Entropia and the real world are getting closer together all the time. The company running it has announced real virtual banking is coming to the game.
Yes, they are going to auction off five limited licenses for people to set up in-game banking. Why they are doing it by auction wasn’t specified, but it’s obvious that only the wealthiest (most adept?) players will have the funds to participate.
This brings to mind questions about security, and whether other players will hesitate to use the banks, when we recall what happened in Eve.
And if real money is here, can the taxman be far behind? Opening real cash banking could have some far-reaching consequences for multi-player games.
Bad idea. Let’s just give Congress another reason to look at taxing virtual world assets on their potential real world value. To me that’s the real issue.
What happened in Eve is no different than stuff that’s happened in games since Meridian 59 – just on a much larger scale.
I used to love MMO’s….
Absolutely, Vag. A real-world tax on virtual assets, not cash withdrawn, could be the end of virtual economies. Who would want to play if the IRS wanted payment on your fancy sword?
I understand paying taxes on ebay sales or amazon.com but virtual world tax is a bad, bad thing. Their is one or two congress people that are for it and the last I read the IRS was looking into it.
My issue is I pay a monthly fee that is taxed and just becuase I play doesn’t mean I’m going to sell the house or items. Usually when I quit an MMO I give all my ingame items away to strangers or delete the items and delete the character so I have no desire to come back and start from scratch. I’ve never sold a virtual item for real world cash so why should I have to pay a tax on my virtual castle? It’s ludicrous.