I'm a hardcore gamer since childhood, from family computers to playstation generation.. but in year 2001, I got hooked up with MMORPGs and that made me look "Gaming" in a different perspective.

For years, a long debate has raged between Game developers, "gold sellers" and even players (who are anti or pro RMT) about the legality of Real Money Trading (RMT) and its impacts on games especially on it's economy and stability.

Many people that are new in this kind of thing strongly believe that RMT is bad, that it goes against game rules and participating in RMT is being unfair to other gamers who are almost losing their real life just to get strong in-game.

Publisher EULA (end-user license agreement) states that in-game items are virtually treated as a personal property, but are only recognized as "information goods" and the right of ownership of these goods belongs to the developers and players have the right to use, as conferred by the terms of service so the gamers have no rights to sell those items for real money.

"Selling a virtual item to someone for real money is said to constitute an infringement of publisher property rights. Anti-RMT groups claim that RMT floods the market with excess currency and causes inflation." WhichI strongly disagree, how come that there will be inflation if the currencies were obtained legally in-game? And those currencies being sold by the players or big gold selling companies are obtained by hours of farming.. they are not hacking the program itself to produce a "duped" (duplicated) currency.. so where is the inflation in there? it's just a normal cycle in my opinion.

As for the infringement of copyrights is concerned, players or gold sellers are NOT selling virtual gold LITERALLY.. lets look at it this way.. the player who are selling gold spent also real money for the electricity bill, game-time cards and not to mention hours of effort to earn what he deserve in-game, in short.. he invested. So in return, if by any chance that he wanted to get back some of his investment he can transfer it to another player and ask something in return.. and let's not treat that as if he is selling the rights of that virtual goods to that player.. instead, he is just TRANSFERRING it in goodwill and asking for monetary compensation. So, did he infringe the copyrights? did he sell the codes or something?

In any other real life services like plumbing, house keeping etc.. people pay them for that services, in short.. people are paying for services that they are not capable of doing or they do not want to do. So if someone don't have the time to power level his character in a game.. he/she will pay for power leveling services that some gold selling company offers.. is that a crime? does that infringe the game copyrights? how is RMT any different?

I understand that some RMT companies use hacks and DO negatively impact the games. There are good and bad people in all walks of life. The solution is to support RMT companies that operate with strong ethics and honest business practices, those that offer fair pricing, provide real guarantees, practice high levels of customer services, and have good channels for complaints. And there is a particular RMT company that I think has a good potential.. which is Gamerce they just started but their ways of RMT is interesting because they are not selling goods themselves but they act as a middleman. just think of E-BAY MMORPG Style. That way even a simple player who also invests money and time can also participate in this kind of business.

To end this long post :D, there is no law that prohibits the sale of RMT services. I’m a proponent for fair trade, free markets and the convenience of RMT. I don’t like monopolies which are what the current Game developers promotes, they are just pissed that they cannot profit from RMT themselves. I want the FREEDOM to spend my time and money as I choose. So guys what do you think about this? again, lets be open minded when it comes to this matter.

-IrieRastafari