On 12 Apr 2002 at 0:38, Adam Back wrote: > I was suggesting that the ecash mint operator exchange ecash directly > for Everquest currency (virtual "platinum pieces"). The Everquest VR > is a place in cyberspace, and there are people who make their living > by trading and selling virtual artifacts acquired in the game. The VR > world is of quite spectacular scale. To give a few factoids about the > scale virtual worlds from some recent articles I read "Norrath's per > capita income is roughly between Russia and Bulgaria. Or put another > way, Norrath is the 77th richest country in the world." > I'd take numbers like that with a hefty grain of salt, though. Take the current exchange rate of Everquest Platinum to pictures of George Wahington you can get on Ebay, multiply by the total number of platinum pieces, and you get... a meaningless result. Only a very small fraction of Everquest players would pay any amount of "real" money for Everquest money; there's no paticular reason to believe the game is more fun with richer or stronger characters, and most people would think that it decreases their enjoyment of the game to aquire powerful characters in this way.
Then again, what do I know, I thought the game just plain sucked. I suspect, though, that in the not too distant future the price of Everquest currency will precipitously plummet. Players may feel that it's immoral or no fun to buy characters and gear, but they probably won't have any problem with selling them when they're tired of the game. And the pricing model for playing strongly encourages quitting "cold turkey". George
