General: eBay Delisting Virtual Property Auctions

Meddle · January 2007

Slashdot Games reports on eBay's decision to delist all RMT auctions off their website. Here's a snippet of the report:

Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one.

You can read the entire article here.

apocalance · January 2007

Originally posted by Meddle
Slashdot Games reports on eBay's decision to delist all RMT auctions off there website. Here's a snippet of the report:
Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one.

You can read the entire article here.

their

DrowNoble · January 2007

Ebay, it's about time! Oh and thanks much too, the gamers who prefer to play the game as intended appreciate it.

diaboyos · January 2007

Yeah this is gonna upset alot of people who liked buying their way to the top.

Samuraisword · January 2007

This is more evidence that MMORPG.com should not promote goldselling either and refuse to accept advertising for such services.

Meddle · January 2007

Originally posted by apocalance

Originally posted by Meddle

Slashdot Games reports on eBay's decision to delist all RMT auctions off there website. Here's a snippet of the report:

Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one.

You can read the entire article here.

their

Hey I'm a programmer not a news poster cut me some slack, I'm just filling in

In any event it's fixed.

Thony · January 2007

Originally posted by Meddle

Originally posted by apocalance

Originally posted by Meddle

Slashdot Games reports on eBay's decision to delist all RMT auctions off there website. Here's a snippet of the report:

Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one.

You can read the entire article here.

their

Hey I'm a programmer not a news poster cut me some slack, I'm just filling in

In any event it's fixed.

People forget this is a forum, they should try and read the text under my name, I can only say thank you for bringing this news under our attention, so for a programmer you did just fine, for me you did just fine whatever profession you had, its all about the news you brought, not how it is spelled

And its really time that Ebay did something about it, it is probebly not really gonna help cause it will probebly shift somewhere elese, but still its a start, now if websites that host info about games will stop promoting such things like goldselling then gaming (mmo"rpg") can become games again like intented

Admin · January 2007

Originally posted by Samuraisword

This is more evidence that MMORPG.com should not promote goldselling either and refuse to accept advertising for such services.

We do not allow goldselling on our site either. Do this in our forums and you will get banned. For the EXACT reasons eBay is taking this stance - we don't want to facilitate a mechanism for trading gold/items.

However, advertising for a company that does such things does not place us in a compromised position, since the selling of virtual items is not illegal (against a goverments laws). Because we don't side with the virtual currency issue (or any debated issues for that matter) we accept this kind of advertising...much as we would accept advertising for a political candidate even if we felt he/she was going to destroy the country, etc.

Owyn · January 2007

Actually, Admin, that is incorrect.

In every single case where virtual world property has been brought to US courts, the virtual property has been deemed to be owned by the game owners, not the players. The players, by playing the game, are given custody of those items, but not ownership.

Selling an item requires either ownership or approval by the owner to sell the item as some sort of authorized distributor. In most MMO cases, EULAs strictly forbid these sales, so approval is obviously NOT given, nor does player ownership exist.

Selling or attempting to sell something which does not belong to you, and which you are not authorized to sell, is fraud. Fraud is a criminal act. This is precisely the reason so many folks took to adding the "I'm not charging for this item, I'm charging for my time to GET this item". That line is fairly transparent, and *probably* would not hold up in court, but I haven't heard of any cases where it has specifically been challenged. Yet.

In any event, knowingly advertising fraudulent and illegal sales is at the very least ethically bankrupt. Might even make you liable, when the game owners finally sit down and decide to shut IGE and their ilk down, too; I don't know.

JYCowboy · January 2007

Ownership is a big issue but what it comes down to is tax. Who is going to pay the taxes? Ebay is doing right by its customers by avoiding being involved. How can this exchange be legally instituted with regard to taxation, curancy exchange and ownership? I see this even effecting game play issues. More games are going to alternate and multi currancy/crafting mechanisms to throw off the single currancy pools that farmers can cater. It will be interesting to see where this will all goes.

Real money for nothing.

"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." Hitler

ApollosWill · January 2007

OFF-Topic:

Tried to go to Slashdot games, but it is listed as a Phishing Site.

"McAfee has detected a potential phishing Web site. Phishing sites appear to be legitimate, but they request you to provide sensitive information, which can be used to commit fraud. McAfee recommends that you block this Web site.

Remember: Financial institutions never request you to confirm personal information through the internet."

Is this is not true, someone from Slashdot should contact McAfee to get off that list. If it is, just giving out a small warning to the members of MMORPG.

ON-Topic: Don't really care. It is a "service" that are by choice. If some people feel they need to "cheat" it is their game. I'm to cheap to use that kind of "service" anyhow. Not paying $15 a month for a game, only to cheat my way through it.

And if the government start to request Taxes paid for it, heck, just another income in the Chest of the State, that can be used to help out, right?

Owyn · January 2007

I don't see taxes being an issue. If it's LEGAL, then people can sell the items, and the buyer is required to pay sales taxes to their state, same as any other over-the-internet purchase. The fact that ALL of those purchases are hard to track, and therefore almost never collected on, is a much bigger issue than game items will EVER be!

Anyway - if it remains ILLEGAL, then of course there is no tax, because you cannot sell an item which does not belong to you, thus there is no sale to be taxed in the first place. Finally, if selling items were deemed ILLEGAL, but paying someone for the service of collecting something for you is deemed legal, then again - no sales tax, because you're paying for a service and not for an item.

Short form - unless the courts do a 180 degree reversal on their stance regarding online property, the government is never going to get any taxes from virtual item sales. It's illegal to sell the items, rendering any such sale untaxable, and the questionable 'sale of services' method, if legal, isn't taxable either (except as possible income tax, which is already being paid by the larger groups doing this).

Re: Cheating. It doesn't bug me when a player cheats in a singleplayer game. When they cheat in a multiplayer game, it effects every other player in that game, and therefore (if I am playing there) me. I would vastly prefer it if online game companies made a stronger effort to eliminate cheaters of all sorts. And if they can't, then drop the rule - having rules to a game which you cannot enforce is just silly.

Reklaw · January 2007

Good job Ebay.

Btw (bit off-topic) a little EVE story ,already old news but still enjoyeble to read by those that didn't knew it

EVE-Online "banker" runs off with cash, avatars cry foul

It might have been a scene out of some movie about the Great Depression. Hundreds of frantic people tearing their hair out as they mob the doors to a bank, only to realize that the bank's owners, along with their money, had vanished into thin air.

This scene, however, took place not in some seemingly distant historical period, but much closer to home (for some of us). The location was EVE Online—a science-fiction-based MMORPG, and the bank was the Eve Intergalactic Bank—a privately run in-game institution that for several months convinced EVE Online players to deposit their spare "money" into accounts with the enticement of accruing several points of interest per month. That seemingly virtuous idea came to a crashing halt when the proprietor of the EIB, known to the game universe as "Cally," absconded with around 790 billion simoleons ISK—the currency of the EVE Online world.

read the full articel here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060828-7605.html

wjrasmussen · January 2007

Originally posted by Owyn

Actually, Admin, that is incorrect.
In every single case where virtual world property has been brought to US courts, the virtual property has been deemed to be owned by the game owners, not the players. The players, by playing the game, are given custody of those items, but not ownership.
Selling an item requires either ownership or approval by the owner to sell the item as some sort of authorized distributor. In most MMO cases, EULAs strictly forbid these sales, so approval is obviously NOT given, nor does player ownership exist.
Selling or attempting to sell something which does not belong to you, and which you are not authorized to sell, is fraud. Fraud is a criminal act. This is precisely the reason so many folks took to adding the "I'm not charging for this item, I'm charging for my time to GET this item". That line is fairly transparent, and *probably* would not hold up in court, but I haven't heard of any cases where it has specifically been challenged. Yet.
In any event, knowingly advertising fraudulent and illegal sales is at the very least ethically bankrupt. Might even make you liable, when the game owners finally sit down and decide to shut IGE and their ilk down, too; I don't know.

What you say MIGHT be true. However, there are talks that this year both Congress and the IRS may be looking at if virtual properties (ex: second life) may be subject to some kind of taxation. If some kind of ruling or law change comes about in that regard, I suspect you will see a change in the current interpretation.

Unknown · January 2007

Ebay just disobeys the trend of history, Virtual Item should be ratified and supported. now even Everquest 2 has its own Virtual Items trading platform, and the research of virtual patrimony is in progress.

Kyleran · January 2007

The people at IGE are cheering, it now makes privately supported websites the sole source of gold and items. It won't stop it... though it will slow down the private sales of accounts/characters a bit...you'll have to sell it to a place like IGE...

Of course, Ebay isnt the only auction house out there...so maybe it will migrate to one of them.

BTW... regarding the ethics about adverstising websites like IGE on MMORPG.com not being questionable, maybe not..but why not accept advertising from porn sites using that logic....those are legal as well... and probably would bring in more revenue?

No, i dont want porn adds here... but neither do i think IGE adds are appropriate either....

Koolaider · January 2007

Ohh, the Chinese Jedi are going to feel this one.

Owyn · January 2007

Originally posted by wjrasmussen

What you say MIGHT be true. However, there are talks that this year both Congress and the IRS may be looking at if virtual properties (ex: second life) may be subject to some kind of taxation. If some kind of ruling or law change comes about in that regard, I suspect you will see a change in the current interpretation.

That's a very interesting topic - one to watch, for sure. IF that happens, there is a serious risk that USA-based MMORPGs might simply become unviable. Existing ones could be forced to move overseas or shut down.

It rather depends on exactly how the laws in question ended up being worded.

For example, one such proposal I heard about was suggesting that, since all gold and items you earn ingame are worth money via Ebay, IGE, etc, then you should be able to be taxed on the *income* that your avatars make. Every gold peice you earn would then be tallied, and you'd pay tax based on their estimated value. THAT sort of thinking scares game development companies badly. It's unlikely so drastic a proposal would pass, but if it did - it'd spell the end of US MMORPGs as we know them.

Reasoning: if players can be taxed on virtual items that their characters acquire, then the government is essentially assigning them some level of ownership. Player ownership of items would be a disaster - even a simple rollback could result in a devastating class-action lawsuit, for instance; and shutting a game down could result in potentially billions of dollars of suddenly-vanished capital assets, which would NOT be allowed to happen without some legal action.

I suspect that the way the laws will wind up will just be stronger enforcement of existing laws: players who sell virtual items will be required to pay income tax on the earnings, and players who buy items will be forced to pay sales tax on their purchase; the overall internet sales tax losses are extremely high - the MMORPG item market represents only the tiniest fragment of lost tax revenue from people who buy things online and don't pay taxes on these things. So it's logical to assume that stronger enforcement will be coming.

Anything that assigns real value to the items, however, probably WON'T happen. The impact from such a move would be so devastating to the industry that they'd probably all relocate, and some other country would begin collecting all their corporate taxes, instead of the USA.

player321 · January 2007

Originally posted by diaboyos

Yeah this is gonna upset alot of people who liked buying their way to the top.

TalonThorn · January 2007

The eBay ban...is it real? I just did a search for Diablo 2 and Ultima Online. There are still tons of these kinds of listings. Maybe the ban was just for this one MMO.

I'd have to say that the MMO owners are treading on very thin ice to say that they own the items in thier game, but I'll just leave it at that. Whether the MMO company owns it or the player owns it, it is still a transaction and should be taxable, based on how the tax system and sales work in the US. In the long run, either the MMO company or the player is going to have to pay sales tax, for where there is money, you can bet someone will want their share (including the government).

As for limiting/banning an economical event, this is a bad idea, in general. We aren't talking about banning illegal materials or stuff that is hazardous to a person or group. We are talking about banning something not unlike selling US coin and money (which is actually virtual in its own right, since the value is not in the currency but rather the value is backed by the government itself). It is also just like stocks trade (ever hear of the stock

Yaisha · January 2007

Originally posted by TalonThorn

The eBay ban...is it real? I just did a search for Diablo 2 and Ultima Online. There are still tons of these kinds of listings. Maybe the ban was just for this one MMO.
I'd have to say that the MMO owners are treading on very thin ice to say that they own the items in thier game, but I'll just leave it at that. Whether the MMO company owns it or the player owns it, it is still a transaction and should be taxable, based on how the tax system and sales work in the US. In the long run, either the MMO company or the player is going to have to pay sales tax, for where there is money, you can bet someone will want their share (including the government).
As for limiting/banning an economical event, this is a bad idea, in general. We aren't talking about banning illegal materials or stuff that is hazardous to a person or group. We are talking about banning something not unlike selling US coin and money (which is actually virtual in its own right, since the value is not in the currency but rather the value is backed by the government itself). It is also just like stocks trade (ever hear of the stock

Yes it's real, however they just started removing auctions so it's going to take a while to clean them all out. For example, last I looked all of the WoW gold auctions were gone but some games have yet to be touched.

lol, and about the IRS taxation thing.... "omgz money is being exchanged and the government isn't getting a cut!!" *sigh*

Avyon · January 2007

Yea my auctions were bumped off

its a pain in the ass trying to contact the bidders after they cut you off..

alot of people don't like buying off the site... I just don't like WoW anymore its not even like Im a gold farmer lol

Kruniac · January 2007

This is meaningless. People will still put these auctions on eBay, and there are 23984734 other auction and gold/item selling sites out there. This simply slows down the "newbie" sellers.

For professionals, they have contacts in phone number form. Im talking about Chinese industries who hire 300+ employees to sell/farm gold on WoW 40+ hours a week. Not to mention the people who can exploit WoW to steal gold from player's characters.

Overall, eBay just caved in to whining from corps, and its hilarious to watch the fallout.

DrowNoble · January 2007

Originally posted by Admin

Originally posted by Samuraisword

This is more evidence that MMORPG.com should not promote goldselling either and refuse to accept advertising for such services.

We do not allow goldselling on our site either. Do this in our forums and you will get banned. For the EXACT reasons eBay is taking this stance - we don't want to facilitate a mechanism for trading gold/items.

However, advertising for a company that does such things does not place us in a compromised position, since the selling of virtual items is not illegal (against a goverments laws). Because we don't side with the virtual currency issue (or any debated issues for that matter) we accept this kind of advertising...much as we would accept advertising for a political candidate even if we felt he/she was going to destroy the country, etc.

So one couldn't link a buygold.com ad in a forum but if someone gave you $20, one could link a buygold.com ad in a banner?

Many game magazines have stopped taking ads from gold selling companies. They are still being published so it's not like gold companies are the only source of ad revenue. By allowing the gold ads in banners, you are implying that you support gold farmers. This isn't like politics where on page 1 you can have a democrat ad and then on page 2 a republican ad to "balance" it out.

Think of it this way: I am not racist at all, but if i allowed an ad for the KKK on my home page what would people think? You really think that people would buy "oh I'm just doing it for the ad revenue" excuse?

Owyn · January 2007

Originally posted by TalonThorn

As for limiting/banning an economical event, this is a bad idea, in general. We aren't talking about banning illegal materials or stuff that is hazardous to a person or group. We are talking about banning something not unlike selling US coin and money (which is actually virtual in its own right, since the value is not in the currency but rather the value is backed by the government itself). It is also just like stocks trade (ever hear of the stock

Talon, look at it from this perspective:

- The Terms of Service in most MMOs ban item sales.

- The Terms of Service are essentially the Rules of the game. Violating them is violating the rules that everyone is consenting to follow when they log in.

- What it means, essentially, is that there is an unfair advantage given to cheaters. People who cheat - who break the TOS in this manner - have an edge over other players. I HATE playing any game with cheaters, it just cheapens the experience.

I don't have any issue with sales from games that allow it, mind you. If everyone is allowed to by the rules of the game, then it's fair. It's only when it's against the rules that I have a gripe with item/gold sales.

We're not talking about the stock market or coin sales here - we're talking about someone walking into a poker game with an extra handful of aces up their sleeve.

It's simply not fair to the players who are following the rules.

JYCowboy · February 2007

Originally posted by Owyn

I don't see taxes being an issue. If it's LEGAL, then people can sell the items, and the buyer is required to pay sales taxes to their state, same as any other over-the-internet purchase. The fact that ALL of those purchases are hard to track, and therefore almost never collected on, is a much bigger issue than game items will EVER be! Anyway - if it remains ILLEGAL, then of course there is no tax, because you cannot sell an item which does not belong to you, thus there is no sale to be taxed in the first place. Finally, if selling items were deemed ILLEGAL, but paying someone for the service of collecting something for you is deemed legal, then again - no sales tax, because you're paying for a service and not for an item.

Short form - unless the courts do a 180 degree reversal on their stance regarding online property, the government is never going to get any taxes from virtual item sales. It's illegal to sell the items, rendering any such sale untaxable, and the questionable 'sale of services' method, if legal, isn't taxable either (except as possible income tax, which is already being paid by the larger groups doing this).

Re: Cheating. It doesn't bug me when a player cheats in a singleplayer game. When they cheat in a multiplayer game, it effects every other player in that game, and therefore (if I am playing there) me. I would vastly prefer it if online game companies made a stronger effort to eliminate cheaters of all sorts. And if they can't, then drop the rule - having rules to a game which you cannot enforce is just silly.

Let me broaden your view,

What about Money owed to the IRS from Korean Farmer Organizers? Players are sending US dollars to non-US profitieers who do not pay a tax. US costumers are not paying a sales tax on the services from the Gold Farmers. How does the IRS get its money from this situation? The answer will turn around and Bite the Game company that has made the situation. This is why its a major issue. Who is going to pay the tax? There is large sums being exchanged and Uncle Sam wants his share.

Reguardless of your time, fun, cheating, honor or ethics, these games are implemented so companies can make money. "Follow the Money" and you will discover true intention. With that, above all else, money must, has to be kept straight and legal as possible. As we have seen, companies can cheat players on thier games but they can't cheat the US government on its "game".

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General: eBay Delisting Virtual Property Auctions

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General: eBay Delisting Virtual Property Auctions

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV