Your virtual cow could be worth $0

Your virtual cow could be worth $0

money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Dedicated social gamers devote many hours to tending their online farms and digital pets -- and lots of money, too. This year they'll spend an estimated $650 million in real cash on virtual goods.
But when those games are shut down, the digital items -- and the cash -- are left in limbo.

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Thank you Google! they have rip’t people off.
People are paying Billions to virtual worlds.
and you expect have some thing IN the virtual world.
not have them Delete it and say
“sorry its gone now. we will give you Nothing!”
you enter in a contract with them to have a thing in a virtual world.
it can not be legal for them to just erase it !
I am so angry! I have played on line games before.
and paid money for up grades and they id some work on the game.
and reset every thing. I am a lot of others lost things.
Look at world of war craft and second life.
I bet WOW has had a lot more than a billion dollars spent on it.
if they just said to them “sorry we are ending the game!”
there would be a riot in the real world.
some one needs to take google to court.
in the future a Lot of virtual cash will be spent.
and this needs to be sorted out soon.
technology is getting better all the time.
and one day you will be able to go deeper in to the virtual world.
you will be able to do your office work from the virtual world.
then go to a virtual play world to have your fun with people all around the world..
then switch off have some thing to eat and go to bed.
and you never left your home. Yes just like the film.
So we need to get some Real rights for the Virtual world Now.
have you lost money this way?
and would you go deep in to the virtual world?
I do and will.


money.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by buddha


That's one of the reasons I just stick with my Xbox and offline gaming. At least when I am done with those I still have an actual disk that I can bring back to Game Stop that has a little value.

People used to earn things, then they got lazy, and now they are paying for it.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Originally posted by buddha


Thank you Google! they have rip’t people off.
People are paying Billions to virtual worlds.
and you expect have some thing IN the virtual world.
not have them Delete it and say
“sorry its gone now. we will give you Nothing!”
you enter in a contract with them to have a thing in a virtual world.
it can not be legal for them to just erase it !
I am so angry! I have played on line games before.
and paid money for up grades and they id some work on the game.
and reset every thing. I am a lot of others lost things.
Look at world of war craft and second life.
I bet WOW has had a lot more than a billion dollars spent on it.
if they just said to them “sorry we are ending the game!”
there would be a riot in the real world.
some one needs to take google to court.
in the future a Lot of virtual cash will be spent.
and this needs to be sorted out soon.
technology is getting better all the time.
and one day you will be able to go deeper in to the virtual world.
you will be able to do your office work from the virtual world.
then go to a virtual play world to have your fun with people all around the world..
then switch off have some thing to eat and go to bed.
and you never left your home. Yes just like the film.
So we need to get some Real rights for the Virtual world Now.
have you lost money this way?
and would you go deep in to the virtual world?
I do and will.


money.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Is that supposed to be haiku or something? Please, oh please, learn how to write in sentences and paragraphs.

reply to post by cannabuddha


lol seriously.

I hate these posts that look like poems, a bunch of people do it on this site. Its so annoying/hard to read/hard to take the person seriously.

Im not sure I understand the issue here

on-line gaming is a hobby, you spend money and time on your hobby, other people invest their time and money on drinking at the pub and they don't have much to show for it either.

I don't seriously think anyone that's in their right mind thinks that their social farm is worth real money do they

Your not actually paying cash for in game gold, your paying cash to keep a game going that you enjoy playing.....

What does Google have to do with virtual farms any way? Did Google start some new Farmville clone? And I agree anybody that plays online games and is then upset when the game is cancelled is delusional. I am not upset when the gas I buy for my model planes is gone, and I have nothing to show for it. I am not upset when the ammo I fire from my guns is gone, and I have nothing to show for it. I am not upset when my VHS tape player is gone and I have nothing to show for it. Well ok that one did sort of irk me, but not to the point of ranting. Technology progresses, Life goes on. You pay for something and when its time has passed you move on to something new.

reply to post by cannabuddha


...............NO......................

Hahahahaha, oh dear people really are losing sight of the fact these are games and as such have no existence in the real, physical world, you wouldn't expect to be able to spend monopoly money in shops would you ?

You'll be telling me next that people buy and sell gold that doesn't actually exist Oh, what was that ? they do ? and people actually buy it ?
I can't wait for them to say game over, it doesn't really exist so your certificate is worthless

Originally posted by byeluvolk
What does Google have to do with virtual farms any way? Did Google start some new Farmville clone? And I agree anybody that plays online games and is then upset when the game is cancelled is delusional. I am not upset when the gas I buy for my model planes is gone, and I have nothing to show for it. I am not upset when the ammo I fire from my guns is gone, and I have nothing to show for it. I am not upset when my VHS tape player is gone and I have nothing to show for it. Well ok that one did sort of irk me, but not to the point of ranting. Technology progresses, Life goes on. You pay for something and when its time has passed you move on to something new.

i agree that fun on a game is what you're paying real money for, but think your analogy is wrong. it would be a better comparison if you bought a time-limited upgrade for your model plane that was sold to you on the premise that as long as you had the model plane, the upgrade would work. or something like that. but i think everyone knows the entire internet is subject to being unavailable at any point in time. what i don't understand is, if they were making that much money, why'd they close up? and why's google claiming they are going to close even more games? what's going on at google?

Explanation: Value is in the eye of the beholder! OL is sure if you find an online hindu guru they will be a potential customer of one said virtual cow.

Personal Disclosure: I felt that the "IOU" spider was great value.

I guess people should have sold those virtual cows while they were worth something. Kinda like buying GM stock a few years back.

The consumer paradigm is falling apart.... the virtual consumer bubble is popping....

I can relate to the frustration, but in the end 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware) is a long standing truism.

When we become accustomed to every transaction we make online including virtual reams of virtual paper, with tens of thousands of virtual stipulations and terms.... what can you expect? Simplistic and direct common sense?.... I don't think so. More likely anything but common sense... which does not require a biblical-length manifesto to express.

Google made no promise they are bound to keep, offered no 'product' - but an opportunity to avail yourself of a third party service - the providers of which - themselves are totally indemnified by corporate shielding as they are not the "providers of the platform" .... welcome to the machine.

It's funny when people realize that they are throwing real money away into a virtual hole ... they inevitably express outrage .... only to turn around and do it again, and again, and again.... are we programmed consumers or what?

To reply to you Versa, online gaming of this sort or Massive multiplayer online game (thousands of players playing with each other at the same time in a virtual world)... It is mostly the value of their personal time invested in the game that is the value. Such as earning a special item, title or clothing... there is prestige associated with it. So there can be significant monetary investment made the player both in subscription fees and playing time... and other people who could potentially buy the account from the player... a player with player transaction.

An example. Back in the late 1990's, there was a game called Ultima Online. You could earn gold (virtual in game currency to spend in game) by doing tasks like killing monsters or being a tradesman making items to sell to other players... but eventually you could acquire wealth to earn a home, the smallest being little more then one room huts all the way up to massive stone castles.

The biggest and most well placed virtual homes (near a good lucrative monster habitat or near a major trade city) could net hundreds, and some times thousands of real dollars on trade websites. So imagine playing a game for months, paying a online fee and then at the end of it "cashing out..." Recovering your real world investment in the form of USD.

The problem is of course, doing this at a time when you'll get the most for your game account. Just like the real world, virtual worlds can suffer in game currency inflation or have a housing bubble burst and suddenly you find yourself with a worthless account. Sometimes it is change to the way the game is played that devalues your assets... Or a game loses popularity with time. In many ways, online games can mirror the real world financial system in how they function. Some people even have successfully run pyramid schemes in games.

So in a new era of gaming, where you never touch a product... Where you never handle your real cash, it is all done through online transactions... When a game goes bust so does your investment / time with little to show besides a hole in your life and an empty wallet.

So, when your online game comes to end you would be upset because you lost money. why? I think you should be upset because you will not be able to play it and enjoy it. If your trying to make money off of online games then you need to learn how to play the game of making money first, or you can try and write up your own contract with the company and see if they will compromise with you.

and then the other part of your post about going deep in the virtual world sounds lame. sure it would be cool to go vist the pyarmids through a virtual world but when I hear the sound of my ac running it just wouldn't be the same.

also how many people does a virtual cow feed?

Originally posted by Doublemint
So, when your online game comes to end you would be upset because you lost money. why? I think you should be upset because you will not be able to play it and enjoy it. If your trying to make money off of online games then you need to learn how to play the game of making money first, or you can try and write up your own contract with the company and see if they will compromise with you.

and then the other part of your post about going deep in the virtual world sounds lame. sure it would be cool to go vist the pyarmids through a virtual world but when I hear the sound of my ac running it just wouldn't be the same.

also how many people does a virtual cow feed?

edit on 7-9-2011 by Doublemint because: (no reason given)

No, I ment a Pyramid Scheme. As in a form of real world fraud committed by players within the game rules.

Massive Pyramid scheme used in EVE online

"The space MMOG EVE Online, where mining rock plays a big part of the economy, has recently been hit by a huge in-game scam. The aftermath of the EIB scam... was 700 Billion ISK, which might raise some $119,000 USD if sold on Ebay. (The current conversion rate is 100M ISK to 18 USD.) These events have prompted claims of player deaths, death threats, and speculation about What Would You Do With 700 Billion ISK?"

So a couple of greedy players were able to get hundreds of other players to invest in their fake business model... And at the most profitable time they shut the entire operation down and ran off with all the virtual game money leaving many honest players outraged. Imagine as a player spending hundreds of hours acquiring the wealth (as in doing very monotonous / risky tasks) and handing it to someone who lied and committed theft against you. Probably suffer some real life emotions.

It occurred in a online game, and the virtual currency gained from it could sell for over $100,000 USD on a site like ebay.

I was just illustrating one way nefarious folk can reap profit in these sort of games.

The perfect example, and how I learned my lesson, There.com. It was a very playable, and fantastic game, I spent chump-change on it compared to a great majority of the players there. People get sucked in, fantasy land is far better than our percieved realities. Being a reformed gamer, I can't blame these people. Just feel sorry for them.