China Bans Gold Farming in Rule on Virtual Money

According to an article on InformationWeek, the Chinese government has banned the trading of virtual money for real goods and services. So yeah, China has banned gold farming.

In a joint release issued Friday, China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce said, "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." The release also says virtual money trade in China topped several billion yuan last year after rising around 20 percent annually. According to InformationWeek, one billion yuan is currently equal to about $146 million.

The Chinese government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, stating it includes "prepaid cards of cyber-games." The release says the most popular Chinese online credits are "QQ coins" issued by Tencent.com, which has at least 220 million registered users. The Web site said it supports the new rule.

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# Jun 29 2009 at 11:01 PM Rating: Good
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5,087 posts
"QQ Coins"

lol
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# Jun 29 2009 at 5:10 PM Rating: Decent
26 posts
Aside from there being absolutely no way to enforce this law, considering RMTers are so practiced at working outside the law to start with... the following caught my eye.

"The extent to which the Chinese government will apply its virtual currency rule to online role playing games remains unclear. A report in the English-language China Daily says that in-game gear is not considered virtual currency, so selling virtual items may be allowed to continue."

So worst case scenario for them is they sell expensive crafting mats instead of gold.


This is just another of hundreds of examples lately of Ill-informed/Ignorant people of power deciding the fate of our genre.
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