Ethics of buying virtual currency

[thoronas]

I have had difficulty trying to explain a phenomenom to some of my sociology teachers at SFU that I have noticed on the internet. Many of them can't grasp the concept of what is going on and it is very hard to explain to many of them because they simply are not involved in the large online communities and virtual worlds that becoming more and more

Comments

Virtual currency

[anonymous]

Not all that far really from the original Dungeons and Dragons etc. but the trading of virtual currency offers a new twist. (There is something along these lines re "gold mining" in a current comic strip, but I can't remember which one--Fox Trot??) Anyway, you do a good job at deconstructing the layers of ethical problems, from contract breaking onwards. That seems relavely small, but considering the translation to real world social capital, it becomes potentially huge, not just to other gamers, but to the "outside" as well. The reality of virtual sweat shops is appalling. But not surprising in a way, because these games are capitalist from the get-go, and globalization of the mind is not really different from globalization of economies??? I bet Arjun Appadurai would have a field day with this, taking off from his concept of global ethnoscapes etc in reimagining communities today.