China Prohibits Real Money Trade
Monday June 29, 2009
The Chinese Government has taken steps to curtail the selling of virtual goods for real money. Their main concern, according to the press release, is the remarkably popular "QQ coin" issued by Tencent.com, which has about 220 million registered users. The ruling makes it illegal to use virtual currency to purchase real items, although people will still be able to exchange virtual money for virtual items. Since gold farmers in games like World of Warcraft frequently trade virtual goods for cash, the measure is bound to have some effect on them, but it's hard to say whether even the Chinese Government can effectively squash the gold trade industry, or force it to move elsewhere. (Thanks Gamasutra.)
Comments
I do not see this happening… Seeing as how the chinese gold farming operations work, it is nearly impossible for China to pull this off. Sites such as http://www.MOGS.com are USA based and the games they sell are USA based, granted a majority of the supply there is from players in the USA some comes from China gold farms… if China is going to ban they are going to focus on domestic games to China, however the level of corruption in China at a local level is insane so for the State wide government to do this they have to get through the corrupt local government… All I can say is good luck!
I thought WoW is included and it’s a good thing that I read an article which clearly explained that China is after the banning of QQ coins. As a gamer, I was alarmed about this news and I was relieved. Might as well share it with you:
http://www.wowgoldfacts.com/2009/07/06/the-story-behind-the-chinese-brouhaha-lost-in-translation-indeed/
I don’t think gold farmers are in the clear just yet. If the Chinese are prohibited from buying real goods with virtual money, it stands to reason that they will also be prohibited from exchanging virtual money for real money, which is something gold farmers rely on. As I understand it, they will still be able to buy virtual currency, but they won’t be able turn that virtual currency back into real money. Their current focus is QQ coins, but it’s only a matter of time before another virtual currency comes along and poses a similar problem.
It would be great if they could get rid of some gold farmers though, because the vast majority of them are spammers and scammers. Really, gold is so easy to come by in WoW these days that it’s remarkable that anyone is still willing to pay real money for it.
Dave