Backing in-game currency with Bitcoin seems relatively easy...

[Anonymous]

Since one Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, couldn't you back an entire in-game economy with any number of Bitcoins you wish? Even one?

[kiba]

You could even run the whole bitcoin economy based one bitcoin!   

[no to the gold cult]

Yeah I wondered what would happen if the game EVE backed the ISK with bitcoin. EVE money is backed by real world currencies via subscription fees, but this could be tricky with a volatile commodity like btc at this stage. And what would be the point of backing the economy on btc at all if people can't move btc in and out of the game economy? And if so rich people with btc outside the game would have an unfair advantage.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I wondered what would happen if the game EVE backed the ISK with bitcoin. EVE money is backed by real world currencies via subscription fees, but this could be tricky with a volatile commodity like btc at this stage. And what would be the point of backing the economy on btc at all if people can't move btc in and out of the game economy? And if so rich people with btc outside the game would have an unfair advantage.

Your amount wealth doesn't necessarily have to translate into an unfair advantage in-game. All game mechanics are different. In the case of Bitcoins, the game mechanics will have to adjust for the flow of game currency flowing in and out of the game.

Anyways, WoW Gold and EVE ISK are purchased outside their respective games all the time.

The advantage BTC gives to games is that players can actually earn something of intrinsic value --  and lose it too. : P

[Nefario]

I could see a large point of sale system being backed by bitcoin. It would work in a similar way to mybitcoin(I know it's not  POS, what I mean is that it can process transactions between mybitcoin accounts instantly).

First thing that comes to mind is ripple, but for this you wouldn't even need ripple. Why mybitcoin could actually start doing POS right now if  they built the functionality in.

[FreeMoney]

Atlas, do you know Dragon's Tale?

[Stephen Gornick]

Anyways, WoW Gold and EVE ISK are purchased outside their respective games all the time.

On a related noteL

 Nexon Cash (NX) is purchased through the MapleStory web site.

  PayPal is the only accepted method of payment in MapleStory Global.

Maplestory NX cards are now also being sold for bitcoins by a Maplestory forum operator.
 - http://sleepywood.net/forum/showthread.php?p=10369915

They even reference mt. gox as the method for determine the price in bitcoins.  $1 USD worth of bitcoins buys $1 USD worth of NX Cash.

The idea behind offering codes for bitcoin was to allow people that didn't have easy access to USD/CAD to pay for it to use their computer hardware(GPU especially) to generate bitcoin.

Interesting.

[Astro]

Perhaps the folks at MindArk could be convinced to deploy a version of Entropia Universe (which uses a real-money economy) that is backed by bitcoin instead of traditional currencies, or even include bitcoin as one of the supported currencies.  

http://planetroster.entropiauniverse.com/

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Since one Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, couldn't you back an entire in-game economy with any number of Bitcoins you wish? Even one?

Take EVE for example. I think ~10M ISK can be exchanged for $1 worth of subscription. Let's say there are a total of 10^12 ISK. If CCP wanted to back this entire amount with 1 BTC, it means 10M will be backed by 0.00001 BTC which can be exchanged for ~$0.00001. This is much less than can be obtained by other means, so no-one will want to exercise it and the backing will be worthless.

The value of bitcoins is controlled from above (how many bitcoins there are total), not from below (the smallest possible denomination).

[johnieeliang]

Since one Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, couldn't you back an entire in-game economy with any number of Bitcoins you wish? Even one?

Take EVE for example. I think ~10M ISK can be exchanged for $1 worth of subscription. Let's say there are a total of 10^12 ISK. If CCP wanted to back this entire amount with 1 BTC, it means 10M will be backed by 0.00001 BTC which can be exchanged for ~$0.00001. This is much less than can be obtained by other means, so no-one will want to exercise it and the backing will be worthless.

The value of bitcoins is controlled from above (how many bitcoins there are total), not from below (the smallest possible denomination).

it fluctuates but its usually between 350-370 is 15$ but yea your right you could back an entire game currency with one btc

[kiba]

I got an idea for a game that use bitcoin as energy resource, except you can play lot of games with just one bitcoin. Since one bitcoin equals 100,000,000 satoshis, you will spend at most 100,000 satoshis in a long paced RTS game.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Since one Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, couldn't you back an entire in-game economy with any number of Bitcoins you wish? Even one?

Take EVE for example. I think ~10M ISK can be exchanged for $1 worth of subscription. Let's say there are a total of 10^12 ISK. If CCP wanted to back this entire amount with 1 BTC, it means 10M will be backed by 0.00001 BTC which can be exchanged for ~$0.00001. This is much less than can be obtained by other means, so no-one will want to exercise it and the backing will be worthless.

The value of bitcoins is controlled from above (how many bitcoins there are total), not from below (the smallest possible denomination).

it fluctuates but its usually between 350-370 is 15$ but yea your right you could back an entire game currency with one btc

Who is right? You quoted me, and I said you couldn't back an entire game currency with one btc.

[barbarousrelic]

I don't think most online games (besides gambling sites) would want this. You play a game to escape from reality. You probably don't want a game set up so that if you're poor IRL, you're also poor in the game.