Kawika
Watchdog
Loathe them or love them, secondary markets - the buying and selling of virtual world items and characters for real world money - are a very real part of most every MMO in existence. Sigil CEO and Vanguard Executive Producer Brad Mcquaid and former owner and operator of YourVirtualSeller (a secondary market service) Roger Kipe debate this heated issue at MMORPG.com.
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1017&bhcp=1More information.Brad McQuaid: The secondary market can be good for the average gamer if they want to purchase items or characters as opposed to earning them in-game. Many people want to have these items or characters but either do not have the time to earn them and/or the desire to put the time in necessary to earn them. By using the secondary market, they can get around the otherwise necessary time invested. That said, given that these games are about communities and not single player games, the actions of a single player can and does affect other players - the adage 'no man is an island' applies. Therefore, if the game wasn't designed for purchase of in-game goods or characters via outside means (in other words, buying them from the secondary market), they are doing something that harms that game as a whole. Their action in and of itself may not have immediately apparent negative effects on the game, but over time the more people who take part in the secondary market, the more the game is harmed as a whole.