Slashdot Mirror
There.com's Virtual World & Economy
I)ruid writes "Unlike the virtual economies that have sprung forth from EverQuest, other MMORPG's, and sites such as eBay, this virtual world's economy is actually supported by its creators. Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy? Only time will tell..." We did a previous story on There (a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it).
I tried it and liked it. any one else? just downloaded the "dev" kits last week . . . .
If you can buy wholesale and sell to people on ebay for above retail, yes, you could make a living.
I'm trying just that. Some people that buy on ebay are just nuts. I hope to find them.
The "normal" economy is based on perception of wealth and value rather than accumulation of rare metals. Why should this be any less viable? [beyond the fact that it's perception will be weaker because it's "new"]
I think I might prefer The Hollywood Stock Exchange.
From the previous story, you can find There here.
--
...Real World !
Don't know what versions we are currently at, but it's free, runs fine, and is fun (most of the time anyway)...
No upgrades needed, though technical support isn't always that great...
Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy?
As long as there enough miserable bastards to dump all their cash into their online "life", sure. Just don't count on too many well-adjusted patrons.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Riddled with bugs, a ridiculously bad interface implementation, and a lagging user-base, Project Entropia is otherwise the first MMOG where you can make money playing a game like this. Of course, I've yet to hear of anyone actually succeeding in that gambit -- as I'd imagine that they all quit playing in disgust long before then.
I lost my job playing that stupid game! It's the reason the real economy is doing so badly! :)
I think the real catch would be exchanging the virtual items for real dollar-value items in the physical world. If you could sell the "ring of zelda" (or what have you) for 500 real dollars, then people could most certainly make money... also, that would probably bring about a huge hacking effort to obtain said items for free, then sell them.
stuff |
Business 2.0 would just go away. Suits read this garbage and believe every word in this rag. These and the people like them are responsible for the 'New Economy' stock market bubble and all of the BS that went along with it.
:)
Besides, Business 2.0 is so '1999'
This google search returns the proper link as the first one. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF -8&q=%22There%22
The biggest problem with this system is it just makes it so much easier to do fraud.
Look at everquest, when that bug was found that gave you millions of dollars. The inflation became absolutely rampant, and many people who didn't have the millions to survive the inflation were screwed.
And now these guys are offering way to convert your real money to and from fake money so you can buy nonexistant products? I so see this being a major economical security risk. Especially since there is no guarantees anywhere on the money, and all it would take is a simple bug and the entire economy of "There" would basically become meaningless.
~ kjrose
Poster of the article is a moron.
Can't search on there? wtf.
First hit on google is, go figure, there.com.
Nope, doesn't work, can't do it.
No Comment.
Try Celebdaq. Its run by the BBC and it actually has its own TV show on BBC3...
:-)
Entertaining for a while - like a month or two. Still - I made a killing from Cilla and Jacko
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
I beta tested there and really dug it but I did have a problem. The game is more than willing to take your money, but there is no way to transfer "there-bucks" into hard cash. I wanted to set up shop and sell virtual wares using the dev kit but all it does is give my avatar money, not me.
I think that is the biggest problem.
What makes IM and e-mail so useful? The ability to do other things with your computer while chatting. With it's "robust graphical enviroment" I don't see how you could surf the web and talk at the same time.
Sadly, I think microsoft has the right idea with their next generation IM.
Another draw back of this is it seems to be a huge marketing focus group that you pay to be in. I hope the dot com bust has taught us one thing. People are adverse to experiances that are centered on marketing.
The only way this thing ever works is if they create a "light" client that is like regular IM so you could still chat with your friends and work.
Have you ever actually calculated how much you'd make for that?
I know guys who have sold their characters for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
They could have made MORE money had they used those gazillion hours to flip burgers.
Put the word there in double quotes and you can search on it.
You can search for words that are normally ignored by quoting them, just like you can rm files with spaces in their names by escaping them :D
Search for "There" Results 1 - 10 of about 212,000,000 :P
First match was There.com
You can also use +There instead of "There". Saves a character
The above result was from Google, but most search engines I've used work this way.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Signed up for the Beta test months ago, got "accepted", then not heard a dicky bird since.
No Comment.
People are very confusing animals and I suppose the transaction you describe could occur but, hopefully, it will always remain on the fringe of normal society.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I just graduated Carnegie Mellon for scientific computing. Use of computers to help people research cures and stuff... Maybe its the fact people make billions of dollars selling drugs for a disease, they have no real desire for a cure.
I don't know, I just know shits fucked beyond belief.
Who's starting the revolution? I'm willing to die for the cause since I don't have anything to lose.
God spoke to me
I simply used the autoit script and wrote my own "pindlebot" after I saw what could be done by people with bad intensions. My rating on ebay is flawless and i'm sure that many people are enjoying the 3 legitimate windforces I sold them along with the many other things.
Of course now that all you have to do is download the program, you can't make a dime off diablo2.
Hopefully the 1.10 patch with fix that if indeed it isn't vaporware.
I'm not sure abstracting one's family is a good thing.
Right now, it's two-income households and daycare, where good family time is essentially non-existant.
Now, that almost non-existant family time is virtualized. Just wonderful.
Why do so many people strive for these things?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
"Melcher informs all within hearing distance that There is a "getaway" and not a "game.""
Bullshit bullshit. It's a 3d chatroom with a store not a gateway. The amount of corporate scripture these guys put out makes me want to hurl. The business plan blows, you can mod me down if you want to, but I can't get excited about a virtual store in my 3d chat room. I won't be a customer.
Now combine I.M.ing, file sharing, web-caming, internet radio, and a shared input space like I've heard three degrees is going to do, and I might get excited. Might.
Are retailers going to be able to set up virutal shops? Are there going to be virtual cyberprostitute rings? And just as importantly... are there going to be virtual cops?
A virtual economy is a lot more than a virtual mall. It is not a marketplace, it's an environment within which a marketplace gets built.
Virtual taxes. Virtual income. Do you earn an income in it, or is this a one-way economy, like everquest, with people pouring money in left and right? Because frankly, i can think of better ways to spend my money than on the entrance fee to a virtual playground, where i then get to buy virtual stuff with real money. (Do virtual goods have a depreciation schedule?)
Another good question would be whether a 'virtual economy' which does not permit free enterprise is an economy at all- can i set up a virtual shop, selling, say, modifications like armor, and make real money? Does money come back out for anyone other than the marketers and the owners?
In other words- how does this differ from a 'sims you can pay for' model??? In a real online virtual economy, we'd be able to sell each other game mods that let us, say, change our environment (virtual landscapers) or up our quality of life (virtual just about everything else) and it would be the geeks who made the most money. This is not likely to be permitted... this looks more like a toy than anything else. We're not there yet, put down the mouse and go back to the Gibson novels... *sigh*
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
I was in on the beta test for There. (yeah, who wasn't.) The entire premise of the 'game' is that you pay the company a monthy fee to play, and then you put real money into the company's bank account in exchange for a certain amount of "ThereBucks" which you can use to buy crap in their fake world.
The engine is crappy, the interface is worse, the premise is flawed and expensive, and the game is based around trying to look cool.
You can't edit anything in the world, you can't create anything, you can just buy stuff. it's like a virtual mall.
Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because i heard it was going to be like the Metaverse in Snowcrash.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
...when some virtual government tries to tax it.
Like many dot-coms of yore, the game There seems to have a slight identity crisis. The title on their web site reads "Welcome to There.com!". So is the game named There.com? Or is it just the web site that is named There.com? (The company name is There Inc. and navigation refers to the game as just There.)
Anyway, if you search for There.com on Google, you do get just the single hit for their web site.
"And we sit there, around the bar, just talking," I was saying. The talk floats up over their heads in chat balloons. "I get $1000 for the night" her voice rings out through computer speakers. Other sounds drift in from the street, where the drugs aren't quite the same as in the real world, but, thanks to the physics programmed into the system, it's convincing enough ...
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Can't wait to get my avatar to hook up with some girls in a hot tub. All I have to do is...
Excuse me, real girls are around, bbl.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
(a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it)
.com doesn't bring up anything, you proceed on to .org and .net, and any others you thing might pop up. this works great for business urls, like airlines and such.
can't search on it? has everyone forgotten the tried and true url name game? you simply type www.'whateveryouaresearchingfor'.com and see if it pops up. i thought everybody did this...
and, of course, if
there's no "there" there.
sulli
RTFJ.
This is mildly off-topic, but interesting none-the-less.
/. that plays EQ ever thought of this. I'd love to hear another explantion, but this is the only thing I can come up with. I also can't believe they haven't been caught yet..which almost gives credit to the theory that Sony is actually behind these auction...something to think about.
When it comes to making real life money through EQ, I think I've come across a scam that's gotta have one hell of a profit margin. I can't be the first guy to ever think of this, but I've yet to find any information about it online.
On playerauctions.com, you can buy in game money for RL money. I've had a friend do this and much to my surprise after he completed the transaction, he alt-tabbed back into the game and the guy was handing him the money.
At any given time their is about 3 million platinum pieces being sold, per server, in amounts ranging from 10k to 100k. To those that don't play, this is an astrinomical amount of money. Most of the end game uber guilds don't have this much in their treasury. It's a mind-blowing amount of money. Now as someone that has played EQ for 2 years, I can tell you their is no way that you could put together 3 mil in a day. The uber guilds MIGHT be able to liquidate all their droppable gear plus their collective amount of money and squeeze out 3 mil, but after that it would probably take them a month or 2 to scrape together that amount of cash again.
Their are macro programs that basically use a script to walk your avatar between a weapons/armor forge and the metal dealer where your guy makes something that sells back to the merchant for a few bucks more than the materials cost, showing a slight profit each time. This idea is out as well because it would take weeks to do this, and the same guy working a forge for 2 weeks straight MIGHT arouse suspicion.
My friends and I have given serious thought to how
someone is able to put together this much cash day in and day out. The ONLY explanation that makes ANY sense is that GM's are using their power to summon money but the boatloads, giving it to anonymous alt characters, and raking in the fat cash. The money on playerauctions.com is ALWAYS being bid on, and I estimate that they're pulling about 1k-1.5k real money EVERYDAY from this practice. That's 100% profit as well.
Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to see if anyone
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
So it looks like "there" world is one that will be inhabited only by those who have chosen(?) to use Microsoft's products. According to the hardware compatability page, you can only join this real^H^H^H^H virtual world if you're running some newer version of Windows (98SE or newer, no Win95 or Win98 or WinNT). The CPU, RAM, and hard drive requirements are relatively onerous as well.
... whoot!).
So if I use UNIX or Linux or a Mac (or all three!), I guess I'm outta luck (though they're "working on" a Mac beta for 2004
Based on what I read of the product, I think I'll take my chances in the real world instead and see how things pan out.
-rob.
I have been in There since January and I really love it. I haven't spent any *real money* and I am already up about 50% in T$. I just started working as an escort for Daelis Entertainment and hope to make T$ at that.
There is very addicting!
scarr@prod.there.com
Like the beaver, it's just Dam one thing after another
I simply can't believe the editors would misspell "there." Perhaps you typed "their?"
EverQuest and its brethren have railed against the virtual marketplace, usually because it creates support issues ("he robbed me, the check bounced, give me my character back!"). It also creates major gameplay imbalances, some complain; however, the whole idea of an ever-expanding micro-economy has major inflation issues, so get over it.
I've always assumed the better model would be for EverQuest to design in an escrow facility. Mark your account (or property) as escrowed, and the game system will lock access to the property until both parties are satisfied with the escrow. It's what, another bit flag per tradable object? And since there's money changing hands, the game hosts can (1) shave some profit for their escrow service, (2) limit trades to game economy or service economy or legal tender, as desired, (3) flag traded characters so the players recognize "under new playership" situations, as desired, and (4) rid themselves of the bulk of the problem in policing swindles.
[
What are you talking about? Of course you can search for it, you just need to know Google's syntax. Search for "There" WITH the quotes. First result in!
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
There there, Michael. There shouldn't be any reason that There wouldn't be searchable. There are PLENTY of different ways on that there search engine that There could be found. There might be a way to find There using other attributes of There. Though you have to watch out for spelling problems; there might be difficulties with their they're and their, for example. So THERE!
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy?
I'm sure it's no more difficult than making a real life living in a real economy. Now pardon me, I have to get back to collecting aluminium cans to turn in so I can afford a packet of instant ramen.
It must fail. It's Windows only.
Ultima Online had the money dupe bug that made almost everyone millionaries. EQ has a decpreciating ecomony.
shouldn't that be "you're" all idiots?
You reek. Even your trolling is boring. Log off now.
Personally I'd like to see an open-source collaboration to create such a world, with virtual civic duties and councils. By its very nature, it would be immensely democratic. There would even be a place for capitalism too, with donations = vr money.
Lastly, having a virtual "club med" would be cool for a short time, but it wouldn't have the long-term appeal that say, being a virtual farmer or fisherman would have.
2)As long as I have to use a keyboard and a mouse, a virtual world will feel exceedingly so. Give me some sensors that I can tape to my arms and some vr goggles. THEN come to me about your virtual world.
buy becoming a usery yourself, you would only contribute to the currently almost overwhelming discrepencIE between what is real (in a economics sense), & what is so fauxking phonIE, that it should not/never have been, counted as a useful entity, that contributes, as well as sucks.
keep bulleaving that the phonIE payper liesense hostage ransom stock markup (NO value added) bullshipping industrIE, is working for US, & we'll remain in a non-progressive state (living in/on a ?pr? fairytail(tm)), for at least a decade, buy design.
lookout bullow. we're praying for all of us.
You can't eat virtual food, sleep in a virtual bed, live in a virtual house. Your virtual personas may be able to, but you can't. Thus, I tend to view the point at which virtual items enter the real world economy as the sale of entertainment value. You are, through your effort of 'producing' a virtual item, creating an entertainment value, which you can sell in the real world.
It's a bit arbitrary, since by making this distinction, I'm saying, "It's not 'real' because if everyone produced virtual things, we'd all die." That's true for cars and boats, but they're tangible.
That said, you can definitely make a thriving living in the real world. I have one friend making $100k/yr+ selling diablo 2 items, and he has 2 employees now to keep up. However, part of the problem is that the trade in D2 items relies on bugs. The marginal value to an item you can acquire with a certain amount of time is FAR too low. But if you can produce a hundred copies of an otherwise $80-value item in only a few hours of exploiting server software, you've made substantial money, and that's how the virtual sales economy works - at least with respect to D2.
It does lead to a lot of funny thoughts. Virtual world muggings to acquire (and sell) virtual currency to real world people? Virtual world territory wars?
Moreover, as supply catches up with demand in virtual worlds where there is no wealth attrition (no maintenance costs, as it were), new worlds open and provide budding markets for our virtual world entrepreneurs.
One interestin question is: would producing virtual items out of thin air wreck the 'integrity' of 'honestly earned' items? In a world where software developers sometimes claim it is hard to keep a business afloat, will we see things far more aggressive than what EQ has done? Will we see outright sale of virtual things? The game creators will always have the ability to undercut people who have to produce what they sell. By thoroughly monopolizing the market, they might even force competition out any time it rises, then return to a higher pricing model. Or imagine a developer who uses a restrictive license to confiscate virtual items of known sellers/harvesters, bans them from the world, essentially disenfranchising them of their virtual wealth, in order to eliminate the competition.
Certainly an interesting trend, and already a profitable business for a few.
I love how the author describes this futuristic virtual world where everyone is a walking, talking, gesturing 3-D caricature but yet voice chat is limited due to bandwidth.
"See, when they move their hand, their avatar moves its hand! And as you turn your head, you can actually see everything that's around you! What? You want to HEAR what they're saying? Sorry, you'll have to use the 100 year old telephone."
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
The ambition of the There people is evidently much grander than simply being a game. I think that there is a place for creating a virtual space which will draw in people looking for a good way to communicate and engage in meetings that would otherwise have to take place in meat space.
I've played text-based muds and online games, and the potential for other apps has always made me interested -- rules for interaction and "laws" are really the primary problems, as the many posts here indicate already.
A few years ago, I figured that it would be just as easy to take something like an existing game environment, such as Quake, and mod it sufficiently to remove things like weapons and the like. Just put together a space where people can talk and interact with more than just text or voice.
I think that something of that nature is inevitable and somebody will make it work. I think that the way it will have to be set up is as a set of protocols rather than as a unified metaverse. Each person with a server (could be distributed like Napster) could join his/her world to whole with reciprocal agreements to determine where and with whom you connect your space. Agreements could be included in client programs and the servers about who can come in or go out. Other people have surely thought of these things already -- I'm sure that there are a million ways to do this.
This is an idea that will come. Patents will come. I think an effort to try to lay the groundwork for keeping the technologies open for use ought to be going on right now, if it isn't too late.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Doesn't seem to be very playable -- is the point of "There" (what a terrible name) to just buy brand name goods? How is it a game? You can't create anything, you can't change the world, and if you can't adventure or complete tasks/quests to get more currency, why is it any fun? And why am I going to spend my time buying things in a virtual world when I can buy them in the real one, if they both cost real-world money?
It's unfortunate that articles in Business 2.0 humor me more often than they are useful or interesting.
what you describe has already been done/is working well.
what y'all ALWAYS MiSs in the assessment, is that it's been done without motive of personal gain.
that said, it's fine to go about finding ways to interact/commerce, on a fair open level, in the brand gnu wwworld.
as use-you-all dough, the FIRST to present what's already available for free, with a profit motive, would tend to raise suspicions. look for the value added(tm) feechurn(tm), before you enter your hardearned into the mix.
How long until...
The first money hack...
The first money hack that gets prosecuted outside of the game
The first mafia/gang/organized crime ring entirely within the game
The first prosecuted money laundering scheme involving the game
The first lawsuit brought against the company
The first information hack (CC, Name, address, etc)
The first murder attempt inside the game (are they going to ban guns? What happens with kitchen knives?)
The first murder hack inside the game, after they dull kitchen knives
The first real life attempted or commited murder by an individual who only knew the victim through the game
The first hack that allows players to chat without the system monitoring communication (Hello, big brother), yet still be in the same environment and have the same level of anonymity
If you make a game that involves power (in this case, freedom from death and most societal repurcussions, and the ability to move real money) without accountability, then you cannot have something that resembles the 'real' world, because these things are inherent in the real world.
It'll take the failure of many of these games, plus much better graphics (3d) and audio before we find out how a virtual world that closely mimics our own will really work.
-Adam
Christ! Look at all those posts, what a sad bastard!
He should get out more. Shower first though.
When I saw this, I said to myself:
"Can I, as a programmer, design new stuff in-simulation and profit off of it?"
(Open question)
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
I don't see virtual wardrobes as a big moneymaker, especially since alot of people are going to want to design their own or just download free stuff. This article reminded me of the punditry of ten years ago when authors like Joshua Quitner wrote in the New York Times about how people could get rich selling sports scores for 5 cents a mouse click.
So what would I be willing to pay for ? A telepresence that accurately conveyed my voice and facial expression in a setting with real world level of detail. And low low flat rate pricing with no hidden charges or extra fees. I don't expect it to be easier to make money in a virtual world than it is on the web.
Unless there is something akin to free trade available, wouldn't the virtual economy fail for similar reasons as government or business based central planning, in the style of the Soviet Union or a capitalist system permeated by monopolies? Or does There think that those systems could work (in their reality, at least) and they can do better?
Sure, essential goods are nonexistent and everything else can be replicated endlessly (by the 'government'), but the bottom line has to be that roleplaying in an open and free-trade style world is going to be more interesting than going to the monopoly-owned store for everything.
I have been beta testing There since the public beta opened. It's really hard to give you an idea of the scope of this system and its potential, but I'll try. (I call it a system because it's not a game by any means.)
First of all, the engine they have created is absolutely astounding. There are no "different servers" or "different maps" in There. It's all one place. Everyone is in There at once. The planet is literally the size of Earth in terms of scale, and actually is a sphere. Let me say that again, the planet is a sphere. In terms of scale, you can zoom seamlessly all the way from a view from orbit down to the lava lamp on the desk in your house.
Many "large environment" engines tend to use fog as a way of not rendering terrain a certain distance away from you. There has no such "fog". You can be literally miles away and see mountains in the distance on the horizon. Then, you can actually travel to those mountains, having them get larger and clearer as you get nearer to them. Movement from one area to another is totally seamless.
People who hadn't actually used There commmented in the earlier Slashdot post that this was not even close to a step towards an actual working metaverse. But, man, I have to tell you. After two months of using There, it's is such a huge leap toward an actual working metaverse that I actually felt a sense of relief almost when I realized what kind of potential this system has. It was relief that someone had actually created a working system that brought to life many of the aspects of what a working metaverse must have.
Another area I have to touch on is the immersiveness of There. First off, the avatar animations are absolutely astounding. They are the most polished, consistent, and realistic avatars I've seen. They respond to what you type, nodding when you say things like "yup", "yes", "yeah", etc., or actually laughing when you type "lol". Most other 3D chat systems are simply IRC with a superfluous add-on of a 3D avatar. In There, the avatars actually for an integral part of the conversation in terms of getting your message across and how it is received.
Another incredible aspect of There is user-created content. With an area literally the size of a planet, There, Inc. does not expect to fill it all with content the There artists and developers come up with. While currently only partially released to the public, the developer's kit will actually allow you to create any kind of object you want and program it to act how you want. Some people want horses. With the dev-kit, you can actually make them, and ride them.
In terms of the economy, they have done many things right. First of all, there is an integrated auctioning system, removing the need for a 3rd-party method of transaction, such as EBay. Will people spend money on a system like this? Yes. I have talked to literally dozens of people who have spent $60+ in There, all of which have never spent money on online games and had all vowed they never would. They all feel it was well-spent. They really are doing something right.
Finally, it's not a game. It's an online social environment. The capabilities of the system are incredible. You have have games inside There, but it's not limited to that. It would be like saying your car is a very big radio. To give you an example, a game like EverQuest, in its entirety, could exist within the There system. Games are simply a sub-set of the system.
I could go on for pages and pages about There and its potential. Suffice to say, it's really hard to knock it unless you've actually tried it and really explored its depths. It has vast potential, and I have no qualms about saying it could be considered The Metaverse v.01b, and I'm such a hardcore geek that you'd have to really floor me to get me to even compare something to a real, working metaverse.
This is a rip off of The Sims Online,
scientists discover it is possible to make a earn a living while inhabiting a fantasy world, just as long as one is willing to wear Star Trek uniforms to work and insist on being referred to as 'Commander'. Film at 11.
... in P2P and open source, creating a gift economy,
not with one monopolistic company wanting to extend an exchange economy*, no matter how good and benevolent they are.
The world is for all to create.
* and during this time, GWB is trying to transform USoA in a command economy...
"...based on the idea of what we think it is worth."
You have just explained the concept of the 'worth' of anything.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Melcher, in short, has erected an impressive architecture of profit, grounded solidly in the foundation of consumer revenues.
What garbage. You pay $10 a month, and then have the priviledge of purchasing additional consumer goods with real money. Who honestly cares if an avatar is wearing Levis or just.....blue polygons?
I do not believe we will see a true metaverse until Open Source developers go for that grail. Why? Because every effort we've seen so far is about profit generation -- and the field has a long, long, long way to go before consumers will pay to do a half-assed version of what they do in real life.
Who created the metaverse in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash -- businesses, or hackers?
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Take a look at www.thereuniverse.com for more info on this.
Actualy, the "real-virtual economy" has already been done.
... they were raided in 2002 with the help of M$ for having pirated software:
0 .html
http://www.project-entropia.com
Project Entropia will have a real economy system that allows you as a user to exchange real life money into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and then back into a real currency again.
The game was release last month (or so), but the company (MindArk) is pretty much a joke
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53534,0
The whole real-virtual economy thing sounds more like a bad gimmick than a viable feature...
_f
My wife got into the There beta, and was all set to install the software, when it informed her that Internet Explorer was required to play the game. She let them know (in an email sent from Mozilla) that she had no intention of installing using IE just to play a game.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I play UO, not EQ, but the same system exists there.
As I understand it, there are two sources for this money, the first is plain buying it. The people who run the site know the "exchange rate" on their different servers, and simple offer a lesser amount to sell to them directly, and/or watch eBay auctions for profitable trades.
The other source, and an interesting side benefit, is cross-server transactions. If you have 20 plat on Ballhae, and want to move it to your character on Yahona, then you contact them. Based on the different economies of the shards (in UO, older shards have more inflation), they give you an exchange rate, and charge 10% of the transaction. So your 20 plat on Ballhae turns into 18 plat after the transaction, which (if the exchange rate is 1:1) is given to your Yahona character.
The fee they collect from that is then directly offered for sale.
Other variations on this theme (large item brokering, etc) can help people with money and trust (and time) make more money.
The only thing its really missing is investing, but there aren't enough consequences to make this really viable. Skipping out on character-to-character in-game money loans doesn't involve hiding from the virtual authorities, it just involves taking the money and saying "stfu!".
Granted, if you had a huge guild or something, you could possibly enforce this with some kind of 'blacklist', but I haven't heard of it working.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
I didn't notice the article mentioned anything but a one-way transfer of US currency into There's virtual currency. I spent a little time consulting at There (ah, the boom years) and can vouch for the fact that they are very aware of the problems of inflation creating bugs, people's nostalgic attachment to virtual items without compounding these issues by allowing two-way currency conversions. I am sure they are already considering how to handle the inevitable complaint that the server "ate my widget and you owe me $3.55" under the current one-way dollars to ThereBucks conversion.
i wrote 2 replies one at slashdot, one at kuro5hin. i had backups.
and somehow i simulttaneaously logged out in kuro5hin and closed the remaining 3 windows, with regular keystrokes. wtf.
i'll spare you most of the points and get to the meat. according to the article, this system is designed by the military, to harbour communictation between "assymetric" groups such as terrorist orginizations...and i think this everyone should pay attention to. these people want to replace irc, email, and the telephone forms of communication with this massive overbloat stuff : but that's not important. what is important about them doing this is that the military will have complete control over the form of communication, in this case. at least with email you can know at least to an extent who is seeing your mail...and ditto with irc....but a system partially funded by the military? iidono. creeps me out.
on the other hand... there is big differences between buying cobalt armour[a pragmatic object in a _game_] and a pair of virtual jeans that will NOT make you look any less ugly.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
yes
Looked at the article, copied-pasted the first bit into Google, and wooha! It works.
Google search: "There Inc."
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553 380958/104-2158378-1745532?vi=glance
Great read if you havent read it yet. A reality where VR holds more importance than reality itself.
Try it. People shell out cash like mad, and they're not maladjusted. It's a fun thing to do. If you think that only psychos are willing to shell out cash, your social model needs a revamp.
I know plenty who are "normal" people and who have put in money.
Winning a console never hurt anyone http://guildhall.smu.edu
I've got an Avatar in the There beta and the economy has to be my least favorite part of the experience. Given, this is only beta so hopefuly we'll see some changes but heres how it works: Every player was given 10,000 there bucks to start. Theres a wide variety of stuff to purchase from the there store. The problem is that almost everything has the same price. A Buggy, a Hoverboard, and a dog all range around 9,000-10,000 there bucks. A Tshirt costs 2,000-5,000 there bucks. I have never gone to a dealership and picked up a buggy or even a plain old manual powere bicycle for around the cost of a shirt and a pair of pants. The economy in there is flaky at best. This is just a personal opinion of course, and I know people are already spending money on there bucks, but at least in EQ and other similar online games, there was a general value of virtual money felt by players, but I still can't figure out what a there buck's worth.
Will I be able to participate in a virtual universe within the virtual universe?
Cause I'm might need a distraction from the virtual world.... And will I have to spend virtual money for that?
http://www.neopets.com
has a virtual world where you use a virtual currency to buy items for your pets & fairy quests.
Years ago ('99) it had an auction system comparable to ebay (in both volume and sophistication), a store-builder comparable to yahoo stores; etc. Hundreds of thousands of kids play regularly. It's an amazing unknown success of the
Interestingly, 10-15 year old kids started createing consulting services in their chat rooms to build the HTML for a virtual "neostore" for other players in exchange for items worth many "neopoints".
At least for DAOC and Funcom.
One guy auctioned infinate gold on every server during a time where if ANYONE put up an auction they got banned within a day.
I did the math, guy was making over $150,000 a month.
God spoke to me
It may be the LSA and THC, but I believe that this would be illegal because it's the same as forgery. If a 'Ring of Zelda' is worth 500 USD, then peoplee will try to electronically forge these rings. Even if they aren't hacked, it's like printing money. Rings are generated with no resources being put into them. It's just like electronically adding 500 USD into your bank account. Hell, I use to sell shit on diablo II before the virtual economy went to shit due to hacks and such.
--ShadeS
I can tell by your fact-void posts that bush-bash that you are just trying to convince yourself of something. I really wish we could find another alternative to partisonship and talking monkeys trying to sound intelligent but until that time comes we will have to all put up with mindless sheep like yourself. There were good reasons not to go to war with Iraq, I doubt you have ever factored those in (or even heard of them). America is not the world policeman and should only attack what is a clear and present danger. This is lightly repeated by the sheep (first part only) yet they are silent on or outright supportive of feel-good wars that meet a lesser set of "evil" criteria than the current situation does and more importantly those criteria are of lesser volume. Why let that stop you? Just keep trudging along and make more excuses about English not being your native language. Language differences do not account for flawed logic last I checked but I could be wrong with French. Considering that regardless of the country there is consistently a higher percentage of mindless, arrogant socialist elitists who's native tongue is French I may need to get more data on that.
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And the Master answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know
what Freight was too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...