Don't Steal Virtual Items

[CalMeacham]

Something for budding Neos to keep in mind:




Dutch court convicts 2 of stealing virtual items

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch court has convicted two youths of theft for stealing virtual items in a computer game and sentenced them to community service.



.....


The Leeuwarden District Court says the culprits, 15 and 14 years old, coerced a 13-year-old boy into transferring a "virtual amulet and a virtual mask" from the online adventure game RuneScape to their game accounts.



...



The 15-year-old was sentenced to 200 hours service, and the 14-year-old to 160 hours.







This apparently isn't a case of stealing something like software, but of stealing items that have no actual, independent existence. The mind boggles.

[Zebra]

Hey people sell those things for real money.

[ivan astikov]

Hey people sell those things for real money.

Do they sell by the pixel?

[KneadToKnow]

Holy crap. How is it possible that our lawyers got beaten to the punch on this one by the friggin' Dutch?

[Q.E.D.]

Hey people sell those things for real money.

Right, they may not have physical existence, but they have value, nevertheless.

[Borborygmi]

By my calculations, the 15-year-old should be able to pick up the virtual litter from over 148 million miles of the information superhighway in 200 hours.

Oh, Amsterdam. Sorry. Over 238 million kilometers.

[Risha]

Hey, virtual items are big (real) business. "Goldsellers", based mostly in China, are responsible for a huge percentage of online video game account hackings. People log in and find that their characters have been stripped of all of their money and possessions. And then the goldsellers sell that virtual money for real cash.

[CalMeacham]

Obviously this is a trend that I've missed. According to this article:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/20/virtual-goods-the-next-big-business-model/


Habbo Hotel has over 75 million registered avatars in 29 countries and 90% of their $60 million+ yearly revenue comes from virtual goods.




!!!!



So why do people spend real money on virtual objects? There are four major reasons:

Virtual objects aren’t really objects - they’re services

Virtual objects aren’t really objects - they are graphical metaphors for packaging up behaviors that people are already engaging in. As James Hong from HotorNot tells it, his virtual flower service has 3 components: there’s the object itself represented by a graphical flower icon, there’s the gesture of someone sending the flower to their online crush, and finally, there’s the trophy effect of everyone else being able to see that you got a flower. People on HotorNot are paying $10 to send the object of their affection a virtual flower - which is a staggering 3-4x what you might pay for a real flower! Of the 3 components, the two that James says are most important to his users are the trophy effect and the meaning of the gesture itself. As the barriers between peoples’ online and offline selves continue to erode, this market for virtual goods is going to explode. People are going to continue to seek out ways to show real emotional engagement online. Virtual gifts are a particularly compelling way to package your attention.

...

Virtual objects create real value for people

....

The cost of buying objects can be cheaper than “earning” them


Who hasn’t heard of the Chinese gold farmers in World of Warcraft? Typically, these farmers are young students who spend up to 12-14 hours a day playing the game. They can then sell these goods or characters to US based players for US dollars. The term ‘farming’ refers to the fact that they spend hours performing the same tedious in-game action over and over again to yield a certain payoff. This industry has arisen to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities that result from the disparity in opportunity costs. The Chinese farmers value their time much less than American players. This isn’t a moral statement, it’s just one of economic fact. While it might take both players 60 hours to progress a character up to level 40, the opportunity cost for the American player could be $900 (60 hours * $15/hr,) whereas the opportunity cost for the Chinese player could be $30 (60 hours * $.50/hr). The American player is willing to pay up to $900 for a level 40 character, creating profit opportunities for the Chinese player. [Note to all the flamers: I don't sanction farming in environments where it's clearly prohibited by the game designers. I'm just trying to explain why this makes sense to some of the buyers and sellers.]

....

You can make money off of virtual objects








While people preoccupy themselves with mocking the absurdities of some of these virtual worlds, the reality is that there are many businesses out there making meaningful amounts of money in virtual goods

Yup, that'd be me. The mockong part. I'm still amazed by the size of this virtual trade.

[WhyNot]

Typically, these farmers are young students who spend up to 12-14 hours a day playing the game. They can then sell these goods or characters to US based players for US dollars. The term ‘farming’ refers to the fact that they spend hours performing the same tedious in-game action over and over again to yield a certain payoff. This industry has arisen to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities that result from the disparity in opportunity costs.
My son, the budding entrepreneur, was/is(?) making money off his friends and his friends' friends beating certain levels or reaching certain "achievements" for them on XBOX Live. They pay him to log in under their accounts and get through the parts they're having trouble with.

The mind boggles.

[CalMeacham]

This is hardly a new problem, I see. Google "Virtual theft" and you get plenty of cases, including this one by a Dutch teenager a year ago. (A Dutch teenager again. What IS it with Dutch teens and virtual theft?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094764.stm

A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.
The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.

The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.





This one's more interesting -- virtual theft of virtual Sex Devices:


http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071030-pipping-off-virtual-world-sex-toys-leads-to-real-world-lawsuit.html

[Scumpup]

Consider me to have made disparaging remarks about everybody involved.

[Balance]

The Gamepolitics article (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/22/dutch-virtual-theft-case-involved-real-world-violence) on this story indicates that there was rather more to this than the theft of the items themselves. According to their translation of a Dutch article (http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/7/Misdaad/article/detail/38458/2008/10/21/Rechter-straft-jongens-voor-afpersen-in-computerspel.dhtml), the victim was lured into the other boys' house, beaten, and threatened with a knife to make him transfer the items. That seems like enough to convict them on.

Treating it as theft--or extortion, perhaps--seems to be a new precedent, arrived at in part because the items in question can be and sometimes are sold for real money. I don't particularly like that precedent, but I can understand why the judge would arrive at it, especially given the urge to throw the book at these little scumbags.

[robardin]

It reminds me of a story told about a famous medieval Japanese judge, Ooka Tadasuke, who once ruled in favor of a shopkeeper (http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:S5lRYLIRrDQJ:cla.sd57.bc.ca/~tlarson/Writing_12/pdf/Ooka_Stolen_Smell.pdf) who accused an impecunious student of "stealing" the scent of his cooking food to improve the experience of eating his bowls of plain white rice.

[Zeriel]

I'm a lot less comfortable with prosecuting 'theft' of virtual items rather than prosecuting illegal real-world behaviors that influence virtual worlds.

I mean, I play EVE Online. Destroying the personal property of people you don't like and selling what's left for scrap is practically the entire reason for the game--I've personally been responsible for the senseless and brutal destruction of at least $200-$300 worth of virtual items (using current ebay rates for EVE currency) in the last three months.

[Agent Foxtrot]

I'm a lot less comfortable with prosecuting 'theft' of virtual items rather than prosecuting illegal real-world behaviors that influence virtual worlds.

I mean, I play EVE Online. Destroying the personal property of people you don't like and selling what's left for scrap is practically the entire reason for the game--I've personally been responsible for the senseless and brutal destruction of at least $200-$300 worth of virtual items (using current ebay rates for EVE currency) in the last three months.Really? Sounds fascinating. How's it work?

(No, I'm serious. No facetiousness here.)

[Tastes of Chocolate]

Is the ownership of a virtual item much different that ownership of a copyright?

I can put time into writing a book or a song, and now I own the rights to that, regardless of its merits. I have to give permission to other to use it. If someone threatens to beat me up unless I let them use my song, I should have protection and they should be punishable.

I can put time into creating something in an online game. If someone bullies me until I give them control of that object, what is the difference?

[iamthewalrus(:3=]

The interesting thing to me about a case like this is that it seems to open the door to suits against the game company itself if, for example, they take the servers down, or a glitch results in the deletion of your account.

This case would seem to establish that the virtual objects are property of the user who controls them in-game, which is not the sort of precedent that the makers of these games would like to see.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

This case would seem to establish that the virtual objects are property of the user who controls them in-game, which is not the sort of precedent that the makers of these games would like to see.

Seeing this got me thinking. What are the original charges? Where the 2 boys found guilty of theft, or of bullying? I know the original quote says they were found guilty of theft, but is that what the charges actually were?

[Trepa Mayfield]

Personally, I'm glad to see this. I expect to see MMORPGs go on the rise as technology gets more sophisticated and people get used to f2f communication online. I certainly don't want the attitude of 'It's only virtual, why do you care'.

[DocCathode]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's like living in The Jetsons. It's a hell of a fascinating time to be alive.

[Miller]

If I hack into someone's bank account, and transfer $500 into my own account, I haven't stolen anything that really exists. That $500 doesn't have a one-to-one correspondance with a stack of actual bills sitting in a bank vault somewhere. I've just moved some data around. I don't see how this is really any different.

[BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed]

Well, if we're discussing the original article (got a link somewhere, Cal?), it says the 13-yr-old was "coerced" into giving the items to the other two. But how did this happen? Was it within the laws of the game, eg Give us that amulet or we'll kill your character? Unless they actually hacked the account, I'm less willing to agree with this until I see some more details.

[Roland Orzabal]

Hell, this is a closer parallel to stealing than software piracy is, since not only did the material taken have a monetary value, but the incident actually left the victim deprived of his virtual goods.

Of course, treating either scenario as theft is ridiculous. The only reason I'm okay with this having been treated as a criminal matter is that (per Balance's link) the boy appears to have been physically assaulted. Beyond that, anything that can be done inside of a virtual world to "coerce" someone into compliance with your wishes is fair game.

I'm not familiar with Habbo Hotel, but if the architecture of the software allows a regular user to take another user's virtual furniture, that's not theft, it's playing a video game. If it doesn't, and they obtained the furniture by hacking into the other users' accounts, that's not theft, it's hacking. Repeat logic as needed for scenario of your choice.

[Projammer]

More details (http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/081022-virtual-theft-is-real)

The culprits, who cannot be named due to their age, kicked, hit and threatened their classmate with a knife before the 13-year-old gave in and transferred the Runescape items, an amulet and a mask, to his attackers' online accounts.

So basically they were physically threatening the boy to force him to sign over the objects.

There would have been an assault case in any event. And probably should have.

[Balance]

The details of this particular case aside, there are a couple of reasons why I'm dubious about treating virtual items as real property.

The main one is that in online games, everything that exists within the game is usually defined as property of the game operator by the license agreement. This is to cover the game company against lawsuits over lost items or oddball copyright suits from players for the use of their in-game information. They don't want to face a suit because a glitch caused you to lose your Sword of Uberness +10, or because they used a piece of gameplay video with your character in it for an ad. In most cases, they also have rules against selling in-game items or currency for real money, and will ban accounts they catch doing it. In short, even if the items are "real" property--they're not the player's real property. They belong to the game company, which is allowing the player to play with them.

The other worry is taxation. If the virtual items are treated as having real, monetary value under the law, their acquisition could (as I understand it) be treated as capital gains for tax purposes. If you acquire that Sword of Uberness, and the going rate for the Sword on eBay is $1000, is that a capital gain? What if you get taxed on it, and the game servers shut down forever the next day? What if you never intend to sell it, and keep it for years, until the servers do shut down? You're out the tax on $1000, for something that you never really owned. The potential for lawsuits is mind-boggling. (Yes, the $1000 Sword is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Even a casual MMO player can accumulate stuff that could be liquidated by gold-sellers for hundreds of dollars.) It sounds crazy, but the idea has been discussed seriously.

[nd_n8]

The details of this particular case aside, there are a couple of reasons why I'm dubious about treating virtual items as real property.

The main one is that in online games, everything that exists within the game is usually defined as property of the game operator by the license agreement. This is to cover the game company against lawsuits over lost items or oddball copyright suits from players for the use of their in-game information. They don't want to face a suit because a glitch caused you to lose your Sword of Uberness +10, or because they used a piece of gameplay video with your character in it for an ad. In most cases, they also have rules against selling in-game items or currency for real money, and will ban accounts they catch doing it. In short, even if the items are "real" property--they're not the player's real property. They belong to the game company, which is allowing the player to play with them.

The other worry is taxation. If the virtual items are treated as having real, monetary value under the law, their acquisition could (as I understand it) be treated as capital gains for tax purposes. If you acquire that Sword of Uberness, and the going rate for the Sword on eBay is $1000, is that a capital gain? What if you get taxed on it, and the game servers shut down forever the next day? What if you never intend to sell it, and keep it for years, until the servers do shut down? You're out the tax on $1000, for something that you never really owned. The potential for lawsuits is mind-boggling. (Yes, the $1000 Sword is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Even a casual MMO player can accumulate stuff that could be liquidated by gold-sellers for hundreds of dollars.) It sounds crazy, but the idea has been discussed seriously.
I can't see items earned in a virtual world being subject to capitol gains. Let's say you have an ounce of 24k gold worth about, say, $900 (just a guess, I have no idea what gold goes for these days). You start tinkering and toying around with it and manage to crank out a half a dozen shiny doohickeys that, were you to sell them at market value (using eBay as a market standard) would net you $300 each. You have doubled the value of the material but have no intention of selling any of it. Would the additonal $900 be taxable as capitol gains? Let's say you sell three of them and make your initial $900 back, the proceeds of the sale would certainly be income but would the tax be based on the net value of the sale or on the net value of the item in question plus the intrinsic (added) value?

Ok, so let's say you dive into WoW and earn a rare sword that's worth $1000. You did the work in earning (finding) it. Is that really so different than you doing the work to increase the value of the gold doohickeys? If I'm walking down the street and find a bag of $100 bills, the right thing to do would be to turn it over to the authorities and, depending on jurisdiction, wait to see if it is claimed or not. If it goes unclaimed and I have legal claim to it then the right thing to do is to declair it as income on next year's taxes. But let's say it wasn't $100 bills, what if it was a bag full of gold doohickeys. Doohickeys are certainly not money, even though they may be worth $300 each. Do I need to claim my fortune on next year's taxes as well? The "currency" content of the gold doohickeys is only $150 (the value of the raw materials). If even though the doohickeys are worth $300, nobody is willing to buy them for that price and they are essentially only worth the gold they are made of, is it a gain or a loss when I file taxes next year?

Additional note just to stir things up. I recently downloaded TrueSpace 7, a free 3D graphics and animation program. Online there is a place where users can exchange models or offer them for sale. I could buy 3D models of original furnature from the original manufacturer to use in my models just as if I were to buy actual furnature to use in real time productions. This furnature is totally virtual but the model of it has intrinsic value as a virtual item. If I make my own models and post them for sale I assume that will also generate income for my tax return.

What a long strange trip it's been.

[Santo Rugger]

It reminds me of a story told about a famous medieval Japanese judge, Ooka Tadasuke, who once ruled in favor of a shopkeeper (http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:S5lRYLIRrDQJ:cla.sd57.bc.ca/~tlarson/Writing_12/pdf/Ooka_Stolen_Smell.pdf) who accused an impecunious student of "stealing" the scent of his cooking food to improve the experience of eating his bowls of plain white rice.Nice, I'm glad I read that story to the end. Nice spoiler. :)

[Taber]

The details of this particular case aside, there are a couple of reasons why I'm dubious about treating virtual items as real property.

The main one is that in online games, everything that exists within the game is usually defined as property of the game operator by the license agreement. This is to cover the game company against lawsuits over lost items or oddball copyright suits from players for the use of their in-game information. They don't want to face a suit because a glitch caused you to lose your Sword of Uberness +10, or because they used a piece of gameplay video with your character in it for an ad. In most cases, they also have rules against selling in-game items or currency for real money, and will ban accounts they catch doing it. In short, even if the items are "real" property--they're not the player's real property. They belong to the game company, which is allowing the player to play with them.

The other worry is taxation. If the virtual items are treated as having real, monetary value under the law, their acquisition could (as I understand it) be treated as capital gains for tax purposes. If you acquire that Sword of Uberness, and the going rate for the Sword on eBay is $1000, is that a capital gain? What if you get taxed on it, and the game servers shut down forever the next day? What if you never intend to sell it, and keep it for years, until the servers do shut down? You're out the tax on $1000, for something that you never really owned. The potential for lawsuits is mind-boggling. (Yes, the $1000 Sword is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Even a casual MMO player can accumulate stuff that could be liquidated by gold-sellers for hundreds of dollars.) It sounds crazy, but the idea has been discussed seriously.


If I find a $1000 sword, and sell it for $1000, why shouldn't I be taxed on $1000 income? Have the taxable event be selling the sword instead of finding the sword. I was under the impression that capital gains taxes already worked that way - that you paid the tax on a stock's increase in value when you sold it. I could be wrong.

[Gorsnak]

Another EVE Online player here. Whilst I'm not personally much for blowing up other people's hard-earned ships, I'm all for other people doing it. The game wouldn't be half as much fun without the steep penalty for dying.

Talk of virtual property as real makes me very uneasy. My virtual property would be worth several hundred bucks (and the character that much again or more), but it isn't real property. If tomorrow I undock my Golem with the Gist A-Type XL booster (worth roughly $85 according to an ISK-selling site I googled) and someone suicide ganks me, that ship is gone. Poof. I have no recourse. If it were real property, then if someone destroyed it I would have some sort of recourse. If you take a baseball bat to my car, I have a civil case for damages against you. If you take a load of heavy blaster ammo to my ship, all I can do is whine in local. Well, that's not really true. I can blow you up before you blow me up. But should I fail to do so, there's nothing I can do. Ergo, it is in no way my property from a legal perspective.

[Isamu]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Software is the single most important invention that humans have made to date. More important than the wheel, sliced bread, TV, the automobile, or flight.

[Telemark]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/online-divorcee-jailed-after-killing-virtual-hubby/1259111

And don't kill virtual ex-husbands.

[Colophon]

Wow, a lot of people really need to get a life. Paying real money for virtual swords and shit in a computer game for geeky overgrown adolescents. Depressing times.

[Zeriel]

Wow, a lot of people really need to get a life. Paying real money for virtual swords and shit in a computer game for geeky overgrown adolescents. Depressing times.

Do we have to drag this canard out every time there's a thread about MMORPGs in any way? I mean, seriously--you don't see video gamers (for the most part) making fun of stamp collectors or the guy who spends $75 every year on a new football jersey. What's the difference? Either way, it's a lot of money spent on something that's objectively not worth what you're paying for it from a practical standpoint.

I guarantee that nearly everyone has at least one hobby that a lot of other people think is a stunning waste of time, money, and energy.

[Zeriel]

Another EVE Online player here. Whilst I'm not personally much for blowing up other people's hard-earned ships, I'm all for other people doing it. The game wouldn't be half as much fun without the steep penalty for dying.

Talk of virtual property as real makes me very uneasy. My virtual property would be worth several hundred bucks (and the character that much again or more), but it isn't real property. If tomorrow I undock my Golem with the Gist A-Type XL booster (worth roughly $85 according to an ISK-selling site I googled) and someone suicide ganks me, that ship is gone. Poof. I have no recourse. If it were real property, then if someone destroyed it I would have some sort of recourse. If you take a baseball bat to my car, I have a civil case for damages against you. If you take a load of heavy blaster ammo to my ship, all I can do is whine in local. Well, that's not really true. I can blow you up before you blow me up. But should I fail to do so, there's nothing I can do. Ergo, it is in no way my property from a legal perspective.

*silently calculates the odds of the Gist XL surviving a sudden, brutal 8x 800mm repeating artillery attack on the Golem* :D

[Acid Lamp]

Wow, a lot of people really need to get a life. Paying real money for virtual swords and shit in a computer game for geeky overgrown adolescents. Depressing times.

Threadshit much?

I don't play MMORPGs since I don't have the time nor the computer to power such, but it's as good a hobby as any other. The items have intrinsic value to their owners or users over and above the actual cost of the item. People are willing to pay thousands of dollars to own a moldy old baseball that some long dead player used once. It's no different in this case. In fact it's even a bit more justifiable since these type of items are usable within the context of the game. They might help you advance to places you couldn't have gone before, or allow you to make in game money to buy silly user generated items that amuse you.

[Scumpup]

Virtual crap is still just that; virtual crap.
I used to collect knives, some of which were worth a great deal of money. Even if the price I paid for a given piece seemed disproportionate to the value of the knife to a person who didn't collect, I still had an actual, physical knife. Its value might go up or down, but it had physical existence. If nothing else, I had a knife with which I could cut things.
That $1000 dollar virtual sword not only may go up or down in value, but may simply cease to "exist" from a software glitch. It has no utility outside the game nor any existence. As for comparisons to things like rare stamps and baseballs, there aren't going to be any more of those stamps with the upsidedown plane on them and Babe Ruth ain't signing too many autographs these days. The ubersword can be limitlessly duplicated and its rarity is only a function of the game's rules...which can be changed or hacked.

[Telemark]

What is the utility of the upside-down stamp - apart from the fact that people are willing to pay money for it?

When this board was pay-to-post, what were you getting in actual value for your $14.99?

[Scumpup]

It's true the stamp has little utility. It does, however, have rarity. There are only a tiny few of those stamps. They are unique. Can the same ever be said of virtual items?

[DeadlyAccurate]

It's true the stamp has little utility. It does, however, have rarity. There are only a tiny few of those stamps. They are unique. Can the same ever be said of virtual items?

Yes. There are rare items in MMORPGs. Things that only come about during special events (holiday festivals, for example) or for buying a real-world product (The Lord of the Rings Online game expansion is coming out, and they're offering in-game items for preorders). Many rare items are bound to the character, so they're impossible to sell to another player; but if they're not, they do often have real-world value.

While I'd never spend real money on in-game items in an MMORPG, I don't see it as any different than the real money I spend to download songs for Rock Band. I'm not getting something I could use for anything besides Rock Band, after all.

[Scumpup]

That's not true rarity. Rare items in games are rare only because the rules say they are. Tomorrow the guys running the game could, if they wanted to, give everybody an ubersword, all absolutely identical to the one somebody paid $1000 real world dollars to own. Alternatively, they could decide uberswords don't exist and delete them from the game.

Tomorrow, unless some are physically destroyed tonight, there will be the same number of upside down stamps and Babe Ruth baseballs. There may, due to attrition, be fewer; but there will never be more. That's rarity.

[Telemark]

That's not true rarity. Rare items in games are rare only because the rules say they are. Tomorrow the guys running the game could, if they wanted to, give everybody an ubersword, all absolutely identical to the one somebody paid $1000 real world dollars to own. Alternatively, they could decide uberswords don't exist and delete them from the game.
The same could be said for limited edition lithographs, or signed copies of a book. No one is arguing that there's no difference between a virtual and physical object, but to argue that a virtual object had no intrinsic wealth is to ignore the definition of worth.

[Zeriel]

It's true the stamp has little utility. It does, however, have rarity. There are only a tiny few of those stamps. They are unique. Can the same ever be said of virtual items?

I'd argue that the rarity is not of any particular importance to me--from my point of view, some guy spending $100 on a knife, or $100 on a stamp, or hell $100 on a dozen movie tickets is getting roughly the same amount of actual utility as I get from a few months subscription on an MMO or that someone else might get from spending $100 on a virtual sword I sold him--that is, the actual utility of those items lies entirely in the subjective enjoyment of their use or possession by their purchaser, and not due to any intrinsic worth.

So I can't say I see the difference--one must take into account "the game designers might make this thing a dime a dozen tomorrow" when they buy a game item, but having known investment collectors they did the same thing--"what are the odds someone is sitting on a sheet or several sheets of rare stamp X that will depress the value of it if they release 'em". By contrast, I've never seen a person who collects for the joy of collection care about such a thing, and I'd expect the same thing from people who're playing a game for the joy of it.

When you figure that even playing a single game less than most people watch TV would still work out to (assuming a single hour of play a day) 365 hours a year, even $1000 for a rare item amortizes out to about the same amount of fun per dollar per hour as movie tickets. Most people who'd spend that much are playing far more, of course, and that makes even an ephemeral item have a pretty sane value when compared to other ephemeral (non-physical or non-enduring) entertainments like movies or good restaurants.

[Miller]

That's not true rarity. Rare items in games are rare only because the rules say they are. Tomorrow the guys running the game could, if they wanted to, give everybody an ubersword, all absolutely identical to the one somebody paid $1000 real world dollars to own. Alternatively, they could decide uberswords don't exist and delete them from the game.

Tomorrow, unless some are physically destroyed tonight, there will be the same number of upside down stamps and Babe Ruth baseballs. There may, due to attrition, be fewer; but there will never be more. That's rarity.

But it's not strictly the rarity of the sword that makes it valuable. It's the utility that makes it sought after. If someone buy a Babe Ruth baseball card, it's for one of two reasons: they really like baseball, or they're looking to make an investment. People buying that virtual ubersword have a different motive: it gives them a competitive edge in the game environment. They aren't paying for the rarity or sentimental value, they're paying for the ability to be that much better at the game than anyone else.

[Scumpup]

But it's not strictly the rarity of the sword that makes it valuable. It's the utility that makes it sought after. If someone buy a Babe Ruth baseball card, it's for one of two reasons: they really like baseball, or they're looking to make an investment. People buying that virtual ubersword have a different motive: it gives them a competitive edge in the game environment. They aren't paying for the rarity or sentimental value, they're paying for the ability to be that much better at the game than anyone else.

In the case of the ubersword, I acknowledge your point. The buyer is spending real world money in order to have an advantage in game play. However, upthread there was a case of virtual furniture theft referenced. I find it hard to consider something like that anything but fools and money they couldn't wait to be parted from.

[Taber]

That's not true rarity. Rare items in games are rare only because the rules say they are. Tomorrow the guys running the game could, if they wanted to, give everybody an ubersword, all absolutely identical to the one somebody paid $1000 real world dollars to own. Alternatively, they could decide uberswords don't exist and delete them from the game.

Tomorrow, unless some are physically destroyed tonight, there will be the same number of upside down stamps and Babe Ruth baseballs. There may, due to attrition, be fewer; but there will never be more. That's rarity.

I guess I need to make a distinction here. There are two different types of items that people spend money for. There's the limited edition pre order the expansion get a unique item type item, and there's uber sword +10.

There will never be more limited edition pre order the expansion get a unique item type items because it would piss off the fanbase and completely undermine any future limited edition promotions. The value of these will probably go up until people get bored and leave the game. Similarly, the government could print a million upside down stamps, but wouldn't. Sure, forensics could tell the difference between a new and old upside down stamp, but having an old upside down stamp is less obviously impressive when everyone has a new upside down stamp.

Uberswords +10 on the other hand, will lose value. You better believe that the designers are currently working to introduce Ubersword +11, because you have to keep Ubersword +10 owners playing. Ubersword +10 will still probably have value to those who don't want to pay top dollar for +11, and for those who want to use +10 to help acquire +11. What's worse is that when +15 comes out, they will probably make +10 more common, so that more people will try to get to the bleeding edge of +14 and +15.

[Acid Lamp]

Uberswords +10 on the other hand, will lose value. You better believe that the designers are currently working to introduce Ubersword +11, because you have to keep Ubersword +10 owners playing. Ubersword +10 will still probably have value to those who don't want to pay top dollar for +11, and for those who want to use +10 to help acquire +11. What's worse is that when +15 comes out, they will probably make +10 more common, so that more people will try to get to the bleeding edge of +14 and +15.

All true, but you have to remember relative value. For example, if Ubersword+10 gives you the absolute edge currently, and is extremely rare; even if the item becomes more common, it will still be far more than the average player has access to. With hundreds of thousands of players, and probably millions of characters, a few thousand more of +10 won't make a considerable dent in the gameplay.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

Talk of virtual property as real makes me very uneasy. My virtual property would be worth several hundred bucks (and the character that much again or more), but it isn't real property. If tomorrow I undock my Golem with the Gist A-Type XL booster (worth roughly $85 according to an ISK-selling site I googled) and someone suicide ganks me, that ship is gone. Poof. I have no recourse. If it were real property, then if someone destroyed it I would have some sort of recourse. If you take a baseball bat to my car, I have a civil case for damages against you. If you take a load of heavy blaster ammo to my ship, all I can do is whine in local. Well, that's not really true. I can blow you up before you blow me up. But should I fail to do so, there's nothing I can do. Ergo, it is in no way my property from a legal perspective.

I wonder how long it will be before someone starts offering insurance for virtual property? I could see one tier of insurance against something like someone deleting an account, and another tier against part-of-game destruction of something like Gorsnak's ship. I wonder how that would be paid out?

[Telemark]

If it were real property, then if someone destroyed it I would have some sort of recourse. If you take a baseball bat to my car, I have a civil case for damages against you.
If you take your race car out on a track and due to aggressive racing by a everyone involved you get into a wreck do you have recourse? Not really, it's assumed that racing is a dangerous sport and things can happen. The game you are playing is assumed to be a dangerous place where things like that can happen. It's assumed risk.

[Zeriel]

I wonder how long it will be before someone starts offering insurance for virtual property? I could see one tier of insurance against something like someone deleting an account, and another tier against part-of-game destruction of something like Gorsnak's ship. I wonder how that would be paid out?

The funniest thing about this is that the game Gorsnak and I play HAS virtual insurance for your virtual warships...and it costs an arm and a leg, as befits a high-risk thing like that.