Governments bringing laws to the virtual world

Originally Posted by Chronciler

Now here's the catch. If I open a store in your local mall and one of the goods I sell just happens to be that Sword of Fragtaculous Awesomeness and you pay me in American Dollars for the item and I go online and give it to you, expect to pay some sales tax on that transaction. It's not different than buying a collectible (baseball, Magic, Yu Gi Oh) card second hand at a hobby shop.

It does pose an interesting if not semi-unreleated question: Is opening a store, be it a virtual one over the internet or a brick and mortar one in the "real" world, whose only purpose is for the second hand sale of MMORPG items a viable, long-term business model? Or are you limiting yourself by hitching your fortune to something with a limited shelf life?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't stuff like that illegal anyway? I was under the impression that, for example, doing that for Diablo 2 was a violation of the Battle.Net terms and conditions? I would imagine other MMOs have a fairly similar policy.

But obviously, illegal or not, people do it anyway.

Jam it back in, in the dark.