gibbergibber - 3:40 pm on Jun 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

"The VR "economy" was worth an estimated $500 million last year."

The vast majority of this isn't in stuff like Second Life though (whose monetary value has been greatly exaggerated). The bulk of the money flows through games like World Of Warcraft where players are willing to buy and sell items and characters through official channels or more likely unofficial channels such as ebay.

It's people paying to skip over some of the gameplay, rather than people investing in virtual property.

What's worrying is that many (perhaps most) countries have no legal system for protecting virtual property, so it could just disappear one day because the game publishers decide to shut the game down. Short of a nuclear holocaust or cultural revolution, that kind of thing doesn't happen in the real world.