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Sony Online To Sell Virtual Property
OMG! writes "In an open letter to the community John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment, announced their new service 'the Station Exchange' which will allow players of Everquest II to trade their items for real live money.
Sony Online is the first major player in the MMORPG genre to embrace commercial trading of in-game items." Commentary available from all the usual suspects, including Wired, the Players, Terra Nova, F13, and Grimwell. This would seem to be a total reversal of the policies of certain other MMOGs.
No, they aren't liable per their TOS. All of us in SL have lost something at one time or another and nothing has ever been returned. However, this doesn't happen often. Most of us keep copies of anything really important.
I dislike it when big companies take credit for something that smaller companies have been doing for years. SL allows you to sell the items you build, then trade that game money for real currency. SL and PE allow you to own property that you can resell.
As far as I can tell, all SOE is doing is legitimizing the unofficial trading that has been going on for years in MMO's.
Every time a comment like the parent is posted, somehow it gets modded up as insightful and gathers a bunch of flames before smarter people mod it down properly.
/. has "smarter" (that is, people who agree with you) people to mod comments down that you don't like. Perhaps we should give you and your friends full-time mod status so you can enlighten us with you all-encompassing knowledge of everything.
Its a good thing
If you're pissed about moderation, there is something called meta-moderation. Perhaps you might do that sometime.
Once again, the old money will reign and trod on the up-and-coming, or the hobbyist player.
Wake up call: Players were already doing that, except through eBay and the like. This is just Sony going for the cut on the deal eBay gets.