Comments on: Taxing and Regulating Virtual Worlds

By: JMD

JMD — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:24:19 +0000

If this tax goes through, it could be a huge boon for the conservative movement. It would teach our nation’s youngest voters the truth about the free market versus a state-run economy.

This could be the ticket to energize our nation’s youth to vote!

By: wancow

wancow — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:32:12 +0000

16. Mayor:…

Your post should be part of the blog above

By: malclave

malclave — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:04:51 +0000

Hmmm… how would the government treat “duping” (using an in-game exploit to duplicate items or in-game currency)?

And is the government going to subsidize my farming?

By: AndieBrownlow

AndieBrownlow — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:38:24 +0000

LOL@#16

Next: DKP flat tax & entitlement programs…
;P

By: Mayor

Mayor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:07:37 +0000

Soon, coming to WOW:

Teammate 1 – “Nice! That sword is the best drop for your class in the game! Very rare…”

Teammate 2 – “Dammit… pass!”

Teammate 1 – “WHAT?!”

Teammate 2 – “Man, with that drop my account value skyrockets… I can’t afford the taxes on it…”

Later –

Knifedancer – “Nice! I needed that drop for my tier 7 set!”

Obamaniac – “Sorry, as a distressed minority I must claim that drop in the name of equality! *yoink!*”

Boiledtoady – “CRAP!! Who keeps clicking the ‘affirmative action’ button instead of ‘/roll’?!!”

Knifedancer – “Obamaniac did… he says he is a distressed minority.”

Boiledtoady – “To heck with that, I’ve been waiting a year for that drop! I ear-”

Announcement – Boiledtoady has been booted from the server – reason: Racist.

By: McCool

McCool — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:05:46 +0000

These games must be taxed and attacked by our over reaching arms. This cannot do, the government has spent lots of hard earned money around teaching the youth of america. They cannot have these games running around teaching them free market capitalism. The people need to understand that wealth is created by government, not hard work.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:35:50 +0000

#12
Great analogy! There is little difference between the real world fantasy, which makes up our present economy and the virtual worlds economy… both at creating make believe worthless money.

By: Gozer the Carpathian

Gozer the Carpathian — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:20:36 +0000

Heck you didn’t even get into the really NASTY in game things that EVE ONLINE allows, and even celebrates!

How about a “Hostile Takeover” that involves infiltrating people into several layers of a corporation and even paying off the VP of said corp. Then on a given signal clean out the corporations bank accounts, it’s physical assests, and then assinate the President of the corporation? If I recall correctly that was over 3.2 TRILLION ISK worth of loss in that heist. Real world money value at the time? $32,000. Not bad for a year’s work eh?

What did CCP, the Icelandic creators of the game do? They published the entire affair and showed how it proved how player driven their game was.

If the government has their way CCP and EVE Online are toast easy. It allows players too much freedom. Heck look at their entire banking, stock, and economy!

By: Filthy Screw

Filthy Screw — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:13:26 +0000

Dammit you beat me to it! Their authority is about as real too.

7. TomF:

Hey, why not the dollar regulated by the US Federal Reserve Bank (which, by the way, isn’t Federal, there is no reserve and it is wild fantasy to call it a bank) is virtual money anyway.

By: myth buster

myth buster — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:09:02 +0000

Yet another reason for the Fair Tax. Still, I was under the impression that items produced for personal consumption are exempt from taxation; for instance, you don’t tax a farmer for the market value of the crops that he and his family eat, only what he sells is taxed. What this illustrates is that the Internet is the Wild West; we pretty much make up the rules as we go along, because attempting to apply laws not designed for the Internet to the Internet often results in nonsense.