how does the slide shows relate to the article??

The tags never seem to match.

Anyway is there anything the people of China CAN do? I mean you limit information, tell them how many kids they can have, so now you need to monitor virtual life as well. Someone have a small wang or what?

That totally made my day.

So, now no virtual money, only "filtered" internet, and only tampered computers for sale?

China is really bent over backwards trying to limit technology.

lawl, was that a comment directed at you?

So how many gils (FF) for the ferrari? and you thought food stamps were crazy.

Aww, was China missing out on some tax revenue? Was this market too difficult for them to control and abuse?

Greedy communist garbage country.

Meh, instead of Chinese Gold Miners we'll have Korean Gold Miners or Taiwanese Gold Miners. Funny how this virtual economy is an exact copy of our actual economy.

I can see why they don't like it, it pretty much formed a black market haha. Bye bye tax revenue.

I agree though, wtf is up with China lately.....do they WANT a revolution? No matter how big they make the government...it is still dwarfed by the massive population (most of which is lower income and therefore more likely to participate in a revolution due to desperation for change). Guess this will be interesting to follow in my lifetime.

China sucks. Their communism is leaking into their internet.

Last time I checked, most Americans hate virtual gold farming, and some senators are actually going to tax gamers who trade virtual money (this is reported by NPR). But American are always just about talking, when China actually does something to help Americans, you guys think it's wrong?

Gee.. guess what, gold farming bleeds more than a few hundred million dollars a year from America as stupid teenagers pay big bucks to Chinese gold farms. I guess you guys don't think that's a problem.

I hope not. For me, having even the tiniest of wangs would be an issue.

ahh drag, now all those hours mining gold in wOw are wasted LOL.oh wait they already were

Haha, I almost agree with the communists on this one. They hate the idea that virtual trading is growing and could actually become big enough to have an impact on the real financial system. Imagine if the next recession is caused by players leaving WoW in droves to play Starcraft2. How anoying would it be to explain to your grandma how the collapse of the WoW Gold Farming industry killed the real economy. Maybe our President could give them a bailout

Bunch of morons except a few on this board.

And you haven't met the kind of Chinese who think commies are doing just right to penetrate their anuses for their own good. Too bad, the kind of thinking that the government should force people from making stupid decision is so pervasive among Chinese speaking world. I see the same trend in the US, too. Personal freedom and personal responsibility are two sides of the same thing. People who are not willing to take the risk of managing their responsibility would also prefer themselves being enslaved.

Nevertheless, the commies really don't care about young people playing too much mumorpuger. They care about only two thing about online games:

1. Whether anti-commie information is carried out via the games, or,

2. Whether too much money is transferred unmonitored via online game.

Commies are dead serious about pegging RMB to USD in order to maintain unfair export advantage as a mean to destabilize US economy so that the US will be dislodged world superpower. That strategy has been working very well, even Soros recently went to China and tell people that's gonna happen. They can't risk the chance that RMB can be exchanged back to USD via uncontrolled, unmonitored virtual money exchange, thus devalues US dollar and raises RMB naturally.

You made me laugh too loud :[

I love how a civilized discussion by a group of free, wealthy, well educated, non-commie quickly docents into rents of racial stereotypes and guilt by association. You truly are the real MASTER RACE.

All rants about China aside, I think this is a great decision. Maybe people can actually play fair now instead of just pumping money into a game to get what they want. Less ads too hopefully. Gold mining really is the one biggest problem with the MMORPG world and I'm so glad it's finally going to (hopefully) start subsiding. Good riddance.

Jane I have to say, I sometimes criticize your articles but you always read the users' comments, I give you that
This is a good article btw

Cheers mate. I know I can't please everyone but it's nice to know you haven't written me off completely.

One can pump money into sports gear to get better result. One can buy better parts for his car to race better. One can buy better cooking ware to gain a bit more in cooking competition. Money is always part of any game. Even online FPS have been so for a couple of years, with people paying to get virtual gears and weapons.

When you buy virtual money with real money isn't a person's time really what you're paying for? Would seem kind of hard to put a ban on that.

Nothing wrong vith virtual trading. And for the record i dont buy virtual items with real money, and i dont sell virtual items for real money.

But, there is nothing wrong with trading either for either. HOWEVER, the REAL goods side should always be taxed. NOT the virtual goods side.

If i trade a virtual widget fora virtual widget, neither are real, no tax.

If i trade a virtual widget for a real item, i should pay tax on the real item if my country charges sales tax. The person selling me the virtual widget however should not be taxed.

If im trading real $ for virtual $ again, no tax, the $s will be taxed at the time they are recieved.

If i am receiving real $ for a virtual item, it should be treated like normal income, and taxed appropriately if your country taxes income.

Treat it no different then normal commerce and you have no problems.

But any law that tries to go after taxes for a virtual-virtual trade is just BS.

Gold farming isn't going away. If China successfully bans this activity then companies in India and other countries will gladly step in.

Oh, and all of the "commies" talk above made me laugh. Someone is stuck in the cold war mentality. America's financial problems are a result of American decisions. Mass consumerism has its consequences.

I thought all credit in a fiat-money system was "virtual."

Then what denigration term would you suggest to describe humanoid scums such as leaders of Chinese COMMUNIST Party?

"Commies" is still an adequate word suited for the purpose. Pigs which walk with two legs are still pigs. They didn't change their name, so why should I change my use of the word on them?

fuser: except that today, it's the "commies" who are bailing out Americans. And look at Bush, if you send a survey around the world, more poeple would call him something than they would call the leaders of the "commies"

Americans screwed up to allow commies to take over the world. Good thing is that people will hate commies for being the overlord master trying to dictate their lives, instead of incompetent US presidents making short-term decision to get re-elected in the near future.

When i opened this page, this is at the bottom of it. Cheap World Gold $5/10000
As Low As $5/1000G World Gold Buy Cheapest Gold, Try Us, Buy Now!
www.GdpChina.com/WoW_Gold. I don't actually play WoW but I'd imagine you can't make 10000 gold in an hour plus their bosses take a cut, this means these poor "gold miners" are not earning much at all. This is just from what I saw in a doco but these miners can play games up to 16 hrs a day and don't go to school. That's not a good thing for China. Do you really want your kids to do that?