This is very interesting news, this news however can be benifited by some and outrageous to others. I feel that this statement made by ebay will drastically improve the online games of today. Allowing less people to cheat and play the game as its meant to be played. But others that play a online game religously just to make a living will find that this is a outrageous move that will hurt their way of life. Its like basically firing off or laying off workers. But in reality online items shouldnt really be sold online anyway, its illegal in the agreement when you sign up to play a online game. I had a couple friends that would play online games as a job, where they would level and search for the hottest items online and try to sell it to consumers that are too lazy to do it themselves. They also offered leveling services, but now that ebay has put a wall to their plans they are pretty much out of the job, unless they can do trades through other sources via internet like ebay.

My personal opinion of the move was a good one, because I used to be a online player of various mmorpgs. And I always found it odd how a lvl 1 character started the game with a lvl 20 item. Or say they was level 1 for a day and some how became lvl 90 the next. Ebays move will probably make the online community and enviroment for gameplay a better place for all that play mmorpgs. And hopefully it will continue to improve, because in reality these online games are just a game so people should just play it casually like one and have fun and should be such in a rush to do something outrageous just to try to be a bully from the start.

I'm sure the move on ebay's part was smart, just to get it out of all the legal hassles that can come about with buying virtual items and the scams and whatnot that can come up... but overall I think it won't really dampen the amount of items bought with real world money just because people generally find other means. Forums are probably one major way of doing business, though it isn't safe just because you can get scammed doing business directly with another member, and that time you won't have ebay's rules and regulations and fraud protection to help back you up.

I think the game companies need to create a sort of market in and of themselves that enables gamers to trade their items with other gamers for money. The time value of money is what they're really trading for. Sure, the items themselves are virtual, but people invest lots of time to gain these items (or even in-game currency), so they indeed have some monetary value. Supply and demand will always apply, whether to real or virtual items, as long as the two people trading both achieve something they desire. One wants the cash for their time and work, and the other wants to get ahead in the game by buying a rare item, or in-game currency.

Considering how long it takes to really get a good level in most of these online games, I think it's a big time-saver to buy virtual gear... I mean, you play this online game with no actual ending... and you get tired of it and want to leave... What consolation is it that all your work and time was wasted because you're not allowed to sell your gear and get some sort of reward back for it?

The game Project Entropia (which I now believe is called Entropia Universe) lets people deal with real world money, but most of the avenues of activities that are supposed to generate cash usually result in gambles and a loss of money. But the principle is sound. After you gain so many credits, you can cash them in for real world money. I think if more game companies implemented some sort of variation on this system, not only would they make more money, since users would be able to have the choice of putting more money into the game than the typical $9.99-14.99 a month (some entropia members I knew put in thousands of dollars every MONTH! thinking they could get ahead). Then users who want to quit the game would be able to somehow "cash in" their character and get some sort of monetary reward based on how good the skills are, so all that time wasn't wasted and the character isn't left to die in the virtual world with no one to play it.

Whew. I hope this is logical enough

If there is a market, people will create a new service or some way of doing it. At least the Runescape folk were smart enough to charge a fee for it so they take some of the cut.

I don't agree with online item buying. Too easy to get scammed. I would sell stuff for many games that I play and used to play (RuneScape and Navy Field) but I don't find it right allowing people to buy there way to the top of a game. Why would someone actually buy an onine game thing? Maby they don't want to play the game and just want to win it. I don't know what World Of Warcraft is so I have no idea if people actually buy stuff for it. Well I guess if you wanted to make your life easyer you could buy or sell stuff. Maby eBay should alow it? After all it is the buyers risk.
Thanks,
Sparkx