Ultima Online Patch Introduces Economy-Wrecking Bug?

Thanks to PlayMoney for its weblog post revealing a recent Ultima Online patch designed to shore up the economy may have introduced new problems, as "the very same game patch... also [seems] to have introduced a gold-gusher of a bug, allowing some people to conjure themselves up a few hundred million gold pieces in the space of a week." The author references a thread on UO Stratics which includes allegations about "one guy that claimed to have made over 700mil to date on [a particular game server] with this bug", a total of $9947 under current dollar exchange rates if successfully auctioned. Although the other new economic rules "seem otherwise to be working out fine", and this exploit was "fixed last Friday [5th]", the author is concerned that "by the time the new money gets fully circulated, gold will be selling for $7 per million", half of the current $14-per-million auction price.

Comments

Re:Capitalism making a fool of itsself

[Cerpicio]

Just curious, but how do you spend your money? Ever spend real money on a movie? DVD? VHS? TV? Book? Did any of that help the starving people? How is spendning money on virtual entertainment any different than spending money on other forms of entertainment? -- C.