eBay Virtual World Delisting Skips Second Life

As a follow-up to last week's eBay delisting story, CNET has the word that Second Life content is exempt from this decision. Mr. Durzy, speaking with CNET, specifically cited Second Life content as exempt because of the uncertain role of the virtual world. As the company (and the rest of us) are uncertain whether to label Second Life as a game in the first place, player-created content is still sellable via eBay auction. A perfectly fine explanation, but GigaGamez takes things a step further, pointing out that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar became a major investor in Linden Labs in 2004. It's uncertain if this constitutes a conflict of interest, because confusion about what exactly Second Life is persists pretty much everywhere. Just the same, it's interesting to note. Their article on the subject also has a few words of commentary from Edward Castronova, the well-known commentator on all things RMT.

Comments

The Big Difference...

[CerebusUS]

WoW and the other mmorpgs discourage (and even prohibit through EULAs) the resale of ingame assets.

Second Life encourages the sale of ingame assets and the secondary market that has sprung up around it.

If Blizzard said it was OK to sell the Sword of a Thousand Truths on ebay for real cash dollars, I'm sure Ebay would allow it to be sold.

Re:It's not a game....

[Short Circuit]

I'm reading Snow Crash for the first time, and I'm only through the first four chapters. Second Life sounds remarkably like the Street.

RMT?!?!

[biovoid]

National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (UK)
Radiomagnetotelluric (Method, Measurements)
Random Matrix Theory
Rasch Measurement Transaction (education)
Rate My Teachers.com
Raw Magnetic Tape
Real Money Transfer (role playing games)
Real-Money Trading
Recognition Memory Test
Records Management Taskforce (Australian Computer Society)
Reed-Muller Transform
Registered Massage Therapist
Registered Music Therapist
Registre Morphologique des Tumeurs au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg
Reiki Master Teacher (alternative health)
Reliability, Maintainability, Testability
Reliable Multicast Transport (IETF)
Remedial Military Training
Remote
Remote Management Testing (Ciena)
Required Monthly Test
Resource Management Team
Return Material Tag (authorization reference number used when returning goods to the manufacturer)
Reverse Mold Technology (L.A. Spas)
Rigid Muffin-Tin
Ring Management (FDDI, IBM)
Risk Management Team
Risk Management Technologies
Royal Milk Tea

Ok, so after searching Google for acronyms matching RMT, I worked out that in this context it means "Real Money Transfer" or "Real Money Trading", but seriously... and I normally can't stand posts that bitch about the editors... but seriously... and I'm usually happy to look up any acronym that I SHOULD know about, unless it is really FUCKING obscure... but SERIOUSLY... WOULD IT FUCKING TAKE YOU SLASHDOT EDITORS TWO SECONDS TO EXPLAIN WHAT THE FUCK RMT MEANS?!?!?

Re:It's not a game....

[brkello]

No, it is just a scam. All this thing does is generate press allowing a few people to make some money while taking advantage of suckers. I am really tired of all the articles about it (it seems there are at least 3 a week minimum...far more than any other game). I've had enough of Slashdot advertizing this boring, poorly written "thingie".

Please, just make it stop.