What Would Matt Do

So it’s official, eBay hates money. On Friday it was officially declared by eBay that they will no longer be allowing the listing of virtual property.

Following up on a rumour that’s been going around I spoke today with a media representative for the company, who confirmed that eBay is now delisting all auctions for ‘virtual artifacts’ from the site. This includes currency, items, and accounts/characters; not even the ‘neopoints’ used in the popular Neopets service is exempt from this decision.

Wow. I didn’t think I’d see the day a company that is based on the idea that making money is a good thing, turn down money. Because when it comes right down to it, that’s what they are doing. So how much does this cost them? I have no idea, but WoW being pretty damn popular and there being at least a couple of other games out there (I think) that one might own virtual property in, this is have to have some impact on the bottom line.

So the point here? IGE (and others) must be cackling gleefully (as someone on BT put it). Yeah, the selling and buying of virtual property has inherent risks (i.e. – you have to trust your buyer if you’re buying outside said virtual world. We all know how trust worthy people on the internet are), but eBay delisting it doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening and will continue to happen. Heck, it just means people are going to have to go to seedier *ahem*IGE*ahem services to get their fix, or to sell their goods. At least with eBay you had a built in whining system, or as eBay calls it, Feedback, that allowed you to flag people that didn’t follow through or just basically sucked. Now you’re going to have to deal with the likes of IGE or worse, person to person transfers *shudder*.

eBay delisting virtual property does nothing more than move the problem of actual ownership off their plate and out into other arenas. Good for them, bad for people wanting to purchase crap they didn’t earn.

That being said, screw those bastards that didn’t earn their shit. Screw them all to hell! Oh wait, I really don’t care at all. I don’t care if they ground that level 70 warlock with their blood sweat and tears or paid someone else to do it. I don’t care if they bought that one meeeeeeeeeelion gold pieces or bought it off some Asian farmer. It doesn’t matter to me. Why, because it doesn’t affect my game. I’m not competing with thousands of other joes on my server, I’m playing to have fun. And anyone that buys their character isn’t going to be real competition in the battle grounds anyway.

What does matter to me is the idea of virtual property, the ownership legality, the actual laws surrounding it and where it’s heading. I think that eBay getting rid of such auctions on their site deals the whole idea of actually owning virtual property a blow, but I don’t think it will kill it.

WoW currently has 2 million US users. Wait until the MMORPG comes along that has 10 million. Then we’ll see some actual legal battles over virtual property. I can’t wait. Nothing like a good drama to really rile the people up.

UPDATE

I noticed a brand new spanking update on BT not long after I posted this. As Lum says, “we live in interesting times.” I agree completely. Nothing like virtual property to start a good internet drama. My favorite kind.

Also, eBay, wtf? Delisting some and not others? Now you’re looking either shoddy or in bed with some peeps. Way to go all Haliburton on us.

What Would Matt Do: I should buy stock in IGE. They just seem so slimy I just can’t bring myself to do it, even if they were a publicy traded company.