in Korea : http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/01/116_58775.html I searched the net for the original article (link above) instead of the english speaking MMO site relays. And I correct said article by specifying that the currency in Lineage is not called 'Aden', but 'Adena'. PoS reporters ...
So am i going crazy or if in 2008 they did make a trillion won that accounts to..... 549083192.23 pounds ? If so......omfg.
I dont think your crazy, it seems that people selling in game currency for cash made over half a billion pounds That is just insane... (Almost $900,000,000 for you US players)
Good thing we don't have VAT here in the states. Although depending on the state, we do have like sales tax, etc... which I guess could be construed as VAT seeing as how its an extra amount to be added on to the rate you pay, thus making it more expensive.
At nearly USD 50M per month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is now on a annual run rate north of half a billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry. "im not sure if this claim to be the largest is true..the above seems to be larger" But you can make money in games here(usa) legally. This is not selling farmed gold..its selling things you create in game or renting land on the sim/server you own and pay monthly for.
wow thats alot of money moving around, makes you wonder who actually buys all this gold since most game companies are against selling ingame items for rl cash.
And who has the main responsability for all this ? Wouldn't that be the creators of the threadmills, so-called 'games', designed to make you really need the stuff that takes dozens to hundred (to thousands) of hours of time to obtain ?
its a two way street. lol interesting. I recently discovered i can get Airang tv here by UHF, they broadcast live Starcraft matches, which is quite interesting. Learning some more strategy about that game.
http://virtual-economy.org/blog/how_big_is_the_rmt_market_anyw Latest study into it.... and its waaaaaaay higher than what we were posting earlier....
Looking back on NCsoft business practices for the last 5+ years, a pattern emerges. NCsoft relies on making farmer-prone games in order to reap the benefits from having a farmer population they can squeeze periodically with ban waves. All these studies confirm the viability and profitability of such a business model. It blows for the players who have to suck it up though.
I was hoping for the same thing when I heard about the news on another website (but fell short of reading the actual article... I was in a hurry). It only makes sense for stealing virtual gold to be akin to stealing korean won, since they already established that the korean won *is* virtual gold, and vice versa. It would be like stealing a credit card account. I'm all for punishing virtual criminals, yes, even for stealing a flame sword +2. We just need time to get to that advanced level of understanding and realize that things don't have to be tangible to have value, even in a game.
a look at what people create and sell in second life..using game currency..currency that is traded for real money. https://www.xstreetsl.com/