Truck and Barter

Sony Backs More Efficient Allocation of Things That Don't Exist

After having been hammer-and-tong against people selling virtual goods, Sony has decided to do a 180.

Virtual goods exchange occurs when a player of an online game decides to sell off access to some sort of item that is valuable within the game in question. Everything from particular items to property to entire characters are being traded back and forth -- using real cash. Sony Online used to argue against this activity, and worked to block people who were suspected of having done this. No longer.

Starting in late June, SOE will begin offering a new service called Station Exchange. This secure service will allow EverQuest II players on specific servers to buy and sell the right to use items, coin and characters. To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.

According to the article such exchange has blossomed into a US$200 million a year market. For things that don't exist. I still say that people who are eager to spend close to $200 on a single character are going to respond in ways that reasonably approximate real life when faced with experimental conditions. The biggest hurdle to using these things as econ labs? Selection bias on the the test group; it's a specific crowd that takes that kind of time and effort. Hey, I could well be one of them, so no offense. I'm just saying, is all...

Outdated Video Games are Popular

I had briefly seen the this product--a joystick that has the computer console inside--on QVC. The games looked really simplistic, and I cringed at the thought of all the people who purchased this toy and thought they might be getting the latest and greatest.

Now, The New York Times has a writeup of the product and the female entrepreneur, Jeri Ellsworth.

I did not know that Ms. Ellsworth had miniaturized an entire commodore 64 onto a single chip::

Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month; since then it has been sold through QVC's Web site. Frank Landi, president of Mammoth, said he expected the joystick would be distributed next year by bigger toy and electronics retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us. "To me, any toy that sells 70,000 in a day on QVC is a good indication of the kind of reception we can expect," he said.

Ms. Ellworth's first venture into toy making has not yet brought her great wealth - she said she is paid on a consulting basis at a rate that is competitive for her industry - "but I'm having fun," she said, and she continues with other projects in circuit design as a consultant.

Did I mention she dropped out of high school? And get this about her relationship to her partner in a computer assembly business:

They went into business together in 1995, but soon had a falling out and split up. For a short time Ms. Ellsworth considered leaving the computer business. Instead, she opened a store near that of her former partner, then drove him out of business. Ultimately her store became a chain of five Computers Made Easy shops in small towns.

The game console costs $30 and includes these games.

HL2

From the Inquirer comes an article on how video game companies could combat piracy:

If the games industry really wants to combat piracy, it should take a leaf out of Valve's book. Establish one worldwide release date, don't stagger for different territories. Keep a tight check on where you're sending code, and drop outdated CD copy protection technology as the only check on piracy - use an online 'switch' to activate copies of the game. Keep gamers happy by keeping them equal - isn't that just common sense?

The company the article is refering to, Valve, is set to release its much anticipated game Half-Life 2. There are two important developments when it is released, the method and the date. The latter is interesting since the movie business has moved in the same direction for the same reason. The Inquirer describes why staggering release dates encourage piracy:

The gap between those who have the game and those who don't have it yet is part of what drives people to pirate games. This week, Halo 2 was released two days earlier in the US than in the UK. With the worldwide community created by the net - indeed, by Microsoft's own Xbox Live - having a bunch of your friends play a game 2 days before you can is unacceptable to many. Companies don't appear to understand that staggered worldwide releases aren't conducive to their anti-piracy cause - either give gamers the game at the same time, or put up with the fact that people will get it elsewhere. Companies can't create the amount of hype that they do then expect gamers to sit back while other people play games they can't get their hands on yet.

Not only will they release the game the same day, but use a piece of software called Steam to authenticate it online. It also enables you to download games directly to your harddrive. For instance, I have a copy of Half-Life 2 currently, but I can't play it until they release it(and I pay for it). Content of similar size has been downloadable as movies and games, but that is largely warez. So, the dream of current releases being legally downloadable is upon us and, hopefully, a better system to stop piracy. Undoubtedly, somebody will find a work around for steam too, but at least it'll take a day or two.