Trope-a-Day: Real Money Trade

Real Money Trade: The problem is that it’s hard to define what qualifies as “real money” versus “game money” when the Mythic Stars MMO alone has an internal economy bigger than some respectably-sized planets.

The logical consequences of this apply in full, including the follow-up to the city guards dragging your character in for stealing someone’s gold (if done outwith the parameters of the game by cheating means, etc. – obviously game theft is fair, um, game) being the game looking up your physical identity and having the local constabulary drag you off for an unsympathetic judge to explain grand theft to you in a prolonged and inconvenient manner.

Gold farming is SRS BZNS.

5 thoughts on “Trope-a-Day: Real Money Trade

  1. This makes me wonder a couple of things. Actually, I’ve been wondering many things about the Imperial attitude towards games and that liminal line between “game” and “reality”, but I’ll just drop two of the most relevant down the spillway and keep the floodgates barred for later.

    First, what do they make, in general, of the idea that a game, by virtue of being a space with differently defined rules from reality, is “just a game”? In particular, I’m asking what they would make of the guy who is generally easygoing in the real world, but really gets into the act when he roleplays as the “bad guy” in a game setting, or (for instance) always chooses to play as the Space Nazis whenever everyone plays Space Nazi War Simulator: The Movie: The Game: Limited Platinum Gold Game of the Millennium Edition (with obligatory horse DLC).

    (And especially the implications this has not only in games, but in things like theater, film, etc.)

    Also, do they recognize the phenomenon of Video Game Cruelty Potential ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPotential ), and if they find it particularly distasteful (as I’m sure no small number would, based on previous discussions), what sort of measures would they take to implement Video Game Cruelty Punishment ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPunishment ) whether inside the game world or outside?

  2. And another thing that comes to mind: You’ve mentioned that the Eldred don’t really do “friendly insults,” but do they do “in-character trash talk”? And is there a general understanding (on this and other matters) that “What happens in the game, stays in the game”?

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