eBay bans auctions of virtual goods

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But eBay said it has a different opinion about goods from the virtual world Second Life.

Durzy told CNET News.com that the auction giant has decided to specifically exempt Linden Lab's Second Life from the list of virtual worlds and online games whose auctions it will ban.

"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."

Second Life publisher Linden Lab has long tried to distinguish its virtual world from online games, in part because activity there revolves around a functioning economy in which players own anything they create or possess. By extension, Linden Lab specifically sanctions players buying and selling Second Life goods, even on eBay.

To Dmitri Williams, an assistant professor in speech communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, eBay's stance on Second Life makes sense, especially in comparison with standard online games.

"It's consistent with Second Life that the economy outside the world is part of the world, whereas these other games are really trying to enforce the magic circle, that the rules inside the game are different from the rules outside the game (in order) to protect the sanctity of the game," Williams said.

Sony Online Entertainment has ventured into a hybrid direction related to permitting RMT trades by launching Station Exchange, a company-run market for EverQuest II goods, that governs some of its servers while others prohibit such behavior. To Short, the example set by Station Exchange is something other online game publishers should follow.

"From our standpoint, (eBay's decision) vindicates the idea of Station Exchange," Short said. "If companies take responsibility for the idea that things like this are going on and give their players a service that's a lot less risky, the players that want to buy can get their goods?without the worry that comes with third-party services."

Dibbell agreed, particularly because the publisher of the game whose goods he trafficked in when writing his book, Ultima Online, has been willing to let players do what they want when it comes to RMT.

"At the end of the day, the blame comes back to the companies that are banning this kind of trade," Dibbell said. "It's sort of disappointing that eBay is going to decide that though some of these trades are legitimate, they're going to ban them all."

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