Xinhuanet has the latest update in the "China Virtual Property Chronicles." Case number three has been filed against the operators of Mir3. A player bought a sword for about 1000 yuan (approx US$120) only to have it deleted by the devs because it had been duped by the guy he bought it from. Virtual property, duping, and fraud. Heaven.
What is it with China and virtual property? I thought they were supposed to be a communist state? What's with all this property talk?
(Oh, as an aside, the article mentions that an earlier case alleging theft (which we reported on some time ago) was rejected by the court on the basis that virtual property couldn't sustain a theft action. Would be worth a blog posting all of its own, were I not so lazy).
>What is it with China and virtual property? I thought they were supposed to be a communist state? What's with all this property talk?
Leapfrogging the West?
Or something more complex with the word dialectical in it.
Posted by: Ren | Apr 28, 2004 at 17:24
For current discussion about virtual property in China, I recommend a site as follows.
http://china.sina.com.tw/games/zt/031205_gamemoney/
And by the aticle 75 of chinese Civil Code
"People have property including their lawful income, house,savings, household goods,books, cutural artifact, woods, cattle, material that are considered as private property by law, and etc."
It is being debated whether virtual property falls on "etc" of the article, and whether there is need for new act for protecting it.
BTW in Korea,
the NcSoft officially requested korean goverment to make a law banning virtual item brokerage like an itembay last week. That's hot issue among game players.
Posted by: Unggi Yoon | Apr 28, 2004 at 21:25
BTW in Korea,
the NcSoft officially requested korean goverment to make a law banning virtual item brokerage like an itembay last week. That's hot issue among game players.
How would this work? Wouldn't the trade just move offshore (ebay).
Posted by: Nathan Combs | Apr 28, 2004 at 21:45
That's possible.
Similiarly, when our court made a provisional incjunction that the Soribada(Napster-like) should not operate its P2P sharing services, some users moved offshore(WinMX, eDonkey, etc).
But to korean young netizens, the difference of languages, monetary unit, and design do play a heavy role in resrticting the move offshore. So,that time, part of users replaced Soribada by using another korean p2p service, IM, BBS, email or storaging services.
While, relating to the NcSoft'request, in korea, there're 28 teens being indicted by public prosecutors on account of cyber-crime per day, and class action is being prepared by the players against gaming companies for calling in question of some part of EULA.
Posted by: Unggi Yoon | Apr 29, 2004 at 00:04
A while ago, I was involved in a fairly large-scale project to create a platform for virtual and real property exchange in the China MMOG market. My observations are at least 9 months old, but I'll share them nonetheless.
For one part, China players are under more economic constraints than the rest of the world. Credit cards are unheard of (although that is changing) and in general the use of private currencies (of which game credits have been an edge case) instead of the government-issued yuan is highly restricted. If you look at how Chinese buy their MMOG time, here's more or less how it goes (or at least how it went a year ago).
(1) MMOG distributor sells game credits to retailers and internet cafe (IC) proprietors
(2) Player goes to retailer or internet cafe and buys credits from IC proprietor. Player gets a written out code
(3) Player pays for IC computer time if necessary, logs onto game and enters code, upping his or her account
What you see here is that the MMOG playtime is actually being treated like a manufactured product with limited supply, not like a virtual product with unlimited supply.
Ok, so let's say you want to sell a virtual object to another player. You have no PayPal, no credit card, and your access to public sites on the Internet is severely restricted by the government. Even if you can get to Ebay, you have to log in with your ID and let the government track where you're going. Here's what people have to do:
(1) You contact your trading partner in or out of the MMOG and establish terms for your transaction.
(2) You arrange a physical meeting at an IC or other public place with your trading partner.
(3) The two of you meet and log onto the MMOG near one another in the IC.
(4) You meet up in the MMOG or VW to exchange the virtual object.
(5) At the same time, you exchange the real currency with your trading partner.
Last I checked, this is the primary way to manage such transactions in China. I may be woefully out of date.
What's fascinating about these examples is that they make virtual property much, much more like real property. This evolution is consistent with China's own bizarre communism-cum-free trade status, and I'm sure in time China will transact in much the same way as we do, but first through their own channels rather than international ones like Ebay.
Posted by: Ian Bogost | May 02, 2004 at 07:48
Regarding to this matter...
"virtualy Mine" - Beijing Review VOL 47. NO 12.
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/200412/Forum.htm
Posted by: Unggi Yoon | Jun 04, 2004 at 23:01
very good makes you understand
Posted by: amanda tembedza | Jun 15, 2004 at 14:23
>Posted by Unggi Yoon
>
>BTW in Korea,
>the NcSoft officially requested korean >goverment to make a law banning virtual item >brokerage like an itembay last week. That's hot >issue among game players.
>
Do you have any further information on this? News postings, articles, blogs etc..
Posted by: Lars Lien | Feb 18, 2005 at 02:27
Virtual currency is basically fake money that is used in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, (MMORPG). One very popular MMORPG such as World of Warcraft has in game Gold that you can buy armor, weapons, spells and other items. World of Warcraft or WoW has a virtual market that works much like the real world, based on supply and demand. A good place to buy cheap WoW Gold would be, MMORPG-Exchange. They are fast and fair with excellent customer service.
http://www.themmorpgexchange.com
http://www.wowgold-wowgold.com
Posted by: World of Warcraft Gold WoW | Apr 21, 2006 at 12:07