WoW gold replaces the US Dollar as a significant portion of the economy, I think we can worry about this. As it is, at some point that shit's going to have to be turned into cash, and somebody will have to pay taxes on it...and likely that person will want to pass some portion of that on down the line, and it will even out. Unless there exists a community somewhere where I can meet all my needs with fake money.
Like Canada.
Except that's not how it works. I pay taxes on my income, then sales tax when I buy something, then the guy I buy it from pays income tax on his take, etc. Wherever it gets converted to cash, yeah someone's supposed to report that as income, but there's no ability whatsoever to get all those taxable transactions that were missed. And so long as people are accepting it, it never needs to be converted into dollars.
I'm not presenting this as a huge threat, I'm presenting it as an example of how an economy is an ecomony. Once you've got goods being traded at values measurable in real currency... it isn't really possible to dismiss it all as fictitious. Inherently, it isn't. Nothing other than convenience and popularity at this point is stopping us from using WoW gold as a tax-free alternative to other currency. It has an exchange rate.
Basically every single reason we even recognize property in society and in the law can and will apply to virtual property as well. That will only continue to rear its ugly head.
As soon as WoW gold replaces the US Dollar as a significant portion of the economy, I think we can worry about this. As it is, at some point that shit's going to have to be turned into cash, and somebody will have to pay taxes on it...and likely that person will want to pass some portion of that on down the line, and it will even out. Unless there exists a community somewhere where I can meet all my needs with fake money.
Like Canada.
Except that's not how it works. I pay taxes on my income, then sales tax when I buy something, then the guy I buy it from pays income tax on his take, etc. Wherever it gets converted to cash, yeah someone's supposed to report that as income, but there's no ability whatsoever to get all those taxable transactions that were missed. And so long as people are accepting it, it never needs to be converted into dollars.
I'm not presenting this as a huge threat, I'm presenting it as an example of how an economy is an ecomony. Once you've got goods being traded at values measurable in real currency... it isn't really possible to dismiss it all as fictitious. Inherently, it isn't. Nothing other than convenience and popularity at this point is stopping us from using WoW gold as a tax-free alternative to other currency. It has an exchange rate.
Basically every single reason we even recognize property in society and in the law can and will apply to virtual property as well. That will only continue to rear its ugly head.
Virtual property already exists, we mostly call it software.
The problem is, online games like WoW are a virtual service. So they should be compared to real world services.
Do you own your connection to the internet? No, you don't. Your paying for a service.
If you stay at a hotel and make some sort of modern art by moving around the furnishings in the room you don't own that art, it is still the hotels property.
Isn't a good, by it's definition material though? In-game items are immaterial, by definition, because they were created with that as their base. I don't have 5000 gold in wow, I have a subscription to a game world that can change at the whim of the service provider.
If I charge someone 5$ to get into a serious game of monopoly, and one of players decides to pay another 200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
If I charge someone 5$ to get into a serious game of monopoly, and one of players decides to pay another 200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
Curse you and your superior example! This is exactly what I was trying to get at.
As soon as WoW gold replaces the US Dollar as a significant portion of the economy, I think we can worry about this. As it is, at some point that shit's going to have to be turned into cash, and somebody will have to pay taxes on it...and likely that person will want to pass some portion of that on down the line, and it will even out. Unless there exists a community somewhere where I can meet all my needs with fake money.
Like Canada.
Except that's not how it works. I pay taxes on my income, then sales tax when I buy something, then the guy I buy it from pays income tax on his take, etc. Wherever it gets converted to cash, yeah someone's supposed to report that as income, but there's no ability whatsoever to get all those taxable transactions that were missed. And so long as people are accepting it, it never needs to be converted into dollars.
I'm not presenting this as a huge threat, I'm presenting it as an example of how an economy is an ecomony. Once you've got goods being traded at values measurable in real currency... it isn't really possible to dismiss it all as fictitious. Inherently, it isn't. Nothing other than convenience and popularity at this point is stopping us from using WoW gold as a tax-free alternative to other currency. It has an exchange rate.
Basically every single reason we even recognize property in society and in the law can and will apply to virtual property as well. That will only continue to rear its ugly head.
Well, that and the fact that grinding for gold in fucking World of Warcraft creates no value outside of World of Warcraft.
Did you miss that part, economics master?
Even assuming Blizzard starts selling gold for cold, hard cash there's going to be a limit of just how much non-WoW related business will ever be able to occur in exchange for WoW-gold, at least for as long as gold can also be earned through gameplay. It keeps it from maintaining a constant value, because in theory anybody can make it simply by grinding.
Grinding at something which has no value to the economy outside WoW, that is.
At some point you'd hit a very strict ceiling on both the stability of the value of WoW-gold (and thus the willingness of people to trade in it) and amount people are going to be willing to pay people essentially for grinding in a damn video game.
Out of curiosity, what is the WoW-Gold:USD exchange rate today? What was it last Wednesday? A month ago? A year ago?
Basically, and I'll readily admit I'm not an economic genius, I think you're missing some serious flaws in your assertion that in-game money can somehow ever become a substitute for "real" money on anything but the most minute scale. Blizzard being able to "print" it at will as well as players being able to "create" it through grinding without creating actual value being just two.
Isn't a good, by it's definition material though?
Software blurs this line pretty seriously. However, at the end of the day, I still pay $X for a specific individual or site license to use Software Y under terms J, which is bears little resemblance to MMO items. A little, but still little.
...200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
I'd say that the virtual nature of what was purchased is such that it is a perishable item. That doesn't make it not property.
And despite banking being a service, and despite the fact that when I give my bank money I'm really just paying them to alter a software configuration in my favor, it's still my money.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
...200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
I'd say that the virtual nature of what was purchased is such that it is a perishable item. That doesn't make it not property.
And despite banking being a service, and despite the fact that when I give my bank money I'm really just paying them to alter a software configuration in my favor, it's still my money.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
Buy you never owned Park Place. You only ever owned the right to participate in the event that is Monopoly. Everything in this game was purely conceptual, so it wouldn't even qualify as a perishable good.
And you aren't just paying your bank to alter some code. The numbers displayed on your screen aren't the good, they are just information sent to you by your bank (a service). They are still holding real goods for you.
Basically, and I'll readily admit I'm not an economic genius, I think you're missing some serious flaws in your assertion that in-game money can somehow ever become a substitute for "real" money on anything but the most minute scale. Blizzard being able to "print" it at will as well as players being able to "create" it through grinding without creating actual value being just two.
The phenomenon I'm talking about has been discussed thoroughly on NPR, in Forbes magazine, and other places. If someone spends all day working for some quantity, and then takes that quantity and buys stuff with it... it's money.
...200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
I'd say that the virtual nature of what was purchased is such that it is a perishable item. That doesn't make it not property.
And despite banking being a service, and despite the fact that when I give my bank money I'm really just paying them to alter a software configuration in my favor, it's still my money.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
Ah, now I see where the crazy is coming from.
It is not real value. Nothing of value to people who do not play WoW is being created. Period. And the value to people who do play WoW is so limited that the "real world" value approaches zero. Just because some neckbeard is willing to go on eBay and pay for a sword doesn't mean that's what it's worth. You want to know just how valuable that sword is, and how stable that value is? Just see the comic posted earlier, or go peruse the WoW forums for people who have been banned and can't figure out why.
It's certainly not real enough value that anybody in their right mind would, say, take payment in WoW-gold over payment in dollars at a job. Or that any sensible business would take payment in WoW-gold for goods/services.
The phenomenon I'm talking about has been discussed thoroughly on NPR, in Forbes magazine, and other places. If someone spends all day working for some quantity, and then takes that quantity and buys stuff with it... it's money.
Well, yeah. Just like Euros are money and Dollars are money. The difference is whether that money will ever have value to a significant number of actors in the economy. You can use US cash everywhere, even to some extent outside the US, because it's backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. WoW-gold is backed by.......Blizzard?
A thoroughly unregulated videogame company, whose Terms of Service basically give them the right to take your shit and kick you out any time, for any reason (at least in the US you generally have a legal right to due process before they take your shit)?
Right.
The odds of virtual property (specifically, MMO property) ever taking on a stable and ubiquitous enough value that it merits legal recognition as actual outside-the-game property, at least during our lifetimes, is about the same as my odds of growing a third arm out of my ass.
Sure, ultimately the hearing decided that there was no need to start taxing them, but those other articles give some insight into what economists at the hearing said, which was pretty much in favor of at least taxing in-game transactions in Second Life.
Again, the taxation issue is sort of a red herring. The point is that people are starting to live lives in these games, and whether it's through taxation or because someone got killed IRL over a broadsword, the government is more and more going to be involved in online property. The EULA is a nice easy way to avoid the academic discussion, but it doesn't solve the above issues.
Sure, ultimately the hearing decided that there was no need to start taxing them, but those other articles give some insight into what economists at the hearing said, which was pretty much in favor of at least taxing in-game transactions in Second Life.
Again, the taxation issue is sort of a red herring. The point is that people are starting to live lives in these games, and whether it's through taxation or because someone got killed IRL over a broadsword, the government is more and more going to be involved in online property. The EULA is a nice easy way to avoid the academic discussion, but it doesn't solve the above issues.
I know you're just making it up. It's not like this is the first time I've heard about this, either. That doesn't mean I can't still say it's absolutely nonsensical.
And the EULA doesn't just avoid the academic discussion...it avoids the entire issue. For as long as property isn't changing hands, tax isn't an issue. Nor is theft, for that matter. By stating clearly that all bits contained on the server are property of the publisher, not the player, it avoids the whole mess...not only is property legally no longer changing hands, but it has the side effect of stifling any attempts to use in-game money/items as some kind of substitute for "real" money (whether to avoid taxes or for any other reason)...as only an imbecile would take payment for a good or service in the form of property they cannot own and that can be taken at the drop of a hat.
Yes, I'm sure people do this. No need to point that out. These people are imbeciles. Saying that is not the same as saying they don't exist.
I wasn't aware, though, that Second Life allows for actual player ownership of items...that could pose some more interesting questions.
Also I don't see how somebody getting killed over a virtual broadsword necessitates the government getting involved in online property. At all.
Sure, ultimately the hearing decided that there was no need to start taxing them, but those other articles give some insight into what economists at the hearing said, which was pretty much in favor of at least taxing in-game transactions in Second Life.
Again, the taxation issue is sort of a red herring. The point is that people are starting to live lives in these games, and whether it's through taxation or because someone got killed IRL over a broadsword, the government is more and more going to be involved in online property. The EULA is a nice easy way to avoid the academic discussion, but it doesn't solve the above issues.
There certainly is interest in it, but I knew that going into this discussion. It doesn't mean that I agree with a lot of the views presented in those articles. Taxing cash out achieves the same net affect as treating the sale of in game "goods" as a service, since at no point can a person ever actually own anything more than their account.
Linden can say he's selling you a good called Linden bucks, but that's just a colloquialism. All he's doing is accepting money from you to modify the game world. In turn, he has a posted policy to pay you a set amount of money to allow him to remove the money from the database. You still never actually owned a "Linden."
...200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
I'd say that the virtual nature of what was purchased is such that it is a perishable item. That doesn't make it not property.
And despite banking being a service, and despite the fact that when I give my bank money I'm really just paying them to alter a software configuration in my favor, it's still my money.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
Stop saying people are working hours to earn GP. That isnt the reality. People are playing the game for hours. Throughout these hours the game changes in their favor by means of their character having more gold. This 'grinding' is play. I know people sometimes consider it grueling or work or something, but the reality is that it is the game.
And like was mentioned, when people sell you 'gold' they arnt selling you the product, they are selling a service.. a modification of the environment of the game. Essentially they are saying "you pay me, and I will change the way I play this game" You cant sell something you dont own. You can argue for or against hte EULA and whatnot, but the fact remains that you never OWN any of the items in the game... EVER. This is why in game thiefs can steal items from other people. This is why Blizzard can change characters at will, or create new gold, or nerf items or make content easier, or do whatever the fuck they want. They own the game, the code, the servers, and the management of these servers, and ALL data contained on the server.
Except that's not true. In Second Life you do own it. That's their EULA.
And what does it mean to own it? I can tell you that you own five cool points on my Awesome Board of Coolâ„¢ points I have hung up here in my office, and that you really own them because I said so. That doesn't mean you actually have five cool points.
Linden money is purely conceptual, it's immaterial and therefore not a good.
But it is work. For a lot of people. And it certainly acts like property.
EDIT: links moved around
EDIT2: I realize that right now the status quo generally says it isn't property, it isn't an economy. Current legal precedents consider cash-outs to be game winnings like game shows. But you pay into it... so isn't it gambling? Well, no, it isn't gambling, because you actually use your time and brain and creativity and skills to make the money, and don't leave it up to chance. None of the current views or precedents are going to fit well forever.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
Ah, now I see where the crazy is coming from.
It is not real value. Nothing of value to people who do not play WoW is being created. Period. And the value to people who do play WoW is so limited that the "real world" value approaches zero. Just because some neckbeard is willing to go on eBay and pay for a sword doesn't mean that's what it's worth. You want to know just how valuable that sword is, and how stable that value is? Just see the comic posted earlier, or go peruse the WoW forums for people who have been banned and can't figure out why.
It's certainly not real enough value that anybody in their right mind would, say, take payment in WoW-gold over payment in dollars at a job. Or that any sensible business would take payment in WoW-gold for goods/services.
I don't necessarily agree with Yar that this shit is real property. I also, though, disagree with much of how you seem to be defining "value". The value of, say, a WoW sword is pretty accurately shown by how much you can eBay it for. You're arguing that because that value is limited or volatile, it must then be zero (or near-zero).
But that fact that not many people want to buy something doesn't really mean it's valueless. The market for, say, an antique computer component is pretty small. You have to be some sort of super-geek to want to own that shit. But there are super-geeks out there, and they probably will pay top dollar for something they think is awesome. Limited market, but such goods are far from valueless.
As far as volatility, what about currency in a nation with an imploding economy? A place where inflation can be something like 100% per day? Volatile as hell, but would you argue their currency has literally no value? Tying back into the limited argument above, it's safe to say that few people outside of that nation would want to touch that currency with a ten foot pole. Still, it's not valueless.
I think the best way to view this is as a sale of services, or alternately of license, or something along those lines. When you sell someone a piece of software, for example, you're not really selling him a disk with 1s and 0s on it, you're selling him the right to use that software and giving up your own right. That's what happens, effectively, when you give someone a WoW sword, much more than selling someone an actual good.
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EDIT2: I realize that right now the status quo generally says it isn't property, it isn't an economy.
No, it's an economy. It's certainly an economy. But it's an economy with fairly limited interaction with our own economy, and (with the exception of SL) in which one actor owns all the property and merely lets others play with it at his pleasure. Do I need to post the comic again?
Current legal precedents consider cash-outs to be game winnings like game shows. But you pay into it... so isn't it gambling? Well, no, it isn't gambling, because you actually use your time and brain and creativity and skills to make the money, and don't leave it up to chance. None of the current views or precedents are going to fit well forever.
Why not just treat it as a service? You then become a self-employed person whose occupation is "playing games for other people." They are paying you to play a game for them, there's no reason the "property" needs to enter into it at all. Especially since, in most cases, you aren't transferring any property to your clients [EDIT: it is, was, and will always be property of the publisher]...merely performing a service.
I fail to see how this "current view or precedent" doesn't fit quite well.
I think the best way to view this is as a sale of services...
Hey, you wrote that just as I was typing the above. Awesome.
That's what I'm getting at when I say the "property" has no value. An antique computer is something that is actually transferred from one person to another. Nobody can come along and make my IBM PCjr disappear (yes, I have one, because I am one of those dorks). It's not the property that has value, because the property never changes hands...it's the service that has a value.
I don't know where that leaves us in regards to the OP, but I'm still not comfortable calling it theft, and there were plenty of other crimes involved such that we don't need to.
EDIT: And I still defend my assertion that it's volatile enough to be essentially valueless. Hyperinflation is one thing, but anytime somebody can (legally) click a mouse and make all my shit disappear, that's volatile enough that the real value approaches zero.
And you could say that when I build you a house, it's really just a service of me reconfiguring reality for you, and the house belongs to God. But that isn't quite so useful since we all tend to operate as if I just gave you a house.
If anyone is interested, and has access to a school library, a simple search in WilsonWeb for "virtual property" just found me no less than 42 articles dealing with the legal implications of property and online games. I imagine you'd find a bunch of articles in whatever index service you use. Some look quite interesting, but I don't have time to read any right now.
And you could say that when I build you a house, it's really just a service of me reconfiguring reality for you, and the house belongs to God. But that isn't quite so useful since we all tend to operate as if I just gave you a house.
No, you provided a service. You charged me for materials, sure, but you did not sell me a house. You merely built it for me, on land I had already purchased.
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No need to pretend. They are not the same thing. Tomorrow Blizzard can just up and decide to shut down World of Warcraft, and that sword you spent money on disappears. Because you never owned it to begin with. Basically, if your spending real money on fake items in a fake world, that doesn't give them value in the real world...it makes you a damned idiot. EDIT: At least if you harbor any false sense of "ownership" of them.
Whereas, to my knowledge, Sony can't show up at my house and decide they're going to take my TV and throw it in the ocean.
There are gray areas here, too, like iTunes purchases. Sure, Apple could shut down the iTMS (or I guess just iTS nowadays) tomorrow, and all your tracks you paid money for lose a lot of their value. But at the same time, you do have a license agreement with Apple for those specific tracks, which does transfer to you very specific rights as far as what you can do with them. And in this example at least, they'll continue to play on your currently authorized devices and you can burn them to a CD.
That sword in WoW, though? Absolutely gone. And you never had any specific rights to it to begin with.
What if my whole job and currency was WoW? I spent 8 hours a day earing WoW gold, and then convert it to $ every couple weeks. Do I pay income tax? How many people like me would there need to be before the government was like, "you guys need to be paying taxes!" And if I pay income tax, is it not then my gold? What if some of the vendors I shop at IRL start allowing me to keep tabs with them and just pay them in WoW gold, removing $ altogether? These markets already exist online and in limited fashion IRL. Who's paying sales tax?
We know the virtual economies and RL economies already mix in limited fashion. My question again is at what point is the blur so great that your answer, that Blizzard can just turn it all off, is no longer any better than telling me that my bank could just shut off the server that stores my checking account?
Do I really need to address this? Please tell me you're joking. Or trolling. Or something.
EDIT: Fuck it, it's Yar, I'll bite. You have a contract with your bank, and there are laws written by our very real government that state you have a right to that money and that they can't simply "turn their servers off" and deny it to you. You have the exact fucking opposite with a company like Blizzard as regards World of Warcraft, which is to say a EULA that (I've not read it, but going by how they generally run) says they can kick you out at any time, take your stuff, whatever. You want to know when that line blurs? When the companies making these games start giving you real-world legal rights to your fake-world goodies. Which will not happen.
EDIT: Or, alternately, when banks start employing guys like this:
What is the basic principle you're arguing for here? I see you arguing against in-game items not being counted as real unless the ability to cash them out is sanctioned by their owner, which if wrong, is at least a principle. What alternative do you offer?
Theft is a pretty broad term. It can refer to anything from extortion to armed robbery to simple shoplifting.
I would say a login ID/password does have tangible value. I'm not sure about this particular game, but the real-world value of a WoW login is $13-15 US a month and they have millions of customers. That's tangible value pinned to access to a service/good. I suppose that goes for any form of paid electronic subscription, from nytimes.com to porn sites.
I don't see how access to a service, even an electronic one, does not have tangible value. Especially if - unlike "stealing" cable - access to the service by the illegitimate user prevents access to the service by the legit user.
You'd have to show somehow that the action was being done without your consent - despite the fact that you're still voluntarily paying $15 a month for access to the new service.
The right to access the service is not the right to have the same service provided forever.
And ID/password has no value. It can be used to access items of value, in some cases, but the login combo itself is valueless as it can theoretically be replaced at no loss to, well, anybody.
Access to the system does have value, but it's not like it somehow gives the imaginary items within that system some value by extension. I pay the same subscriptions as a level one rogue as somebody does as a level forty...fuck, I don't even know any other classes in that damn game. Are there even rogues? I don't know.
So the value of a WoW subscription is in access to the game itself, not the particular items your character "owns."
This is true of pretty much any scenario I can think of involving such a "theft." I can't think of any scenario that isn't better handled under other (and generally equally serious) criminal laws on the real world side and/or through the administrators of the game in question. Depending on the circumstances.
Not if the item was your property in the same way a house or car is. The company would be legally bound to allow you access to your property, unchanged without your express consent. It's illegal for a mechanic to make changes to your car without your consent, is it not?
- John Stuart Mill
I already mentioned this, and how it would change things significantly.
And a rented (like, say, a DVD) item is different because it cannot be instantly replaced. An in-game item can be...it's made of bits, not stuff.
Any attempt to define this as "theft" is going to be a stretch...and even if you make that stretch work, I question whether or not it's a good idea to do so when (according to the reports here) there are other equally serious criminal laws available to prosecute under.
The only possible motivation I can come up with (other than the judge just being a bit dense) is that by giving these items real-world legal value in this case, it opens up the door to start taxing transactions of the type mentioned in this thread.
Unless, as mentioned, their legal system is just that much different than ours in that it won't establish any such precedent for other cases. In which case I guess fuck it, it doesn't matter. But if we're talking about creating such a law in the US, it certainly would have far-reaching legal consequences that I'm not comfortable with.
I dont even think this changes all that much. Its just paying more money to access a different aspect of the game quicker or something. I sort of look at a lot of this like going to the gym. You are paying money to go to the gym. You dont own the equipment you use there, the gym does. Maybe there are advanced machines that you can only use if you have been a member for a certain amount of time. In this analogy 'buying a sword of awesome from blizzard' would be like paying your gym some extra cash to be able to use the advanced equipment earlier. You still dont OWN that new equipment.
Also if you are putting in tons of 'work' to get your items, then you are doing it wrong. The 'work' (grinding etc) IS the game. There is value in grinding, there is value in your character having the sword etc. That value is 15 bucks a month. Same as the value of a lvl 1 character etc. because the value IS the game NOT the items/characters/status.
And as far as ebay and full time workers. You arnt selling anything tangible. If I pay a company for money, and they dont deliver I have no recourse, because it wasnt theirs to sell in the first place.
I didn't say I agreed with it; I was just trying to explain where I thought the judge was coming from. I think that digital distribution is going to start wearing away at the importance of replacement cost/time when defining the value of a product.
- John Stuart Mill
I would just like to point out at this point that after every major patch blizzard makes you re-accept the EULA, because they have changed the service you are paying for.
I don't know if it has ever come up, but if you chose not to accept the EULA after a major patch you might be eligible to be reimbursed for your remaining unused months (you can prepay for up to 6 months game time).
No one answered my income tax question. I could support myself at my current job, where I pay thousands of dollars in income tax. Or I could support myself gold-farming, paying zero in income taxes.
Obviously I understand that your bank says you have money in your account and can get it out, whereas WoW says you have nothing but online access and all virtual property belongs to them. But like I said, generally courts do not allow reality to be in direct conflict with legal structures for very long. Especially with property. If society believes something to be your property and operates as if it is your property, then it is your property. And in reality, both your bank and Blizzard are simply storing online data about you, data which you can at will convert into paper money, and vice versa.
EDIT: And doubly especially if Blizzard was like Sony, where they actively encouraged and supported a marketplace for the items in real currency. You can't tell people in a EULA it's all yours, but then set up an auction house that gives the distinct impression that people are buying property for themselves.
Actually you can't. The moment you convert the fake item into real money, that's income and you (technically, in practice no one gives a shit until it goes above multi-grand level) have to report it. Want to pay for your EVE account by farming ISK, though? That's fine.
The gold farmer never sold anything but his time, because he never owned the gold himself. The same applies to items.
Oh, it already has. Steam, iTunes, etc. have done this, but in those cases it's still hard to press a charge of theft against somebody "taking" your property because regardless of what they do, you can still get another copy. You still own the rights to it. The most they can really do is try to hijack your account and take those rights as well, but then that falls under a different set of laws (which are equally serious).
In-game items, on the other hand, are a bit different...because while those can be "taken away" in that once given you no longer have them that entire structure is managed within the framework of the game, and it's all subject to your terms with the people running it. Somebody taking your items is either legit (PvP), a violation of ToS, or probably involves some other crime than "theft."
There's really just no need to define this as theft. At all.
Yeppers. Once you sell an item, or anything on eBay you are making income and theoretically must report it [EDIT: provided there was actual income, since you can deduct the original cost of the item]. Regardless of whether it was tangible or not. Pretty much anytime somebody is giving you money, and I do mean any fucking time, it goes on your IRS form somewhere. In theory. That $20 grannie gave you for you birthday? It's a gift of tangible value that is within the $10,000 exemption per year per giver per recipient. But, in theory, you still must report it.
Though obviously small amounts fall through the cracks because the cost of enforcement is higher than any taxes that would possibly be recovered...so it's not like the IRS will come after you if you don't report the $100 profit you made selling that Wii on eBay.
I think you're overestimating how much reality has shifted, and is likely to shift anytime soon. I don't think society at large really believes that your Sword of Casual Dismemberment in Everquest is really your fucking property. Aside from a few unshaven nerds, and apparently a judge in the Netherlands, most people will still laugh at this idea.
As soon as WoW gold replaces the US Dollar as a significant portion of the economy, I think we can worry about this. As it is, at some point that shit's going to have to be turned into cash, and somebody will have to pay taxes on it...and likely that person will want to pass some portion of that on down the line, and it will even out. Unless there exists a community somewhere where I can meet all my needs with fake money.
Like Canada.
I'm not presenting this as a huge threat, I'm presenting it as an example of how an economy is an ecomony. Once you've got goods being traded at values measurable in real currency... it isn't really possible to dismiss it all as fictitious. Inherently, it isn't. Nothing other than convenience and popularity at this point is stopping us from using WoW gold as a tax-free alternative to other currency. It has an exchange rate.
Basically every single reason we even recognize property in society and in the law can and will apply to virtual property as well. That will only continue to rear its ugly head.
Virtual property already exists, we mostly call it software.
The problem is, online games like WoW are a virtual service. So they should be compared to real world services.
Do you own your connection to the internet? No, you don't. Your paying for a service.
If you stay at a hotel and make some sort of modern art by moving around the furnishings in the room you don't own that art, it is still the hotels property.
If I charge someone 5$ to get into a serious game of monopoly, and one of players decides to pay another 200$ in real world currency for Park Place, the new guy doesn't own the deed to Park Place anymore than the guy who sold it. It's convenient to say "sell me Park Place", but in reality he's just paying him for the service of changing the game board. When the game ends, Park Place goes back inside the box.
Curse you and your superior example! This is exactly what I was trying to get at.
Well, that and the fact that grinding for gold in fucking World of Warcraft creates no value outside of World of Warcraft.
Did you miss that part, economics master?
Even assuming Blizzard starts selling gold for cold, hard cash there's going to be a limit of just how much non-WoW related business will ever be able to occur in exchange for WoW-gold, at least for as long as gold can also be earned through gameplay. It keeps it from maintaining a constant value, because in theory anybody can make it simply by grinding.
Grinding at something which has no value to the economy outside WoW, that is.
At some point you'd hit a very strict ceiling on both the stability of the value of WoW-gold (and thus the willingness of people to trade in it) and amount people are going to be willing to pay people essentially for grinding in a damn video game.
Out of curiosity, what is the WoW-Gold:USD exchange rate today? What was it last Wednesday? A month ago? A year ago?
Basically, and I'll readily admit I'm not an economic genius, I think you're missing some serious flaws in your assertion that in-game money can somehow ever become a substitute for "real" money on anything but the most minute scale. Blizzard being able to "print" it at will as well as players being able to "create" it through grinding without creating actual value being just two.
Software blurs this line pretty seriously. However, at the end of the day, I still pay $X for a specific individual or site license to use Software Y under terms J, which is bears little resemblance to MMO items. A little, but still little.
I'd say that the virtual nature of what was purchased is such that it is a perishable item. That doesn't make it not property.
And despite banking being a service, and despite the fact that when I give my bank money I'm really just paying them to alter a software configuration in my favor, it's still my money.
Also there is a matter of degree of how much these virtual elements resemble an economy. Dropping benjamins to get park place is one thing, but in WoW you've got people working for hours just to earn some GP. That's productivity. That's real value.
Buy you never owned Park Place. You only ever owned the right to participate in the event that is Monopoly. Everything in this game was purely conceptual, so it wouldn't even qualify as a perishable good.
And you aren't just paying your bank to alter some code. The numbers displayed on your screen aren't the good, they are just information sent to you by your bank (a service). They are still holding real goods for you.
http://www.gameusd.com/news0730.htm
That site hasn't been updated in a while but you can find others I believe.
Interesting how some of those are pretty damn stable.
The phenomenon I'm talking about has been discussed thoroughly on NPR, in Forbes magazine, and other places. If someone spends all day working for some quantity, and then takes that quantity and buys stuff with it... it's money.
Ah, now I see where the crazy is coming from.
It is not real value. Nothing of value to people who do not play WoW is being created. Period. And the value to people who do play WoW is so limited that the "real world" value approaches zero. Just because some neckbeard is willing to go on eBay and pay for a sword doesn't mean that's what it's worth. You want to know just how valuable that sword is, and how stable that value is? Just see the comic posted earlier, or go peruse the WoW forums for people who have been banned and can't figure out why.
It's certainly not real enough value that anybody in their right mind would, say, take payment in WoW-gold over payment in dollars at a job. Or that any sensible business would take payment in WoW-gold for goods/services.
Well, yeah. Just like Euros are money and Dollars are money. The difference is whether that money will ever have value to a significant number of actors in the economy. You can use US cash everywhere, even to some extent outside the US, because it's backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. WoW-gold is backed by.......Blizzard?
A thoroughly unregulated videogame company, whose Terms of Service basically give them the right to take your shit and kick you out any time, for any reason (at least in the US you generally have a legal right to due process before they take your shit)?
Right.
The odds of virtual property (specifically, MMO property) ever taking on a stable and ubiquitous enough value that it merits legal recognition as actual outside-the-game property, at least during our lifetimes, is about the same as my odds of growing a third arm out of my ass.
Read some more and tell me that this is all crazy. There was a Congressional hearing on it.
Sure, ultimately the hearing decided that there was no need to start taxing them, but those other articles give some insight into what economists at the hearing said, which was pretty much in favor of at least taxing in-game transactions in Second Life.
Again, the taxation issue is sort of a red herring. The point is that people are starting to live lives in these games, and whether it's through taxation or because someone got killed IRL over a broadsword, the government is more and more going to be involved in online property. The EULA is a nice easy way to avoid the academic discussion, but it doesn't solve the above issues.
I know you're just making it up. It's not like this is the first time I've heard about this, either. That doesn't mean I can't still say it's absolutely nonsensical.
And the EULA doesn't just avoid the academic discussion...it avoids the entire issue. For as long as property isn't changing hands, tax isn't an issue. Nor is theft, for that matter. By stating clearly that all bits contained on the server are property of the publisher, not the player, it avoids the whole mess...not only is property legally no longer changing hands, but it has the side effect of stifling any attempts to use in-game money/items as some kind of substitute for "real" money (whether to avoid taxes or for any other reason)...as only an imbecile would take payment for a good or service in the form of property they cannot own and that can be taken at the drop of a hat.
Yes, I'm sure people do this. No need to point that out. These people are imbeciles. Saying that is not the same as saying they don't exist.
I wasn't aware, though, that Second Life allows for actual player ownership of items...that could pose some more interesting questions.
Also I don't see how somebody getting killed over a virtual broadsword necessitates the government getting involved in online property. At all.
There certainly is interest in it, but I knew that going into this discussion. It doesn't mean that I agree with a lot of the views presented in those articles. Taxing cash out achieves the same net affect as treating the sale of in game "goods" as a service, since at no point can a person ever actually own anything more than their account.
Linden can say he's selling you a good called Linden bucks, but that's just a colloquialism. All he's doing is accepting money from you to modify the game world. In turn, he has a posted policy to pay you a set amount of money to allow him to remove the money from the database. You still never actually owned a "Linden."
Stop saying people are working hours to earn GP. That isnt the reality. People are playing the game for hours. Throughout these hours the game changes in their favor by means of their character having more gold. This 'grinding' is play. I know people sometimes consider it grueling or work or something, but the reality is that it is the game.
And like was mentioned, when people sell you 'gold' they arnt selling you the product, they are selling a service.. a modification of the environment of the game. Essentially they are saying "you pay me, and I will change the way I play this game" You cant sell something you dont own. You can argue for or against hte EULA and whatnot, but the fact remains that you never OWN any of the items in the game... EVER. This is why in game thiefs can steal items from other people. This is why Blizzard can change characters at will, or create new gold, or nerf items or make content easier, or do whatever the fuck they want. They own the game, the code, the servers, and the management of these servers, and ALL data contained on the server.
And what does it mean to own it? I can tell you that you own five cool points on my Awesome Board of Coolâ„¢ points I have hung up here in my office, and that you really own them because I said so. That doesn't mean you actually have five cool points.
Linden money is purely conceptual, it's immaterial and therefore not a good.
EDIT: links moved around
EDIT2: I realize that right now the status quo generally says it isn't property, it isn't an economy. Current legal precedents consider cash-outs to be game winnings like game shows. But you pay into it... so isn't it gambling? Well, no, it isn't gambling, because you actually use your time and brain and creativity and skills to make the money, and don't leave it up to chance. None of the current views or precedents are going to fit well forever.
I don't necessarily agree with Yar that this shit is real property. I also, though, disagree with much of how you seem to be defining "value". The value of, say, a WoW sword is pretty accurately shown by how much you can eBay it for. You're arguing that because that value is limited or volatile, it must then be zero (or near-zero).
But that fact that not many people want to buy something doesn't really mean it's valueless. The market for, say, an antique computer component is pretty small. You have to be some sort of super-geek to want to own that shit. But there are super-geeks out there, and they probably will pay top dollar for something they think is awesome. Limited market, but such goods are far from valueless.
As far as volatility, what about currency in a nation with an imploding economy? A place where inflation can be something like 100% per day? Volatile as hell, but would you argue their currency has literally no value? Tying back into the limited argument above, it's safe to say that few people outside of that nation would want to touch that currency with a ten foot pole. Still, it's not valueless.
I think the best way to view this is as a sale of services, or alternately of license, or something along those lines. When you sell someone a piece of software, for example, you're not really selling him a disk with 1s and 0s on it, you're selling him the right to use that software and giving up your own right. That's what happens, effectively, when you give someone a WoW sword, much more than selling someone an actual good.
No, it's an economy. It's certainly an economy. But it's an economy with fairly limited interaction with our own economy, and (with the exception of SL) in which one actor owns all the property and merely lets others play with it at his pleasure. Do I need to post the comic again?
Why not just treat it as a service? You then become a self-employed person whose occupation is "playing games for other people." They are paying you to play a game for them, there's no reason the "property" needs to enter into it at all. Especially since, in most cases, you aren't transferring any property to your clients [EDIT: it is, was, and will always be property of the publisher]...merely performing a service.
I fail to see how this "current view or precedent" doesn't fit quite well.
Hey, you wrote that just as I was typing the above. Awesome.
That's what I'm getting at when I say the "property" has no value. An antique computer is something that is actually transferred from one person to another. Nobody can come along and make my IBM PCjr disappear (yes, I have one, because I am one of those dorks). It's not the property that has value, because the property never changes hands...it's the service that has a value.
I don't know where that leaves us in regards to the OP, but I'm still not comfortable calling it theft, and there were plenty of other crimes involved such that we don't need to.
EDIT: And I still defend my assertion that it's volatile enough to be essentially valueless. Hyperinflation is one thing, but anytime somebody can (legally) click a mouse and make all my shit disappear, that's volatile enough that the real value approaches zero.
No, you provided a service. You charged me for materials, sure, but you did not sell me a house. You merely built it for me, on land I had already purchased.