[Watch this video] Games, virtual economies, and ownership of digital goods

[unjapanologist]

Distracting myself from a bigger post about the State of the Research. Here's an quick 101 about virtual economies in games, prompted by the fact that players in Diablo III get a store where they can sell virtual items. As the video explains, this is significant in part because it's a legitimization of a widespread fannish practice: exchanging virtual goods in games for money in ways that were hitherto not recognized or even forbidden by companies. Much more importantly, though, the new store amounts to an "official" signal that the virtual goods made or earned by gamers can and apparently should be able to make people real money, if they want it.

Idea Channel: Is Diablo III Turning Virtual Economies Into Real Ones? (8min, but only the first 6min are about games)

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ETA: Via Boing Boing. This entry was originally posted at http://unjapanologist.dreamwidth.org/60010.html. Please comment there using OpenID.