[DonathinFrye]

Well, they were under 14 years old - I'm not sure they'd be making more than sweat-shop wages anywhere in Korea, and they didn't seem to have a choice in whether or not they did it, which is why it seemed like a sweat-shop kind of deal to me. They claimed that they worked for someone else who was much older, so I can only assume that person made more money than they did and underpaid them.

In the end it, it's all speculation, but with an interesting point - online farming is slowly making a noticeable world-wide market, and the lack of clarity in (specifically) U.S. laws now is not likely to continue... especially once Americans figure out a way to create a successful business model out of farming(something that's probably been elusive up until now, because of the value of the dollar in other world countries).

However, I do believe it is coming.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by I'd imagine another hole in the "charitable donation" problem is that you wouldn't even necessarily have to be giving the charity stuff they want. If Microsoft gave the Salvation Army 1,000,000 licenses for some obscure developer tool with a bad reputation (but nonetheless a list price of $100), the SA would be foolish to refuse it (somewhere, someone probably wants a few copies), but good luck writing it off as a $100M donation.

This is exactly what I addressed previously in this thread, actually. Microsoft software is income property for it and thus the IRS treats MS as having sold said developer tool for $100 and then having donated $100 to charity. So, $100 in income and $100 in deduction, resulting in zero net tax implication.

Originally Posted by And even that mass-developer-tool sounds infinitely more defensible than giving 1,000,000 Shiny Lightning Axes to charity, even if you can demonstrate that your players routinely pay $10 for a Shiny Lightning Axe.

The shiny axes would also be classified as income property and thus there would be no net tax implication.

Originally Posted by I mean, I can donate all kinds of ugly-ass and impractical household junk and write that off so long as the charity accepts it (they will refuse some things if they don't deem them worth the cost of storing them, which isn't an issue with virtual whatsits). Where does the line get drawn between that and my pile of Shiny Lightning Axes?

Because one (your household junk) is classified as long-term capital gain property and one (said Shiny taxes) is classified as income property.
--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Another scenario would be: Let's say a game decides to shut down while they still have a fair number of players.  Maybe a lawsuit is brewing, maybe they foresee the game spiraling slowly downhill anyway, maybe it costs too much labor or money to maintain.  So they make a crazy sale: All kinds of unbelievably potent virtual stuff, better than anything in the game.  Their players buy it up for a month, then *poof*, the game closes down due to "unforeseen" difficulties, and everyone at the company points at the disclaimer, shortly before running off with their bag of very real cash. All legal, all bad for business, but all possible.

Actually, this came up yesterday at the Game Developer's Conference in one of the roundtables Dan James (Puzzle Pirates) and I were running on the business model.

Nobody knows what will happen if a pay-for-assets company shuts down a game. Nobody knows what a court would decide if challenged by a user. I know that both Dan and I agree that what we'd do if it came down to it would be to just open source the software and database (stripped of personal registration info of course) to keep the game alive. Everybody is pretty sure there's no way a publisher would be legally obligated to keep paying the server/bandwidth bills, so open-sourcing it would likely be enough. In that case, we are, in a very real way, giving them (the users)  everything they bought in any sense of the word. Perhaps we could also just print out the database entries for the items that player owned and mail them to the player.

--mat

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (DonathinFrye @ Mar. 23 2006,11:13) In the end it, it's all speculation, but with an interesting point - online farming is slowly making a noticeable world-wide market, and the lack of clarity in (specifically) U.S. laws now is not likely to continue... especially once Americans figure out a way to create a successful business model out of farming(something that's probably been elusive up until now, because of the value of the dollar in other world countries). However, I do believe it is coming.

Yeah...It's not coming, it's here and has been so for quite awhile. IGE is far and away the biggest player in the secondary market for virtual assets. ALL the executives of IGE are here, including (former child actor) Brock Pierce, their CEO and founder. Their executive headquarters are in Los Angeles. David Christensen, their VP of Biz-dev, was at my roundtable today, and I assure you, he's very American. All the profits from IGE reside in the US and are taxed by the IRS.

It's not a complicated business and doesn't require any figuring out. It's purely about execution.

--matt

[Baram]

Care to qoute some sources, in Korean or English, that claims there are sweat shops here, of any kind?

[Baram]

Originally Posted by (Valg @ Mar. 24 2006,00:02) The NY Times ran an article on virtual farming in China not that long ago. I'm not sure if you need to sign in to see in (I'm perma-signed-in), but: Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese It's a microcosm for how different a market can look when the cost of living and the value of currency is so different: "For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, my colleagues and I are killing monsters," said a 23-year-old gamer who works here in this makeshift factory and goes by the online code name Wandering. "I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good compared with the other jobs I've had." That's 360 hours per month, or about $0.69/hour. This is why I'm surprised you mentioned South Korea, Don-- that's way below their minimum wage, and I'm surprised they can compete.

You're correct, WAY below minimum wage. South Korea's economy is actually starting(well has been) doing better than the US economy if you look at the exchange rate changes over the last few years. The won/dollar rate has gone from 1200 about 3 years ago to around 950 now, about a 30% difference. Standard of living is basically the same, though the average salary is still a bit lower(but so are the costs of living, so it equals out).

I'd find it hard to believe there are any "companies" out there using Korean children to farm items in any MMPROG. It's not worth it money wise, legally, not to mention kids here tend to go to schools(public and private) from 7am to about 10-11pm 6 days a week.

[Ilkidarios]

Originally Posted by (Baram @ Mar. 24 2006,21:39) It's not worth it money wise, legally, not to mention kids here tend to go to schools(public and private) from 7am to about 10-11pm 6 days a week.

I don't think it neccesarily has to be children, the man in the article was 23. There're places here in America where you can get paid little to no money for doing physical labor.

They're just work camps, you get paid a small amount of money to harvest crops, but you also get free living space. I used to work at one, it was sort of like being a slave, but I'm a black man who didn't go to college, I didn't have much of a choice.

I don't know all that much about Korea, are there places like that there?

[Baram]

Originally Posted by (Ilkidarios @ Mar. 25 2006,10:54) Originally Posted by Baram,Mar. 24 2006,21:39 It's not worth it money wise, legally, not to mention kids here tend to go to schools(public and private) from 7am to about 10-11pm 6 days a week. I don't think it neccesarily has to be children, the man in the article was 23. There're places here in America where you can get paid little to no money for doing physical labor. They're just work camps, you get paid a small amount of money to harvest crops, but you also get free living space. I used to work at one, it was sort of like being a slave, but I'm a black man who didn't go to college, I didn't have much of a choice. I don't know all that much about Korea, are there places like that there?

There are a lot of jobs that offer free housing, but also come with a decent salary... a lot of teaching jobs at private schools pay 1-2k USD a month plus free housing.

In some of the more rural area's, you could find something similar to that. Long farming style hours, free room and board, small paycheck. But if you put a monitary value on the room and board, it still(should) hit the minimum wage limit.

But child sweat-shops... no, I've never heard of anything even remotely close to that.

한국말 할수있으면 해야조

Since it doesn't seem to like using real letters:
Hangukmal halsu issuemyeon haeyajo

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Baram @ Mar. 24 2006,21:39) Standard of living is basically the same, though the average salary is still a bit lower(but so are the costs of living, so it equals out). I'd find it hard to believe there are any "companies" out there using Korean children to farm items in any MMPROG.  It's not worth it money wise, legally, not to mention kids here tend to go to schools(public and private) from 7am to about 10-11pm 6 days a week.

Originally Posted by South Korea's economy is actually starting(well has been) doing better than the US economy if you look at the exchange rate changes over the last few years. The won/dollar rate has gone from 1200 about 3 years ago to around 950 now, about a 30% difference.

Just a point: The exchange rate doesn't tell you which economy is doing better, by itself. A stronger dollar doesn't mean a better US economy, and a weaker dollar doesn't mean a weaker US economy.

--matt

[Baram]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ Mar. 26 2006,14:36) Originally Posted by (Baram @ Mar. 24 2006,21:39) Standard of living is basically the same, though the average salary is still a bit lower(but so are the costs of living, so it equals out). I'd find it hard to believe there are any "companies" out there using Korean children to farm items in any MMPROG. It's not worth it money wise, legally, not to mention kids here tend to go to schools(public and private) from 7am to about 10-11pm 6 days a week. Originally Posted by South Korea's economy is actually starting(well has been) doing better than the US economy if you look at the exchange rate changes over the last few years. The won/dollar rate has gone from 1200 about 3 years ago to around 950 now, about a 30% difference. Just a point: The exchange rate doesn't tell you which economy is doing better, by itself. A stronger dollar doesn't mean a better US economy, and a weaker dollar doesn't mean a weaker US economy. --matt

You're right, I just used that as one example as it's the only thing I know exact numbers for. People I know back home say finding a job is still hard to find(one being a Cornell graduate, so it's not lack of degree/experience/etc), but here jobs are easy to find. Last time I went out to find a job, I had 5 job offers within 2 weeks.

Now you can say, Korea is smaller than the states, which is true but if you look at % of unemployment I'm sure there's a big difference... I'll try to find the exact numbers later. Homeless is the same way, the % of homeless here is probably far lower. I don't know exact numbers, but I know how often I saw someone that was homeless in NYC compared to how many I see in Seoul now, and it's a big difference.