I find that interesting because IMVU has their own “gambling” game you can play to win credits on that can be used to shop in their own catalog. You get one free spin and than have to pay 75 credits after for each spin and you can win up to 500 credits total.

So are they breaking their own TOS??

In the context of culture, economy and relations – the sakoku is interesting to consider. I consider all economies to be virtual; I consider what most people call ‘virtual economies’ to be instead artificial or synthetic economies… but even so, by definition, an economy is in itself artificial.

That train of thought leads to some interesting things – such as virtual worlds enacting sakoku.

I realize that some people may not know what sakoku was – here are some reference links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankin_k%C5%8Dtai

I’m still thinking things along these lines, but presently am a bit distracted…

I agree you can technically “leave” a real economy by leaving a country, state, province, city, etc. But you will be forced to take up residence in another RL economy to take its place. In economics they call it the “opportunity cost”, which is your time investment in your city/state/country – which is thrown away.

You’re correct that these days, with hundreds and hundreds of game-hours invested in a game, the cost can be compared in a parallel manner to leaving a city/state/country you’ve invested in. This is especially true as many people these days are less involved in their township/local politics than they are involved in their online community.

On Comment #3, that IS a clearer currency exchange. In gameUSD the sidebar is the way to navigate, and its confusing and sometimes dead-ends. Thanks for the information.

WoW’s economy is also based on game designer commoditization of goods, whereas in Second Life the users run amok. :-) The only thing that Linden Lab does commoditize is ‘land’, per se – and they have yet to deal with that subject in a manner which demonstrates that they are interested in preserving the value of the land. Thus, the only true farming which can be done in Second Life is probably the use of landbots and/or 16 m plots of land used to extort money from other users. The significance of these to the Second Life user base has yet to be determined, but people are consistently becoming more vocal along these lines.

The artificial construct of stock exchanges and/or banks could also be considered farming. Basically, creating goods and then making them rare or more attractive to purchase (through good marketing or bad) appears to be the Second Life farmer’s guide. But instead of simply causing prices to go up or down, unlike WoW, this costs other people actual money… and that is where Linden Lab will eventually find itself in hot water if it does not change its approach.

Taran has a point about the cost of leaving a game. In a sense it is like leaving a business. It will no longer produce anything, and eventually shut down.

I do agree that in game currency can only go so far within a video game. However there are also less limitations in a game. Controlling a particular server’s whole economy is fairly easy once you have the gold to do so, and setup a type of monopoly. Doing so in real life however has consequences with anti-monopoly laws etc.

Virtual currency for games like World of Warcraft is a black market, because of the the TOS. However the market can only exist, because of the demand for the virtual good. I don’t recall seeing the same news articles done about farmers for the game Second Life. However that game can be just as profitable to people if done correctly, and still be well within Second Life’s TOS.

I used to be one of those purists you mentioned for World of Warcraft. Currently I’m just another one of those people that would be heckled by the purist community for ‘ruining the game’.

Where a money “feature” is integrated too closely into a game, expect trouble. It should have separate TOS for example. Where a money is described as a “not money” then examine the contradiction. Game developers may dominate the users on knowledge of game development, but they won’t beat them on money.

When you say that the difference between a real and virtual economy is one’s ability to leave – I don’t believe that is true. Certainly, in a legal sense one can leave a virtual economy (and for the record, the same can be done with a real economy). Yet leaving a virtual economy comes at a cost – just as leaving a real world economy incurs a cost.