The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

[ScratchMonkey]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/ma...W6gg1Es5cp2UGw

It's interesting to see the ire that WoW players hold for gold farmers. With Eve, the game company freely trades in-game currency for out-of-game currency, and you can even pay for your gaming with your farming.

[Acreo Aeneas]

There's discussion in Congress about passing legislature to tax the revenue made by "gold" miners online.

[ScratchMonkey]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

There's discussion in Congress about passing legislature to tax the revenue made by "gold" miners online.

That's shocking! Next you'll tell me they want to increase spending!

[Switch]

lol.. yea, those game economies are stronger than some actual ones.

[Trooper]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

There's discussion in Congress about passing legislature to tax the revenue made by "gold" miners online.

Yes because our congress has done such a great job at everything else leaving nothing else to discuss but online game revenue.

[War.mongeR1]

Originally Posted by Trooper

Yes because our congress has done such a great job at everything else leaving nothing else to discuss but online game revenue.

There's a war being waged in the middle east and congress is worried about WoW gold? That's crazy.

[Ferris Bueller]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

There's discussion in Congress about passing legislature to tax the revenue made by "gold" miners online.

Well, with some games, this might be possible. However, with games like EVE, which is based in Iceland, how do you tax people, regardless of nationality? My paypal account, which is where my money for my EVE subscription comes from, has no address. If they want to tax american citizens who play the game, I challenge them to figure out who it is thats playing it without gaining access to the financial records of the company (which wont ever happen) in order to see who is paying for it. Dont even bother saying they could trace IP addresses, thats what proxies are made for (not to mention the fact that tracing and recording the IP logs of every american citizen to see if theyre playing a "taxable" game would be a huge breach of privacy and require more resources than the government could possibly manage).

The simple answer is that they cant tax it. Although many game companies frown on gold farmers, they allow it because it generates huge amounts of revenue. I'm also sure that if the revenue were to stop by some legislation which tried to tax it, the game companies would simply relocate internationally to a place that doesnt have to abide by US legislation.

It's just another way of the government thinking they can control the internet. Wrong wrong wrong.

EDIT: Also, watch what you say about EVE and trading RL cash for in-game funds, because it's not entirely true. You can purchase game time cards (which allow you to play for X amount of days) and can "sell" those on the EVE forums for in-game money (there is a very strict set of rules for doing so, and breaking those rules gets you in trouble with the admins). Buying in-game money through a third party, such as a gold farming site, or ebay, is a violation of the terms of service for the game and will get you banned REALLY quick if/when you get caught. Besides, if you look at the difference in price, a quick ebay search yields $20 USD for 50 million ISK (in-game money for eve). A $40 USD game time card will get you what, 300 million ISK on the forums and is perfectly legal? Yeah...

[Wulfyn]

Eve differs in that trading of in game currency for real currency is strictly prohibited, and will result in your account being banned. It is possible to get around this slightly by purchasing game time cards from CCP (the company that runs Eve) via a reseller, and then trading these for in game currency. However note that this is a one way deal: you cannot buy GTCs with in game currency and sell them for real life currency in a secure mass-market way. CCP is very careful to note that all in game 'assets' remain the property of CCP.

This is important for two reasons. Firstly it means that you cannot sue CCP for damages if your account is banned, as you have not lost anything (your character belongs to CCP afterall). Secondly it also means that no matter how much in game wealth you accumulate, according to the EULA you are not getting any richer, and thus cannot be taxed.


Other MMOs, such as Second Life, however do have a free trade between in game currency and real life currency, and thus are, in my opinion, strong candidates for taxation. It makes you really understand the fragility of real world economies when you can establish an exchange rate between real money and virtual money.

[ScratchMonkey]

Originally Posted by Wulfyn

It makes you really understand the fragility of real world economies when you can establish an exchange rate between real money and virtual money.

I don't know if "fragile" is the right word.

Currency is just a measure of value. The strength of a currency reflects how well it can be used to "park" value between the release of real assets and the aquisition of other new assets.

The fact that you can exchange real and virtual currencies just means that the virtual currency does have real value, that people holding such currency can use it to enhance their life. As game players, we all know this is true. We enjoy playing our games, and choose to do so over "real life" activities, indicating a valuation over real life.