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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.