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How do you regulate a virtual economy? Well, you can leave a freemarket system in place and watch all hell break loose. This usually results in goldfarming profiteers that cause an in-game economic crisis. That's precisely what happened with Final Fantasy XI late in 2005. As the market was flooded with gil (FFXI's currency), prices skyrocketed at auction houses across the land. A haubergeon, which typically sells for 3 million gil, was suddenly going for 10 million. Publisher Square Enix stopped the spiral by cracking down on wellknown and suspected gil farmers. But who knows how long it'll take for prices to stabilize? One interesting economic tactic being employed in the upcoming game Seed has players democratically electing leaders to set policy. Strictly a role-playing game, Seed is all about crafting and diplomacy. Piss off enough people (or abuse the system) and you'll never stand a chance at getting elected and setting tariff rates. In the next couple of years, what's really going to change these economies is the continuing growth of MMOs worldwide and the industry's response--and to some degree, the government's response. All it takes is a few more phenomenon games on the scale of WOW, or digital Horatio Alger stories of folks selling that unique flaming sword to finance a used car, to get the government's attention. Not everybody is quitting their day jobs just yet, but $5 million in real-world money changed hands in Second Life in the month of January alone. One player, Anshe Chung, is reportedly making over $150,000 a year there. That's just one person, though. There need to be tens of millions playing before the IRS starts caring about virtual transactions. Figuring out how to legislate a virtual game space would be a complicated use of resources, and there are probably more pressing issues for tax collection. That certainly doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but the wheels don't turn quickly in Washington. |