China Bans Trading Real Goods for Virtual Money

[magicandy]

All rants about China aside, I think this is a great decision. Maybe people can actually play fair now instead of just pumping money into a game to get what they want. Less ads too hopefully. Gold mining really is the one biggest problem with the MMORPG world and I'm so glad it's finally going to (hopefully) start subsiding. Good riddance.

 

[Humans think]

Jane I have to say, I sometimes criticize your articles but you always read the users' comments, I give you that
This is a good article btw

 

[JMcEntegart]

[citation][nom]Humans think[/nom]Jane I have to say, I sometimes criticize your articles but you always read the users' comments, I give you that This is a good article btw[/citation]

Cheers mate. I know I can't please everyone but it's nice to know you haven't written me off completely.

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]magicandy[/nom]All rants about China aside, I think this is a great decision. Maybe people can actually play fair now instead of just pumping money into a game to get what they want. Less ads too hopefully. Gold mining really is the one biggest problem with the MMORPG world and I'm so glad it's finally going to (hopefully) start subsiding. Good riddance.[/citation]

One can pump money into sports gear to get better result. One can buy better parts for his car to race better. One can buy better cooking ware to gain a bit more in cooking competition. Money is always part of any game. Even online FPS have been so for a couple of years, with people paying to get virtual gears and weapons.

 

[nvmarino]

When you buy virtual money with real money isn't a person's time really what you're paying for? Would seem kind of hard to put a ban on that.

 

[Guest]

Nothing wrong vith virtual trading. And for the record i dont buy virtual items with real money, and i dont sell virtual items for real money.

But, there is nothing wrong with trading either for either. HOWEVER, the REAL goods side should always be taxed. NOT the virtual goods side.

If i trade a virtual widget fora virtual widget, neither are real, no tax.

If i trade a virtual widget for a real item, i should pay tax on the real item if my country charges sales tax. The person selling me the virtual widget however should not be taxed.

If im trading real $ for virtual $ again, no tax, the $s will be taxed at the time they are recieved.

If i am receiving real $ for a virtual item, it should be treated like normal income, and taxed appropriately if your country taxes income.

Treat it no different then normal commerce and you have no problems.

But any law that tries to go after taxes for a virtual-virtual trade is just BS.

 

[fuser]

Gold farming isn't going away. If China successfully bans this activity then companies in India and other countries will gladly step in.

Oh, and all of the "commies" talk above made me laugh. Someone is stuck in the cold war mentality. America's financial problems are a result of American decisions. Mass consumerism has its consequences.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

I thought all credit in a fiat-money system was "virtual."

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]fuser[/nom]Gold farming isn't going away. If China successfully bans this activity then companies in India and other countries will gladly step in.Oh, and all of the "commies" talk above made me laugh. Someone is stuck in the cold war mentality. America's financial problems are a result of American decisions. Mass consumerism has its consequences.[/citation]

Then what denigration term would you suggest to describe humanoid scums such as leaders of Chinese COMMUNIST Party?

"Commies" is still an adequate word suited for the purpose. Pigs which walk with two legs are still pigs. They didn't change their name, so why should I change my use of the word on them?

 

[hennnry]

fuser: except that today, it's the "commies" who are bailing out Americans. And look at Bush, if you send a survey around the world, more poeple would call him something than they would call the leaders of the "commies"

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]hennnry[/nom]fuser: except that today, it's the "commies" who are bailing out Americans. And look at Bush, if you send a survey around the world, more poeple would call him something than they would call the leaders of the "commies"[/citation]

Americans screwed up to allow commies to take over the world. Good thing is that people will hate commies for being the overlord master trying to dictate their lives, instead of incompetent US presidents making short-term decision to get re-elected in the near future.

 

[stumpystumped]

When i opened this page, this is at the bottom of it. Cheap World Gold $5/10000
As Low As $5/1000G World Gold Buy Cheapest Gold, Try Us, Buy Now!
www.GdpChina.com/WoW_Gold. I don't actually play WoW but I'd imagine you can't make 10000 gold in an hour plus their bosses take a cut, this means these poor "gold miners" are not earning much at all. This is just from what I saw in a doco but these miners can play games up to 16 hrs a day and don't go to school. That's not a good thing for China. Do you really want your kids to do that?

 

[Guest]

Can you buy Crysis with virtual money?

 

[lediana]

Thanks so much for sharing the post.


credit auto

 

[eccentric909]

[citation][nom]StumpyStumped[/nom]When i opened this page, this is at the bottom of it. Cheap World Gold $5/10000As Low As $5/1000G World Gold Buy Cheapest Gold, Try Us, Buy Now!www.GdpChina.com/WoW_Gold. I don't actually play WoW but I'd imagine you can't make 10000 gold in an hour plus their bosses take a cut, this means these poor "gold miners" are not earning much at all. This is just from what I saw in a doco but these miners can play games up to 16 hrs a day and don't go to school. That's not a good thing for China. Do you really want your kids to do that?[/citation]

This is why gold farming is bad and while I don't like more limits placed on freedom, I can still actually support this ban. People talk about how horrible sweatshops are in the far east, well, gold farming companies are the exact same thing. People/kids work for pennies, to farm virtual gold for many different MMOs, Warcraft being the most popular.

I don't have a problem with gold selling persay, I do have a problem with the conditions the workers are forced to endure, however. People might think, well they're being paid to play a video game. Yeah, maybe, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it is the same environment as a clothing sweatshop, but instead of a sewing machine you have a computer.

Though, it's probably not China's real intent to stop the sweatshop like environments that come with gold selling (more likely that they're losing money with this kind of trade), it might at least help with that part of the problem.

 

[rocket_sauce]

Yeah, I can agree with the work conditions comment to a point. But, I draw the line at the word "exact" unless you have seen some sort of non-biased study (highly unlikely, but possible I guess).

I used to play WoW but the harassment of the gold farmers drove me away. I just liked to play when I had time for it. They use various methods of clever hooks to get your character name, then its constant harassment time. You can block there character name, but they still have yours and they just make a new character and harass away. The WoW economy is absolutly terrible because of "us" players buying gold. It does save a tremendous amout of time, but I cant think of a video game that isn't a waste of time. So, basically your buying wasted time. If your ok with that, then I say buy away...ignorance is bliss. This isn't just with America, this is the world over. So, blaming America's economy on this is ignorance as well...sorry. This is just fractions of a penny to what the US gov't wastes every second.

Imo, China doesn't have a way to track the money, so they don't have a way to take there cut of the "loot". So, the China gov't has this flux of money coming in that they can't touch without public reprocussions(I'm guessing). Maybe it's one of many "filters" in Green Dam or whatever they are calling it.

I'm probably wrong about all of this, but I dont care. I'm at work and with all the time I wasted writting this up I can buy 1 million gold lol. Sorry, I just don't think this is that big a deal to me. But now the China kids will have to go and actually work and that's just wrong.

 

[Guest]

I think we are being very unfair to the Chinese government. The government of China has bent over backwards to try and accomodate its people and its foreign trade partners. Any and all complaints about service are handled quickly and resolved. We in the USA wish things worked as efficiently. The treatment and good will toward the average citizen there has grown exponentially in the last decade. The government has to maintain order in the country and insure the economic system remains viable. Marketing skemes that allow money to be laundered or taxes to go uncollected are not tolerated there,but they are not tolerated in the USA or Europe either. I am a veteren of the US military. I can tell you the whole country of China has changed to the point that my wife and I are thinking about retireing there some day.

 

[Guest]

You guys are all dumb gold farming isnt going away in china either... read this link http/kotaku.com/5305856/hold-on-chinas-gold-farming-ban-clarified

 

[kezix_69]

Here's another source saying this story is not true:

http/www.wowgoldfacts.com/2009/07/06/the-story-behind-the-chinese-brouhaha-lost-in-translation-indeed/