One of the newest developments in massively multiplayer
online games is the sale of virtual goods. Players who have spent hours working
for and accumulating items may wish to sell them for real-world money. Outside
of in-game avenues, one of the more popular ways to sell ones in-game currency,
items, property and characters is to list on eBay. But according to what the
popular auction site had to say, sales of virtual items will soon be
disallowed.
Speaking with Slashdot,
Hani Durzy of eBay explained that future auctions for virtual goods from online
games would be delisted “for the overall health of the marketplace.” Durzy
points to eBay’s existing policy for selling digitally delivered goods and
items: “The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property,
or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner.”
eBay may be concerned about potential legal ramifications if
a games publisher becomes unhappy that a third party is profiting intellectual
property that it does not own. Sales of virtual goods are still currently permitted
on eBay, but according to Durzy, the company will begin to delist such auctions
in about one month’s time.
“Any policy decision we make...has to do with...basically a
good buyer experience and good seller experience on the site,” said eBay
spokesman Hani Durzy to CNET.
“We want people to continue to come back, and we want people to have good user
experiences on the site.”
The policy on virtual goods, however, will not apply to Second Life, which eBay has exempted
from its ban. Second Life publisher Linden Lab has tried to make it
clear on multiple occasions that its product is not a game, at least not in the
same sense of that The World of Warcraft
is.
“If someone participates in Second Life and wants to sell
something they own, we are not at this point proactively pulling those listings
off the site,” Durzy said. “We think there is an open question about whether
Second Life should be regarded as a game.”
