1. F. Randall Farmer on December 15, 2003 12:35 PM writes...

Is this article misnamed, or is there a link to an announcement missing? The title implies that Everquest is implementing in-game auctions for real US$ (basically, cutting in on the third-party-auction market.) I'd be very surprised at that announcement. :-)

As for this new Gambling in Everquest: It isn't anything new at all. Killing a monster in most MMORGs caused a 'spawn drop' of random items, sometimes rare and therefore valuable. This was already gambling: Poke a monster for a chance at valuable prizes.

Buying an in-game chit for a chance at a wazzoo-of-almighty-splatz simply drains player currency instead of time. The currency was practically worthless anyway.

These games always have to find ways to drain the excess currency from the economy. Asheron's Call implemented a nearly identical system a few years ago. It worked for a few months until the rare gambling-awards became common amongst the super-wealthy

2. Baka on December 16, 2003 2:35 PM writes...

"will it be gambling, and not exchange of goods, that brings real-world law into the economics of virtual worlds?"

Only if a vocal minority persist in repeating such a strained metaphor, to the point where some opportunistic politician takes a chance to leave his legacy. The ways in which what you've described differ from offline gambling are too many to enumerate...but for starters:

-In traditional casinos, the house always wins in the end. Gambling is regulated not because you can lose money, but because the casino owners *always* win. But if you buy Norrath gold with cash, and lose it all in the casino, no one is actually any richer. Having a money sink like a casino where EQ can reclaim excess cash to stabilize the game economy is a good thing for them, but it's a far cry from the predatory nature of Vegas.

They will have to make sure the [payout*odds] of the winnings doesn't exceed the eBay dollar value of playing on the spread. I don't play EQ so I don't know the values, but it sounds like the exchange rate is low enough that the gambling might be profitable. But even if it is, the items will quickly devalue themselves to where they no longer are...so, I see it as a non-problem--and certainly not an issue which merits legislation.

3. Edward Castronova on December 19, 2003 11:48 PM writes...

I think the event is most interesting as precedent. And as we learned later, it's not that big a precedent - as noted, Asheron's Call has done a casino for a couple of years. Moreover, yes, there's already a randomness in the loot drops, which could be construed as gambling. But this particular thing - an explicit thing called a 'casino' in one of the larger and more prestigious worlds - just seems to be another part of this gradual blurring of the financial lines between those worlds and ours. Not entirely unprecedented, but just another signpost to the future. Doesn't merit legislation today, no. But ten years from now?

4. dawg on February 21, 2004 11:06 PM writes...

I thought eq was a game why must we risk a law to interject with a fantasy for gamers. That try to get away from the real world. What next has gaming worlds Become. and what maybe next?

5. James Mason on May 24, 2004 10:17 AM writes...

I agree with Baka mostly. I have to say that even aside from "playing the spread" however, this "virtual casino" will have little or no impact on anything real or fictional.

To explain:

The virtual money that is sold on E-Bay (or other websites) is acquired mostly by players who cheat in the game themselves, or by players who cheat in the game and then sell their ill-gotten earnings to the website that is in turn selling it to some other player in the game.

Implementing a cash sink such as this "casino" can either absorb some of this virtual money harmlessly... or cause cheating and the sale of virtual money to increase temporarily until the value of the casino is negated by depreciation of the prizes and/or lack of interest in the casino.

Everquest's casino will not impact the long term value of selling virtual money for real cash, nor will it impact the cheating and hoarding of virtual money in the world of Norath.

These facts only further support Baka's statment that this is really a non-problem (for everyone but Sony of course).

I might have gotten a little off the topic as it stood here, please forgive me. I simply feel that the topic isn't discussed enough, or by enough truly intelligent viewpoints (such as Baka's).