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General : China Bans Gold Farming
Posted Jun 29, 2009 by Michael Bitton
The multi-billion yuan a year industry that is the trade of virtual currency, or as it is more commonly known as, gold farming, has taken a huge hit.
China has banned the sale of virtual goods purchased with real currency today, and this includes pre-paid game cards. While some may find the industry questionable, this bold move by the Chinese government will definitely hit the Chinese economy.
China bars use of virtual money for trading in real goods
China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.
The government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, which includes prepaid cards of cyber-games, according to a joint circular from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce Friday.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." it said.
China has the world's largest population of Internet users, with 298 million people online as of the end of last year.
According to media reports, the virtual money trade topped several billion yuan last year after rising around 20 percent annually.
Since 2007, virtual money trading has drawn official attention, with the government demanding tighter controls as such trading became an avenue for gambling and illicit trade.
Under the new rules, using virtual money for gambling will be punished by public security authorities, and minors may not buy virtual money.
Get the full story here.
Isn't it such a wonderful thing to have a capable dictatorship?
/sarcasm off
I see this negatively effecting american markets.
Blizzard makes millions every time they ban all those RMTs. I'm sure they're not the only people benefiting.
As good as this sounds will just make the companys move to other countires. But a great move none the less. Just hope this does not cause a player wide shortage in all the MMO's and cause mass server merges
This is a joke. Come on.
hey, anybody who believes this will make any sort of difference:
I have a few bridges to sell you...
Yes thank you, I dream with gaming where real money doesn't affect your gameplay.
I wonder if this will be effective though, and developers that seek profit from these kind of trades and protect these now (finnaly) illegal companies= fail.
As someone stated this will not stop them, but it should slow it down a bit. Also I have no witty comment to make :(. This si good to hear though that "someone" is taking action.
LOL...classic...I love this paragraph:
The most popular Chinese online credits are "QQ coins" issued by Tencent. com, which has at least 220 million registered users. In a media statement Saturday, the company said it "resolutely" supported the new rule.
.......of course they "resolutely" support the ruling.....either that or get run over by tanks.
I bet they won't give a worm's shite if outsiders fork over cash for virtual goods....as long as it's enriching their economy. The locals just can't partake.
Hmm...yes. A ban. A ban can mean they will crack down on it and drive it into the ground or it could mean an entire new market for bribing officials to look the other way and take a percentage from the internet cafe in question. I seriously doubt that they will ever be able to stamp it out. There's too much money to be made and the demand for their services is still really high.
I think that name "QQ coins" is the best part of that quote.
The difference is that if a decision like that were made in the US, if they caught you, you might get a fine, maybe after multiple offenses some jail time... but in China, if they catch you, they shoot you, then bill your family the cost of a bullet.
A move like this will definitely be felt.
Edit for typos.
From what I understand the majority of the gold spammers that are banned are either keylogged or otherwise scammed accounts. The bots are run in bot computer farms and a few individuals watch multiple screens with like three or more boxes per screen for each of the characters. So unless blizzard can actually catch third-party bot software running like they claim then there's basically no way to tell.
As I said in the other thread...there goes about 9 million WoW Subs.
Can't agree more, it will have little effect. Unfortunately there are a lot of bridge buyers these days.
Why would we not believe this? China wants $$$ and how many compaines are out there that do this and do not pay TAXES? I know in the U.S. the IRS has a new tax form just for these kinds of things. So it would be in China's best interest to either make these guys pay or shut them down
Nobody has mentioned that this will also affect F2P RMT shops....
I used to make some good cash selling Plat before the Chinese got involved. Hopefully it will take a year or 2 before the Indians catch on and pick up the slack and i'll be able to pad my wallet some more!!
Hmm..just in case we were forgetting that China was communist , they go and remind us ;-)
Fake F2P games becoming illegal in China? Now that would seriously hurt the "genre", although they are usually developed in Korea, still that's a huge market going out of their range. Would be interesting to see this move on other countries, item malls are pretty much a virtual way to make money, and no it doesn't involve working on content, just auto-generating bits of information when a payment is made, not really comparable to a sub.
It's a valid idea though, since they are banning not only the services, but also the purchase of virtual goods which could very well mean the infamous item malls.
Nobody wants you're virtual bridges. On the main note, This law will keep all the criminals in, and all the non big risk takers out. It would be suprising if the ammount of gold farming operations dropped any less than 40% of total businesses.. It will be way harder to get ahold of gold farming sites because they will stick out like a sore thumb practically begging to be convicted by the chinese gvt. And the chinese gvt is not very forgiving.
Just like banning beer, it still happens ALOT, but it does keep a good ammount away. Nobody ever mentioned a magical scenario where making something illegal [Completely] gets rid of it. End of story is that EVERYTHING made illegal makes a difference to a moderate stretch.
Has anyone told the chinese about the ban yet?
Telling my partners right now, thanks for reminding me... not that we farm gold anyways (no money in it these days).
Blizzard won't lose that much money actually, except that the legit shops might stop recurring subscriptions. And yes, there are legit shops in China. Blizzard has driven the gold price into the ground, by not banning accounts for gold farming for the last several months. The wholesale price of WoW US gold is set at about $5-$8 per k on all servers.
As it was, any shop that is in China was being charged a tax... which is why shops had to move outside the country or at least have the site itself outside China. I wonder how this will affect the prices of RMT in games now. Maybe after a month, drive the rates up a bit?
For the record, tencent.com is the same maker of ICQ. QQ is the Chinese version of the software.
Hard not to believe it, when this is also posted on their offical government site: http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/newsrelease/commonnews/200906/20090606364208.html
I wonder if this is not more of a move to control the Chinese populace. A lot of people no longer have to work in the fields, and are much more computer literate these days. Remember that software that China wanted to impose no viewing illegal sites such as pr0n? Could be another move to stifle the people
hate to point this out but no where did I see where it bans them from selling virtual items to customers in foregin countries. The ban prevents them from selling virtual coin in china it does not mean that it restricts sells to overseas customers. Really need to get a translated copy of the actuall rulling and any laws that come out of it.
Second not sure what China's form of government has to do with this. It is no different than if the passed a law here in the U.S. restricting virtual sales.
On a side note Blizzard did win a large multimillon pound judegment against a compay that made a bot farming sofware program used by some to farm in WoW
lol. awesome.
It only took them a decade. Now we can start playing in peace, hopefully.
It states that only the issuing company can sell virtual products. IE WoW gold, could only be sold by Blizzard. Doesn't matter who it's sold to, from what I read, as it's illegal to sell virtual products "will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer".
And yes, they won a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and Mercury had a lot of companies using his product in China, however there are still other companies that provide bots in China that hasn't changed. There are at least 2 major players in China providing bots there.
This does nothing to stop gold farming, they can still amass the virtual goods in china and then just trade them out of country through a foriegn office or a middleman like a gold and item market...
Oh wait... they already do that to avoid other regulations.
This isn't to stop goldfarming, it is to stop unauthorized resale and trading of game cards and RMT credits.
MMORPG.com should change the title!
I think this move is more about trying to stop a possible way of laundering money by organized crime than about helping western gamers.
My Partner: China bars use of virtual money for trading in real goods . this law is use for game company.
My Partner: real goods is not real money :P
Me: can you explain more please?
Me: does this mean, can't use virtual gold to buy things like game cards or other products that are real?
My Partner: Some games can use virtual gold buy real products,like QQ games,virtual=/money,but just daid that,it for the game company
I think what the law is, is something similar to what happened in the 60's in Las Vegas NV, where as a lot of players would go to a gift shop or restaurant and pay with play currency, such as a $5 gaming chip. So the government came in, and required that each player must cash out to US currency before paying for things. The reasoning behind this, is that the US government didn't want Nevada to have their own currency, thus disrupting the US economy.
Hope that helps everyone to understand better... this in fact does not mess with gold sellers, as gold sellers do not pay ofr things with gold, although some websites do sell game cards in excahnge for gold, so I will assume that that portion would have to stop. But at this point it's all a wait and see, if it will affect gold sellers (and see teh Chinese govt lose out on a 15% sur tax - I doubt it)
I seems to me that this is a strike at F2P games in China more than anything else. All the money was probably going to Korea and the North Koreans objected to this. So the Chinese acted. Straightforward to me. If the amount of money going out of the country was that high and most of it going to Korea, I might have done the same thing. If I were a communist leader running my one party state.
N4
The little critters of nature. They don't know that they're ugly. That's very funny! A fly marrying a
bumblebee. I told you I'd shoot! But you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me?!
That basically sums it up, don't ya think?
Banning and being able to enforce it two different things, I am glad to see this, I was so sick of gold spam in my games, and along with all the other things gold farmers did to secure an account... Doubt I will see any changes, it will just shift to some other country... maybe if it would have stayed on ebay like it used to be it would have not been such an issue, taking allot of fun out of game play with the constant tells and mails, and shame on those that bought gold... I buy as game to play it myself....
To start off we may not see any effect at all.
However.....
Once some people start getting arrested for their GoldFarmerz.com company and thrown in Chinese Jails THEN we will start to see a sudden decline. They will try to go elsewhere but with S.Korea and now China both having laws against these will limit their options. About dern time too.
all I can say is - wait 3 months, look at your fave game's economy, then look at 6 months, then at 12... only then will we really know what affect this actually has on our games.
btw... a few of us in eve actively hunt goldfarmers and goldsellers, suicide gank ftw.
lol
they banned gold farming now, to have it legalized later and under their government control.
always went like this
This is what the law means....
There is an increasing trend of criminal organisations working RMT activities in China to make easy money from the west, the Chinese government has always been after these and has sent numerous groups to jail already.
What this law really does, it not stop RMT activity, it merely allows the Chinese government to close down and jail all RMT groups with staff in China whether they have proof they are criminals or not.
So, typical government tactics, if you can't find the evidence, make it up. But they do this all over the world, only difference with China is that they actually make it legal :)
Good news for anyone who doesn't like gold farmers / spammers.
as with everything else in china, this is short for "officials will now require industry standard bribes to grant official exemptions to regulations".
Only company this is going to hurt is Second Life, good ridence.
Meh. Gold farming will just move to India or some other country instead.
I don't really mind gold farmers as long as they don't spam and don't take over the servers and make it hard for other players to find quest mobs and so on.
That said I don't find any enjoyment in buying game currency. I like to play the game as it was designed and if you need to buy currency to have time to enjoy the game, and not just grind (Lineage 2 for me), that game is poorly designed and need to change it's economy.
Reading comprehension FTW.
Based on the description in the article, this does NOT appear to ban gold-farming and selling. In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with it at all.
Same will happen in US as well since both china and US are communist now
I find it amusing that people are predicting a mass exodus from games like World of Warcraft and Eve. It's amusing because it isn't going to happen. What will happen is the RMT industry will continue with a vengeance, prices will increase as companies move thier opperations to more forgiving countries and those who buy currency and other services will continue to buy currency and other services.
This $200 million dollar a year industry will continue to be a $200 million dollar a year industry. Growth may well slow, prices will most certainly increase (with inital rises possibly moving as high as 250-500% above thier current figures) but RMT will continue.
So yeah, RMT is down but it certainly isn't out.
I shall blog about this later <3
From what I'm reading, this law is going to do nothing to stop gold farming. If anything, it is only going to increase the gold farmers' impact.
What this law is designed to do is to prevent gold farmers from acquiring real goods and services for virtual gold. It does not, however, prevent gold farmers from acquiring real currency for virtual gold. If anything, the law only strengthened the relationship between real currency and virtual gold, because it admits that virtual gold "is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate."
I presume the law was created because people were using virtual currency to engage in transactions that would be illegal if done with regular currency: things like gambling and prostitution. They might also be using virtual currency to purchase goods and services without having to pay tax. The Chinese government don't want that, obviously.
But this law says nothing about selling gold for real dollars...or yuan...or euros. In fact, that's probably the only thing you can get for virtual gold under this law. So instead of decreasing the impact of gold farmers in the game, this law is going to increase it. Since the farmers can no longer buy food, a nice date, or a casino binge with virtual gold; all the people using farming to get those things are now going to be farming for dollars and euros.
And don't think for a moment that China doesn't like a ton of dollars and euros coming into their economy.
which was my point earlier. It seems to cover party A from selling virtual coins to party B which party B would then trade to party C for real goods or currency.
Ok, I see gold farming being a mouth watering temptation in WoW....But in Warhammer you must be without a doubt a lazy mold covering your brain caural player to buy gold......It so bloomin easy to get that I have a 20 gold surplus on my Tier 1 character....So if you want to toss money into a black hole, goto church and tith.
Exactly.
I see the rest of the worlds gold farmers pulling in the slack when this hits.
which was my point earlier. It seems to cover party A from selling virtual coins to party B which party B would then trade to party C for real goods or currency.
It does indeed ban gold-farming. Only the company will be able to sell virtual currency(edited this part as it looks like you can still sell items)... "legally". I seriously doubt this will even make a dent in gold sales, though.
"The statement said Tencent had strongly opposed the underground trading of virtual money, which could enable online theft and fraud. The company would work with the authorities to combat online crimes, according to the statement.
Cui Ran, an expert on the Chinese online industry, said the regulation aimed to "nip illegal online activities in the bud," as current trading volume was still too small to shake the nation's entire financial system.
But as the trade expanded steadily, with increasing conversions between virtual and real money, there would be an impact on the financial system, he noted. "
How? What about farming and selling gold involves the exchange of real world goods for virtual currency?
LOL,
If this is affective (which it won't), instead of deciphering broken Chinese English, I gotta figure out broken Mexican English. Being from Texas, I'll get by.
It really doesn't look like many who replied in this thread actually read the full main article this is based upon.
The number of internet users in China is about 60 mill or so less than the ENTIRE US population not just gamers. The company quoted in the article as most popular virtual currency has 220 million subscribers -- a wee bit more than WoW's entire world subscriber list.
The reasons are to prevent mostly illicite activities -- name a business you could launder funds through easier than one that has no real product being that it is virtual.
China also is including game cards in as 'virtual currency' and making them illegal in that country.
So this will impact their economy quite a bit. They also are doing so now instead of later because of the 20% growth in the market last year. Simply put, they need to stop it now or it'll really trash their economy if they wait and this industry, that is trading real currency for virtual currency and then trading in that virtual currency, has a huge amount of problems -- both potential and current -- for uses and abuses far beyond some gamers buying toys in games.
How? What about farming and selling gold involves the exchange of real world goods for virtual currency?
The exchange of irl currency in exchange for virtual goods IS now illegal in China, unless it is facilitated by the company who owns the IP rights to that currency. Furthermore, this is obviously a first step towards the strenuos regulation of the virtual game worlds we in the West take for granted. We'll just have to wait for some people to get shot before we know the full extent of this law :-)
However, this is not a massive dent in the RMT industry. It is a massive dent to the Chinese economy (although when you have an economy like that, you don't really need to worry about a few dents here and there). The RMT industry will simply move their operations to other countries that will benefit more from the industry, the Philipines being a good example.
I wonder which nation will take over if this effectivly stops the Chinese, there will be a gap in the market.
It's more than likely that they will move to countries like the Philipines. The reason why China was so popular (but by no means that only country in use) with RMT companies was simply because of the cheap labour and low rental prices on buildings. In Phil, labour is not nearly as cheap but building rental is on the same level, so it makes sense for them to move there.
There are other countries of course that may well see more of an influx of RMT companies. The Internet uptake in African countries is gaining speed, so we may see some companies moving their, although the lack of political stability in the region will put them off. Middle East is an option as well.
Unfortunately I don't see this making a very big impact on the plague until the game companys come up with a way to stop the practice in game. it may slow it down for a little while, but does nothing to stop it completely. I would love to see a game where you don't get spammed in /tell or mail every 5 seconds to by gold or for power leveling services. This is why WoW is the most hacked MMO in existance, because of the keyloggers and other progams hidden in these so called "services".
You won't see many in Africa due to the poor infrastructure,the next couple of years you will see world wide crack downs in all areas of the internet including massive new UN anti piracy laws,it's sad even the wild west eventually was tamed,so it will be with the internet.
And alot of people say that this will have little impact have no idea what they are talking about,this effects any Chinese entrepreneur if you think the Chinese government is not going to mind if one of their citizens attempts to circumvent law by setting up shop in a sympathetic country then my friends you don't know the Chinese government.
Hup hup, huzzah
I would retort with the idea that you don't know what you are talking about.
The majority of the companies that operate from China and pile the most amount of money and infrastructure into the Chinese and the "workhouses" of farmers are not Chinese companies :-) Pretty much all of the are US or EU companies ;-) Go do some reading ;-) The Chinese may work for these companies... but that is where it ends. Those are the driving forces behind this industry ;-) I know this because as a Journalist I had to do a large amount of research into the topic ;-)
The exchange of irl currency in exchange for virtual goods IS now illegal in China, unless it is facilitated by the company who owns the IP rights to that currency. Furthermore, this is obviously a first step towards the strenuos regulation of the virtual game worlds we in the West take for granted. We'll just have to wait for some people to get shot before we know the full extent of this law :-)
...
Do you have a copy of the actual law, because that's not what the article says at all.
It says:
'China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.
...
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."'
Nothing there says that it is illegal to sell virtual currency for real money. In fact, the article assumes this will take place.
The exchange of irl currency in exchange for virtual goods IS now illegal in China, unless it is facilitated by the company who owns the IP rights to that currency. Furthermore, this is obviously a first step towards the strenuos regulation of the virtual game worlds we in the West take for granted. We'll just have to wait for some people to get shot before we know the full extent of this law :-)
...
Do you have a copy of the actual law, because that's not what the article says at all.
It says:
'China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.
...
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."'
Nothing there says that it is illegal to sell virtual currency for real money. In fact, the article assumes this will take place.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."
In other words, virtual currency will be limited to virtual transactions. There really is little that needs explaining here. The point that is made about the virtual currency being exchanged for real money is only made to highlight how it is used. It does not say, "Virtual currency will continue to be exchanged for real currency," because - by definition - that is a form of, "real goods and services."
Do you have a copy of the actual law, because that's not what the article says at all.
It says:
'China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.
...
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."'
Nothing there says that it is illegal to sell virtual currency for real money. In fact, the article assumes this will take place.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."
In other words, virtual currency will be limited to virtual transactions. There really is little that needs explaining here. The point that is made about the virtual currency being exchanged for real money is only made to highlight how it is used. It does not say, "Virtual currency will continue to be exchanged for real currency," because - by definition - that is a form of, "real goods and services."
:facepalm: Your logic is failed. Real currency is not, by definition, "real goods and services".
If you don't get it, you don't get it. Read the whole article, and I'm talking about the government release, not the conjecture ridden BS pieces on the gaming sites. It's very clear that they contemplate the continued exchange of virtual currency for real currency, and they don't say a single word about gold farming or the sale of MMO gold for real money.
EDIT: If you don't believe me, read this.
Do you have a copy of the actual law, because that's not what the article says at all.
It says:
'China has unveiled the first official rule on the use of virtual currency in the trade of real goods and services to limit its possible impact on the real financial system.
...
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."'
Nothing there says that it is illegal to sell virtual currency for real money. In fact, the article assumes this will take place.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services."
In other words, virtual currency will be limited to virtual transactions. There really is little that needs explaining here. The point that is made about the virtual currency being exchanged for real money is only made to highlight how it is used. It does not say, "Virtual currency will continue to be exchanged for real currency," because - by definition - that is a form of, "real goods and services."
:facepalm;
If you don't get it, you don't get it. Read the whole article, and I'm talking about the government release. It's very clear that they contemplate the continued exchange of virtual currency for real currency.
Interestingly, I'm talking about the Government release as well :-) Interestingly, they specifically highlight that RMT industry in their release. Interestingly, most of the focus is on the exchange of virtual currency for real money. Interesting, really... considering they, "aren't banning gold farming."
Also, go and do some research :-) Prices on a lot of sites have almost doubled since the article was released. Why would companies double their prices if they were not at risk? It does not make sense :-)
So yes... you should be slapping yourself in the face ;-)
What are you talking about? The government release never once mentions the RMT industry, and only mentions the trade of virtual currency for real money once, in the quote I highlighted, when it explains how people obtain the virtual currency. On the other hand, it talks about the impact of using virtual currency for trade in real goods and services on the real financial system" and how it is being used for illegal activities, gambling and money laundering. None of this has anything to do with RMT in MMORPGs.
Again, as I said, if you don't believe me, read the blog I linked. You, like almost everybody else, are way behind. Gaming sites are already posting the correction.
Here is another one.
What are you talking about? The government release never once mentions the RMT industry, and only mentions the trade of virtual currency for real money once, in the quote I highlighted, when it explains how people obtain the virtual currency. On the other hand, it talks about the impact of using virtual currency for trade in real goods and services on the real financial system" and how it is being used for illegal activities, gambling and money laundering. None of this has anything to do with RMT in MMORPGs.
Again, as I said, if you don't believe me, read the blog I linked. You, like almost everybody else, are way behind. Gaming sites are already posting the correction.
Here is another one.
So you quote an INTERPRETATION of the post by a professor and claim that to be the facts of the situation.
They are banning game cards too and include them in their text. Mind explaining that one? That's not virtual-to-virtual, that's a one-way real-to-virtual transaction -- no different than any other type of purchase for online services.
The government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, which includes prepaid cards of cyber-games, according to a joint circular from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce Friday.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." it said.
Now that seems a bit unclear. You can buy currency to use in the virtual world. You cannot convert virtual to real goods and services -- interpretation: You can't get 1,000pp in a game and buy a tee-shirt for that. But this doesn't cover the game cards aspect which doesn't do that. It is strictly a pre-paid access pass.
Since 2007, virtual money trading has drawn official attention, with the government demanding tighter controls as such trading became an avenue for gambling and illicit trade.
Under the new rules, using virtual money for gambling will be punished by public security authorities, and minors may not buy virtual money.
The Ministry of Culture also vowed to step up supervision on money laundering via virtual credits and other illegal online activities.
So their goal is to shut down money laundering and gambling style activities across the web that use virtual currency in the same fashion as casinos use chips at the tables but this would be up to the wording of the law. There's no way of telling without reading Chinese how "fuzzy" the scope is or how exacting. This is a press release of what they did.
But *THINK* about this a minute... They're including game cards in the mix. A game card is nothing more than pre-paid access to a virtual service. There is no conversion back to cash, etc... so selling real for virtual, in a pre-paid fashion is included.
There is some serious cross information here and reading a professors interpretation of it doesn't help. The release states what it states which isn't all that clear.
So you quote an INTERPRETATION of the post by a professor and claim that to be the facts of the situation.
They are banning game cards too and include them in their text. Mind explaining that one? That's not virtual-to-virtual, that's a one-way real-to-virtual transaction -- no different than any other type of purchase for online services.
The government also spelled out the definition of "virtual currency" for the first time, which includes prepaid cards of cyber-games, according to a joint circular from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce Friday.
"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." it said.
Now that seems a bit unclear. You can buy currency to use in the virtual world. You cannot convert virtual to real goods and services -- interpretation: You can't get 1,000pp in a game and buy a tee-shirt for that. But this doesn't cover the game cards aspect which doesn't do that. It is strictly a pre-paid access pass.
Since 2007, virtual money trading has drawn official attention, with the government demanding tighter controls as such trading became an avenue for gambling and illicit trade.
Under the new rules, using virtual money for gambling will be punished by public security authorities, and minors may not buy virtual money.
The Ministry of Culture also vowed to step up supervision on money laundering via virtual credits and other illegal online activities.
So their goal is to shut down money laundering and gambling style activities across the web that use virtual currency in the same fashion as casinos use chips at the tables but this would be up to the wording of the law. There's no way of telling without reading Chinese how "fuzzy" the scope is or how exacting. This is a press release of what they did.
But *THINK* about this a minute... They're including game cards in the mix. A game card is nothing more than pre-paid access to a virtual service. There is no conversion back to cash, etc... so selling real for virtual, in a pre-paid fashion is included.
There is some serious cross information here and reading a professors interpretation of it doesn't help. The release states what it states which isn't all that clear.
It's perfectly clear that the release says nothing about banning the sale of MMO-currency for real cash.
As for game cards, it simply says that they fall within the definition of "virtual currency", i.e. you cannot use a 60 day game card to pay for a hand job in a back alley in Hong Kong.