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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.""
From TFA (emphasis mine): Well, prepare yourself for the next level after that...taxation of virtual currency.
Here's an excerpt of the first comment on the above referenced story (again, emphasis mine): That sure was quick.
Of course, if this comes to pass, it should also work both ways...e.g. I can write off my Second Life costs as 'business expenses'. IANACPA, but I'm sure other, more fiscally talented individuals could take this idea and run with it.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This is...just...horrible... The fact people would waste real money to go to a "virtual club" to waste time in a game that could be spent doing stuff like hunting animals for real money (another enjoyable experience of the game) is just...sad...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Bubble.
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.
Sig under construction since 1998.
How would MindArk go about doing this? Would they need to ride the Visa or Mastercard network? I have seen co-branded Visa or Mastercard cards, but not something like this.
So let me get this right, real money and game money are interchangeable.
So you knock up your virtual girl friend, she gets pregnant and has a kid, costing you $25,000 real dollars for a virtual hospital, virtual delivery room, and virtual doctors. Then they slowly drain your bank with virtual housing, virtual food, virtual birth days, virtual college, etc. Pretty soon you are broke, mowing your virtual lawn, around your virtual house and listening to the virtual wife bi*ch at you about what a looser you are. All the time sitting in your real apartment with no money because it virtually vanished right before your eyes.
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).
Transistors and Beer!!
1000 years from now. A customer inquires of a merchant:
Customer: Do you take visa?
Merchant: Visa hasn't existed for 900 years.
Customer: Do you take American Express?
Merchant: American Express hasn't existed for 750 years.
Customer: Do you take Entropia?
Merchant: We don't take Entropia.
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?
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
where did he get $100,000?
can you imagine the look on the loan officers face when you tell her you want to borrow 100 grad to buy a virtual space station in a computer game to turn it into a night club?
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!
We already have fantasy worlds where one plays games for funny money and cashes it in for real money-- it's called a casino! And most of the women are actually female! And attractive!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
How can people spend money on multiple pcs? Or getting the newest video card every 6 months. Or buying the latest fashion item, wearing it 3 times then repeating the process. How about buying 20 different jewel-encrusted watches?
While I understand what you're getting at the fact remains that people will spend their money as they see fit regardless of what you or I believe might be a better way. Put another way: People will do what they do because that's what people do.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I bet it doesn't take a day before the first virtual hooker offers his (yes, HIS. NO matter what sex the avatar has) service.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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!"
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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"
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
They change in value over time.
So if you have the "uber rare sword +5" which is worth $20,000, then could the government charge you property tax? Then can you take a loss if the game closes (and as a result the item becomes worthless)?
Part of the reason these items can take these values is because taxes are not included in the transactions. Add back in taxes and the prices will drop.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Bingo. I feel the same way. I don't need all those things. I just need enough to make me comfortable. I go for the 'Quality over Quantity' motto.
I went mortgage shopping two weeks ago and in talking to one of the loan officers I met with I told her how after I put the 20% down on the house I would be doing the 1/12 extra payment per month to speed up paying off my loan. I told her I hate debt. She remarked I probably had no credit card debt and paid it off every month to which I replied, "I think I have $70 on it right now."
She chuckled and said she wished she had that kind of discipline.
I've always hated owing people money and have always paid off my loans early or put off buying large items until I had the cash to cover it. Going into debt up to ones eyeballs has never made sense to me. But I guess people are taking cues from the way the country is run.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
For Project entropia Item duplication : :)
Project-entropia is a very glitchy game, there are many ways to Glitch in this game, simply editing the registry.
1. go to start, run and type in regedit
2. press ctrl+f and find somthing called pema.reg
3. Open and log on into Project-Entropia.
4. get any item and go to a trade terminal and put it in like you are going to sell it.
5.Minimize project-entropia and and edit pema.reg and change the Vaule code to 82.617.
6. close Project entropia and log on again. there should be two copys of the item in your Inventory. Good luck and have a good time getting rich
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.
Well I was wondering what the next PR stunt from MindArk was going to be.
They seem to come up with about two per year.
If you're thinking about getting involved in this "Virtual Universe", you should know that there are many times more losers than winners. And to make a withdrawel to your bank account is a minimum of $10 US. And it can take up to 90 business days to happen. Not 90 days but 90 days that the banks are open.
Anyone interested should do a lot of research first.