Trust the powers that be to look at taxing gamers for the sake of it. I feel if someone out there wants to sell you an item that's virtual, they should be able to do so without any real world bureaucracy.

Gamers already get stung just to get online to play, the for the month cost of online gaming. Is it fair to make them actaully pay more besides? I don't think so.

For this kind of tax to go through governments would have to understand the online world of gamers in more depth, only then would it work. And if this did actually happen, trading of such items will just go underground to IRCs etc, where things can be done without Sauron's eye looking to swipe your wallet.

Don't we already pay enough for games anyway, jeez?

But that's not what they are doing, or proposing. They are looking at taxing income - which is a basic tenet of any society that provides services like education, policing, and even basic government.


The item may be virtual, but the fiduciary reward you are receiving for it is not. Most countries work on the principle that all income, above certain agreed minima, is taxable.

They aren't talking about taxing your virtual currency here, but the REAL cash you get for selling an assett. Lets face it, seeing a band play live, or getting a blow job, are "virtual" experiences. You can't touch them, or put them in a box. But the band, and in regulated countries the sex worker, are taxed on the income they get for selling you this "virtual" service - and no-one bats an eyelid.


I think that you do not understand tax. If you are paying tax on your income made in a virtual environment, then any subscription fees to that environment could clearly be claimed as a valid tax deductible expenditure, since you could not make the profit without paying said fees.


Dude, these guys run countries, wage wars, organise the existing tax system... I know gamers think that "the man" doesn't understand us - but it would take these guys (many of them young, smart, Yale-educated cool guys) about five minutes to understand how WoW works... if you think otherwise, you are kidding yourself.


I think you underestimate the taxman's reach - they can, if they so choose, subpoena your bank records, or instruct your employer to pay them directly out of your slary BEFORE you receive what's left. Virtual trading requires REAL payment - a negotiable transaction - whether it be PayPal, BACS or Western Union, the government can monitor all of them.


FFS, you DON'T PAY TAX unless you make a profit. Therefore, in order to be elligible to being taxed, playing games is NOT COSTING YOU ANYTHING!!!!

This is opening up a huge can of worms then. If the government is allowed to dictate vitrual currency as any form of profit than we have opened ourselves up completely to the world of real lawsuits over virtual worlds and virtual items.

I mean if the government starts putting a real world value on our virtual items, then that makes them have a legitimately recognized real world value. Somebodies character gets cheated an item then fully expect a real world lawsuit.

I think its best to leave virtual worlds alone. If the government comes and starts regulating virtual worlds then we lose one of the things we love doing in games...escaping from reality.

But that's NOT what they are doing. They do not care how many VIRTUAL things or dollars or groats or goats you have. But if you sell those items for REAL WORLD MONEY, then they want to tax you.

There is nothing new, or sinister, or unprecedented about it. It's not encroaching on any inalienable human rights (which appear to be alienable after all). It's simple, if you sell virtual things for real money - the government wants its cut. The cut you tacitly agree to it having by living within its civilisation and rule of law.

If you don't like it, take to the barricades, nut the fora.

Rod Todd,

If I am playing eve on-line and I accumulate x amount of money that I plan on selling for real world cash. In essense this is my job and I pay my taxes on the money i earn while playing games. Somebody then hacks my account and rips off all of my virtual money that I had saved up. Because the virtual money is taxable when exchanged for real world cash...the government then is putting legal value on my virtual cash. I can than track down whoever hacked my account and sue them for monetary damages.

Imagine if these taxes start and then to balance out the game in which something I paid and was taxed $60 dollars for may be reassessed at a lower price and I would be stuck, screwed with paying higher taxes for an item that got nuked. I can then join in a class action lawsuit with all other players that got screwed from the rebalance and sue the game company.

If they want to tax the virtual world, expect the virtual world to desire the same attention in the courts as everything else.