In-game money: Fantasy finance triggers real-world lawsuits
9 May, 2021 08:30 PM
3 minutes to read
China s Tencent, one of the biggest gaming companies, is suing DD373.com, which operates a virtual item trading platform. Photo / 123RF
China s Tencent, one of the biggest gaming companies, is suing DD373.com, which operates a virtual item trading platform. Photo / 123RF
Financial Times
Lex OPINION: You sweat blood and tears building palaces, slaying warlords and tending crops, only to discover none of the rewards are yours. The virtual world turns out to be not so very different from feudal systems of yore, except this time the barons are gaming companies.
Posted by Sophie Beach | Nov 1, 2007 Anyone who still thinks that virtual worlds such as MindArk’s Entropia Universe or Second Life are the plaything of geeks should look at what is happening in China. It is simply mind-boggling and, if it all comes off, has awesome implications for western economies. I have written before about how the Beijing municipality in partnership with private capital (and with help from MindArk of Sweden) is planning a virtual world for around 150m avatars, of which 7m could be online at the same time. This is so far above the capability of the much-hyped Second Life, which rarely has more than 50,000 online concurrently, that I had some difficulty in believing it.