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Truly mind bending article in Sunday's Independent about Massive Multiplayer Online RPG's...basically things like Star Wars Galaxies where players spend fucking hours and days online in a virtual universe...
The Virtual Universe is a meritocracy, all players (supposedly) beginning at the same level, with experience and time online leading to advancement in the financial, power and euqipment stakes...so far, so what.
The thing I find so wyrd, is that players have begun auctioning their characters / money / weapons / desirables within the Virtual World on eBay in this Meaty Space...and now entire markets, as in new websites designed to offer these non-things for sale, have sprung up...including one from Sony themselves...
One dude from the UK, who has a highly prized Jedi character in SW Glaxies, has put his character up for sale on eBay for £8000! and had an offer of about £5000...
Is it just me, or is this really fucking strange? The global trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars this year. People buying and selling virtual items inside a game environment with, like, their real money.
Maybe it's not so weird. What d'ya reckon? |
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