The relativity of dollars, cents, yen and pounds stirling has once again reared its existential head, with the sale of real goods for virtual world money. An XFX GeForce graphics card is going for L$20,000 (LindenBucks) - approximately US$80 - over on Second Life resident FlipperPA Peregrine's web-based shop, SLBoutique.
According to an MTV interview with Flip,
"I just started to think it would be interesting with the amount of dollars going through on a daily basis to challenge people to think of [LindenBucks] as a foreign currency rather than as Monopoly money"
But it's not real money (say a thousand sceptics)! Well, that's relative.
It's not just computer hardware you can buy, either. You can also pick up an iPod Nano for L$60,000. At the current exchange rate of approximately L$250=US$1, that's US$240, including P&P. I wonder if Flip ships to the UK.
But what are the implications for such transactions? Well, this opens up an interesting avenue for a black market in actual goods, as well as questions about international duty charges and exchange rates. Veteran virtual worlds journalist/thinker Julian Dibbell's article in Legal Affairs from a few weeks ago posits what would happen if the Internal Revenue Service started paying attention to virtual transactions - what about those that result in exchange of physical goods?
There is continued consideration on topics like this over at Terra Nova.
