arstechnica.com — A controversial bill proposed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in South Korea aims to control the exchange of virtual currency. Described by the deputy-director of the ministry's Game Industry Division as an attempt to "tighten regulations on hazardous gambling activities," the bill would prohibit the sale and purchase of virtual currency...
Dec 27, 2006 View in Crawl 4
safetyhelmetDec 28, 2006
Supporting BS regulations like this will just lead to worse things. Let people do what they will with their time, and especially their money. After all, they're the ones who earned it.Besides, what idiot politician thinks that blocking access to this growing market will solve anything? Someone else will just fill the need.
lyph4Dec 28, 2006
How is it a GOOD thing that everything is taxed to death?! You say it not getting taxed is bad? WTF?
rumataDec 28, 2006
Believe it or not, this is not so far fetched as to only be possible in a "far-away country like Korea". I saw an article recently about US Senate seriously looking into taxation of virtual assets (or, more specifically, any real-world money you make from the sale of virtual assets). Now that's obviously not as brutal as simply forbidding it outright, but the point stands - today's governments are becoming increasingly aware of virtual economies. Brace yourselves.p.s. btw, technically speaking, most MMOs' Terms & Conditions say that the game publisher retains all rights on all virtual content created in the game. Notable exceptions to the rule are Second Life and Entropia.
rumataDec 28, 2006
there is no problem with 'virtual value' and 'virtual trade'. But an issue arises when Joe Millionaire can buy 100,000 virtual dollars with 10,000 real ones. Now there is real money involved - and where there is real money there are capitalists, taxes, fees and all that wonderful stuff we all love to hate.
rumataDec 28, 2006
Not necessarily - you put the burden on the game publishers, and simply monitor for violations. Once their wallets are on the line, believe me, they will get it done real quick. They own the code after all :)
15charmaxwtfDec 28, 2006
Yea, might it be easier because the world is controlled from a few servers?Crazy, corrupt politicians will medal with anything. Either they are extremely ignorant and foolish or incredibly arrogant.
rumataDec 28, 2006
Yes, that's the real crux of the matter. It's really a question of freedoms. This law helps games like WoW which do not have microtransactions and make money off monthly fees. But games like Second Life are all about the real-to-virtual currency exchange - and WANT to be that way. This kind of law would basically put games like Second Life out of existence alltogether (in their present form, anyway), since they are largely driven by the existence of a real-to-virtual exchange.
skyfire1Dec 28, 2006
I hope one day a game like Oblivion becomes online so I can steal from the farmers.
richuserDec 1, 2007
LOL!<a class="user" href="http://www.officiallyforex.com">http://www.officiallyforex.com</a>