Buy Real Hardware With Virtual Dollars

According to MTV.com, Second Life has begun the sale of computer equipment that actually exists this side of the Internet:

What's genuinely unusual is that earlier this week the store's owner started selling something real — computer hardware — and he did it by attaching a price tag that's figured not in greenbacks, Euros or even pesos but with Linden Dollars, the virtual money earned by playing "Second Life." You heard right: Shoppers are able to use play money to buy something real.

-- Finally, You Can Buy Something Real With Play Money

Not that this is really that odd in a world where you can sell a virtual space station for thousands or convert gold pieces into dollars. Still, it's another waypoint in the odd path of virtual economics crashing headlong actual monetary values. Maybe someday all my old Elite experience will pay off my retirement.





tagged: economics, gaming