Topic: MMORPG Economics (Read 359 times)

There are many online games that use in-game monies to support the trade of virtual goods and accounts. Their EULAs tend to enforce a policy that this in-game money does not convert to RL currency because they could be exposed to "money laundering" accusations. Here's the thing: they are GLOBAL games, and as such are already violating international laws by allowing users to behave in ways that may be offending these laws. For instance, some countries have morality or anti-defamation laws that are easily violated by users. That exposes the games themselves to accusations. Some games have had to resort to requiring identification and background checks before allowing players. Money Laundering and morality (not ethics) laws are antithetical to the marketplace of ideas of a global village. There is no evidence that the infinitesimally small MMORPG market can have any significant influence whatsoever on any global criminal statistic. In fact, these communities are player driven and quite good at self-policing such behaviors.

If games are global, they deserve to be open to the global marketplace of ideas which includes their economy. It's up to the individual nations to police the behavior of its citizens, not the responsibility of the rest of the world. The games themselves can control their economics as they see fit, but they cannot afford to police the world, nor should they.

If games do not open up their economies to outside game trading, then solutions will be found to bypass their game economics completely. Proof-of-burn can be used in any game that uses APIs to verify the wealth of a character account. This type of side-chain can be used to generate outside-game tokens that can then be exchanged for fiat money and recycled back into the game. It would require these APIs be recorded and verified by a blockchain before the company deletes the data, which would take several blocks at the very least because the data is hashed. Businesses would charge a small fee for the exchange services. Industries have already grown around game communications to bypass morality laws. Teamspeak and many other game assistance apps are widely available to encourage free speech. Free gaming economics is next.