World of Warcraft gamers who have found the activity of buying virtual property such as game characters, game gold, or other items from eBay in order to "enhance" their WoW experience will no longer have this as an option. eBay has announced that it will pull all ads related to the selling of virtual game property. This new policy will also branch out to other MMO virtual property game sales such as EverQuest II.
But one exception to the rule is the game Second Life, which is a virtual world simulation where the residents (gamers) can own property to build homes, meet people, explore, and for all intents and purposes, live a second life. The game has its own virtual economy in which goods and services are bought, exchanged, or sold.
The question of why Second Life was ruled out of the new eBay policy was explained with a rather nebulous, if not confusing, response by an eBay representative on news.com. Hani Durzy said, "If someone participates in Second Life and wants to sell something they own, we are not at this point proactively pulling those listings off the site. We think there is an open question about whether Second Life should be regarded as a game."
Although the answer from Durzy is unintentionally humorous, whether titles such as Second Life qualify as something other than video games, is open for interpretation. In eBay’s particular case, there seems to be a distinct blurring of what the definition of a video game is.
