Games People Play, Take 2

Matt the tech-geekiest Batface sends along a Slashdot item about real-money video-game tourneys … a good example of how online poker\’s current issues could have ramifications that reach far beyond just poker.

It\’s a geeky corollary to online poker. Fairly similar in many regards, including the use/debate about Bots (read the comments) and of course the potential legal gray-area.

btw, FPS means \’First Person Shooter\’, in case you didn\’t know. Pretty much describes any game where you kill/blow shit up.

Thanks for sending, Sommer.

Indeed, the video game industry has a major stake in the evolution of online gambling/gaming and the UIGEA. Already, you can play soccer online — the winner of the Fifa Interactive World Cup scored a $20k payday — and buy additional games on the XBox 360 for credits that you purchase at a brick-and-mortar store. (Interestingly enough, they have a Texas Hold\’em game on there — and at a near-prohibitive cost of 800 credits … compared to, say, 150, for other games.) And even though video games are very arguably matters of skill, age-old concerns about cheating become a real issue. Just the other week I took on some punk from New Jersey who had a Ronaldinho with superpowers — like he could run five times as fast as any other player, and shoot missiles on-goal from anywhere on the field.

Now think about Second Life …

This little world in cyberspace has already established relationships with actual businesses and governments — more than US$1 million in transactions every day, Sweden is opening up an embassy, and Reuters has a Second Life news bureau … where one of the things it reports about is the fluctuating value of SL\’s monetary unit. People/avatars have opened up poker rooms and casinos in Second Life … but little attention is being paid, probably because a Linden Dollar still is relatively insignificant in the world of international finance … currently trading for less than the Sudanese Dinar.

Call me a web-scrambled conspiracy theorist if you must … but the Neteller case is not about poker … it\’s about who will control the currencies of the future.

UPDATE: More on Second Life gambling here. And perhaps recognizing what lies ahead … a Second Life Bar Association has taken shape to represent the virtual people in presumably any court.