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Given that a significant slice of the multi-hundred-million-dollar business took place on eBay until now, the move portends a significant shift in who controls the market for virtual goods.
eBay on Monday confirmed its decision to ban auctions for the characters, currency, weapons, attire and accounts of online games such as World of Warcraft, City of Heroes and others. The move was first reported on Slashdot.
The ban does not affect the virtual world Second Life.
In most cases, publishers of online games include in their terms of service a prohibition on so-called real-money trades (RMTs), in which people buy and sell online games' virtual assets for real money. Players who violate such rules can be banned.
But because eBay has dominated the auction market for RMTs, there's little question that the short-term winner in this latest circumstance will be sites like the Internet Gaming Entertainment of the world, which control the third-party market.
While there is no universally agreed-upon value for the RMT market, it is assumed to be worth somewhere between $250 million and $880 million a year, according to experts.
eBay's move is "a boon for sites like IGE," said Julian Dibbell, author of Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job and Struck it Rich in Virtual Loot Farming. "They're going to have the field pretty much to themselves." But, Dibbell said, such a circumstance is "sad" because it restricts individuals from being direct participants in the markets themselves.
IGE did not respond to requests for comment.
For its part, eBay said its decision--which is essentially a move to begin enforcing rules against virtual-item trades already under way--stems from a desire to protect users.
"Any policy decision we make...has to do with...basically a good buyer experience and good seller experience on the site," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy. "We want people to continue to come back, and we want people to have good user experiences on the site."
To Greg Short, director of Web development for EverQuest II publisher Sony Online Entertainment, eBay's move is likely a result of its wanting to avoid the time-consuming annoyance of dealing with customers who are defrauded over virtual-item sales.
"The only thing I can think of from eBay's standpoint is...that there's a huge risk of fraud to the consumer, even more so than with physical goods, because at least with physical goods you can track your shipments."
With virtual goods, Short said, there's no physical item to track and there are more opportunities for shady buyers or sellers to defraud their auction counterpart.
But Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University and the author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, says the motivation behind eBay's move is not that simple.
Castronova thinks that by banning items from virtual-worlds and online-game auctions, eBay is signaling its desire to stay out of the way of what it might see as an ugly future fight with game publishers and government regulators.
"eBay is a big, well-funded company," Castronova said. "If they turn their back on this market, they sense it's not worth fighting (the people who run the games) to keep this going. The other potential fight would be with the government. The Korean government is passing laws that regulate RMT. It seems like maybe eBay is just saying that this is just not an extremely lucrative line of business."
Castronova said another sign the RMT market has been deemed too risky is that IGE, which does millions and millions of dollars in annual business brokering virtual goods sales, has not been purchased.
"In the long run, blue-chip companies are always going to see this as a rogue market with no future," he said.
See more CNET content tagged:
auction, eBay Inc., goods, online game, trade
it - which is exactly what's wrong with this whole thing.
You may have heard of this as a pyramid scheme. I don?t know how Linden Labs digs out if the pyramid collapses. How does CNet justify supporting that?
eBay may want to rethink their position and ban all virtual goods except those that can actually be taken elsewhere. SL goods have no value off the Linden Labs server because it is a closed system.
We will have to be ready to justify real-time 3D technology in all of its genre from visualization to VR when the LL virtual economy begins to crash. With the Davos group jumping in, the egg splash is likely to be rather large and it will swamp boats tied to their moorings.
eula's are starting to turn out to be systems by which the player is disadvantaged and I have stopped playing such games as guild wars just because of it. If I had been presented with the eula on the outside of the package and how exactly it would be enforced I never would have bought all the accounts I have for my family.
One should be able to make the critical judgement that vendors will modify the game only to fix things instead of nerfing/gelding/destroying the game play by constantly making things/items/gold harder to get. Additionally, and right on the money, is the fact that if I invest my time in the acquisition of any items, this effort and resources I exercised is exclusively my own and can not be claimed by the vendor. Let us use this addle-brained move by ebay to bring into question the rights of the players.
What may be more likely is the pressure exerted by publishers/developers to squeeze themselves into this lucrative market.
These games no longer provide any entertainment.
Play Money: Or, How I quit my Day Job And made millions trading virtual loot
NEWB!!
The Amazon item is titled the way you have said, but the snapshot of the cover clearly agrees with the way it is referenced in this article.
As for auctions, www.playerauctions.com allows the individual to sell and not have to sell to a middle man who profits hugely.
So the author of this article really didn't do their homework which is sad because now folks will that that there isn't any other choice.
this is an email i have copied and have been sending it to all former ebay sellers
I wrote this myself:
'I am glad you sent this email, as i was unaware of this happing. I havent been a customer of your for a long time, glad you remembered.
I myself was starting my on virtual business, and I find this appalling. I hope someone with the money for a lawyer takes this on.
We are NOT selling virtual items - we are selling the service for acquiring these items.
This is no different than being a currier service for the elderly, in which you go out and by groceries and receive payment for such. It is not retail, its a service for those who cannot or will not acquire these things for themselves!
Please, I know you own your own site but this is a step to ending the virtual game item market which is the future of the virtual gaming world. We are not selling firearms, alcohol, nor tobacco. We are selling ourselves and our time, nothing more.
Please fight this with all you have, if you cant in court at least pass this on, maybe someone out does have the means.
We are not infringing on any copyrights nor trademarks. This is an attack on our rights as a business. If we were breaking the law it be different.
The life of games like Ultima Online thrive on the ongoing accounts that are sold and reused. Players want to pay someone else to spend the time acquiring things for them so they may play and enjoy the game with no hassle of wasting time on item farming.
We are a service not a retail outlet.'
thank you for your time
ps: if this is a concern for you than maybe we can as a group appeal this ban, competitors and friends alike, we must stand against this. ebay is just the beginning, korea has started passin laws against all sales of virtual items."
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