Real Life Cash Card Launched To Access Your Virtual Money

Izeickl writes "The BBC is reporting that "A real world cash card that allows gamers to spend money earned in a virtual universe has been launched. Gamers can use the card at cash machines around the world to convert virtual dollars into real currency. The card is offered by the developers of Project Entropia, an online role-playing game that has a real world cash economy.""

Comments

The future is NOW.

[Godeke]

I find it amusing that sometimes last year I argued that virtual assets were still assets and the guy who refused to accept that virtual assets were anything at all said "as soon as I can buy my groceries with virtual assets, I will believe you."

Time to start that grocery trip, it appears.

What's the point in a virtual world...

[multiOSfreak]

From TFA:

"We're bridging the gap between virtual reality and reality right now," said Jan Welter, founder of Project Entropia.

What's the point in creating a virtual world and the trying to make it into reality? I thought the whole point of a virtual world was escapism. Online game Second Life already has developed a notary for verifying contracts, and that means that it won't be too long before virtual lawyers rear their ugly heads. Why bother escaping to world that has all the bad parts of reality?

What's next, getting virtual parking tickets or stepping in virtual dog poo? People are sucking the fun out of virtual environments (and I don't mean that in the virtual whore kind of way).

Is this legal in the US ?

[sfjoe]

I know very little about this subject. However, I was under the impression that only the US Federal Reserve had the authority and responsibility to coin (or print) money. How is it they can do this?

Re:Is this legal in the US ?

[meringuoid]

However, I was under the impression that only the US Federal Reserve had the authority and responsibility to coin (or print) money. How is it they can do this?

To issue money which will be legal tender in the US - i.e. which a creditor legally has to accept in payment of debts - you need to be the US Federal Reserve. But the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank all issue currencies which are not dollars, are not legal tender within the USA, but which will surely be recognised by Americans as having value.

In general, to issue money, you don't need to be a government. You just need to be a bank. If I want to start my own currency, I might gather together a huge pile of gold, and issue vouchers good for exchange for One Gram of Gold at the Bank of Meringuoid. If my promise is good, then those vouchers are as good as gold, and are effectively money.

If I'm running an online game, I am issuing in-game currency for use by the fighters and rogues and mages who populate my world. What value has this currency? It can be exchanged for powerful weapons and tough armour and spells of mighty devastation, which are greatly prized by players of my game. Useless in the real world, but no more irrational than traditional money - I mean, what bloody use is a great big heap of heavy yellow metal?

Once virtual money, backed by the notional value created by the players of the game in which it exists, becomes freely convertible at market rates into real money, backed by the notional value created by the people of the country in which it exists... then why NOT issue a charge-card? It's no different in concept from buying goods in Ireland on my British bank card. The currency conversion is handled by the bank, which debits my account of pounds, pays the vendor in euros, and takes a commission for the service. Why shouldn't they take it from my account on World of Warcraft instead?

Re:That makes me uneasy

[TheKidWho]

Pretty simply, you spend your money on silly useless things all the time! Games for example? How the hell could you spend your money on video games?

Anyways the point of the economy is to produce goods and to consume them. The point of becoming wealthy is to dabble in useless things. The point of becoming a rich country is so that everyone can then dabble in those useless things. It's all useless!

But things are being produced and consumed in this online world so the economy gets stronger and more people have more useless things!

Just like this useless post!

Uhhhh

[Reality Master 101]

A real world cash card that allows gamers to spend money earned in a virtual universe has been launched. Gamers can use the card at cash machines around the world to convert virtual dollars into real currency.

Er, forgive my leap to conclusions here, but isn't this basically gambling?

"Yeah, I converted my cash into this 'virtual money' they call 'chips'. It's fabulous, this place called a 'casino' has its own virtual economy! I can go to different parts and perform 'business transactions' that can make me virtual money (or lose virtual money, of course). Then, I can convert my virtual money back into real money! It's amazing!"

...and we thought the dot com bubble burst was bad

[IflyRC]

WOW! People are in debt enough without having to worry about virtual debt.

Just think about it, the dot com bubble burst because of companies with over valued stock failed to ever produce a real profit. A lot of people lost jobs and a lot of money - but the stock market, at least in the USA, has an aura of risk around it. Most people who play the stock market know the risks (granted, not all).

In this however, I can see total idiots losing everything they own - kind of like how people spend life savings on the lottery, but much worse.

It's interesting though that every single bit of value on this is based on virtual perception. How much do you want that plot of digital land to build a house on? Unlike real land, the only people who might see that as valuable are others in the same virtual environment which in the end limits the value. One person may see it as $50,000 worth of digital real estate while someone else would look at you like you were crazy if you told them "I'll sell you some land in a game for $0.25"

Re:That makes me uneasy

[CastrTroy]

This is my trick to making it seem like I have a lot of money. Let everyone else think they need 60 Inch TVs, $2000 computers, and $50,000 cars, and I'll just sit back and realize that I can live without such luxuries. Of course, I'm actually making the same amount as the other people who think they need all this stuff. So, while they're running around wondering where all their money went, trying to pay the credit card bills, I'm enjoying life and am quite comfortable with the money I make.

Allow Me To Clarify

[umbrellasd]

The point of tying virtual economies to real ones is that the truth will out. And the truth is that 99% of what people do in the real world and get paid for is a pointless waste of time. There are certainly people out there that are really do things, but for every such person there are 10 freeloaders pulling down an enormous salary to fuck around.

Now we just see some honesty. Playing WoW 24/7 is a pointless waste of time, and the more people you have that agree on a particular waste of time as meaningful, the more currency. Currency = current interest of society. Why not have real compensation for people frittering away hours on an entertaining diversion? I've seen the same thing every day for years in the workplace.

If you are a working chap like myself, head down to a mall some day during business hours and just sit and watch for a couple hours and marvel at the efficiency with which we line consumerbot pockets. Some fellow is sitting at his 9-5 job watching the clock tic-toc while 1 to 5 other people are out mindlessly pouring the earnings back into the feedback loop.

And around and around it goes.

Having been the 9-5 tic-toc guy (post-college), one of his consumerbots (pre and during college), and a mindless gamer (all along), I can say, they're all the same hat. Without legislation, an unregulated virtual economy will ultimately find balance with the real economies because it is always a balance of time for money. If you have a working bloke that would invest 36 hours to get Cruel Hammer of +Infinity^2 Ass Kicking--and he can do that because the real economy lined his pocket with enough money that he can piss away 36 leisure hours on a collection of bits off in the ether--and there's no obstacle to him instead spending 2 hours of his salary to get it, well he's not an idiot and he's probably and addict so it's just simple numbers. Lower cost and faster gratification = that hammer is worth real money because I'd spend real time to get it.

We spend money on things we want. If they are scarce (because of supply or because of the high cost in time to obtain) we pay more. The more addicted people are to virtual worlds, the closer in parity virtual goods will come to real goods. If you spend more than 50% of your time in a virtual world, it is your real world or it would be, if only you could pay your bills there.

Well someday you probably can. Some people do now.

Honestly, I think virtual worlds will set us free and give us the strongest dose of reality check we've ever experienced. After a while you notice that you are valuing utterly imaginary things above actual real things and then you start thinking, "Well, Jesus. What is the value of real things? Maybe the 'real' things in my life aren't even real. Maybe the real things I bought are just as hollow as so many bits on the ether. Maybe that's a problem that I should address."

Or maybe it won't turn out that way for most. My perspective: there's as much virtual crap at the local shopping mall as there is in the Flavor of the Year online game. It's all the same hat.

Re:One word:

[mdielmann]

Well, there are three things required to make it work. First, tie it to a real currency. Check. Second, don't allow things to be bought by NPCs (basically by the game owner) at anything near market value - think bankruptcy rates. I don't know about that second part. Third, don't allow exploits to sit around uncorrected. Their agreement seems to indicate some level of seriousness about that.

But think about it. What does iTunes sell? Ultimately, musicians' time and bandwidth. And they're making good money. If players can buy/sell time and the company can tax for bandwidth/development, it's just another commodity. People won't pay more for another player's time than they think it's worth, not unlike McDonald's. And somehow I don't think "Chinese" goldfarmers would mind being paid in US dollars (more or less). Hell, I might go be a serf of one kind or another. Just another daily grind...but maybe more fun.