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June 15, 2005
Theft of virtual property results in Meat Space murder
Slashdot is covering a story on The Guardian Gamesblog regarding a recent incident surrounding a theft of virtual proptery. In a Massively Multiplayer Online Game(MMOG), one player borrowed a virtual sword from another player in the game, and then went and pawned it on eBay for 480 pounds. In response, the original owner of the virtual sword went and killed the guy who stole it from him. And I don't mean he killed his character off in the game. He went and murdered the guy in cold blood. Probably an over-reaction, but it shines a light on the relatively obscure world of virtual property.
People are paying real dollars for virtual currency and virtual property. Big dollars. David Storey paid $26,500.00 for a virtual island in the game Project Entropia. Keep in mind that, this island, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist. He'll never set foot on the island. No one ever will. It exists as a few 1's and 0's in the memory of some server on the left coast. I'm not saying it isn't worth $26,500.00. I just think it's pretty wild that people are paying real money for something so ephemeral and intangible.
Earlier this year, the news broke on the Virtual Sweatshops, where people work all day, playing a game on a computer, to accumulate virtual property in MMOG's. So, they play all day to find virtual gold, silver, swords, etc. inside of a video game, and then their booty is sold on eBay for a profit. The owner of the virtual sweatshop makes a profit, anyway. He pays his workers a small pittance, I'm sure.
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Posted by Peenie Wallie on June 15, 2005 at 05:50 PM
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