At best it creates a floor value, which is heavily dependent on a centralised reserve. Will the reserve increase? Decrease? How much is the reserve?
I haven't seen anything about Realcoin after the announcement. Either Pierce realized that it was a bad idea and gave up, or he is working quietly on it.
Pierce has some impressive record on game virtual currency and is responsible for building a global trade network for it.
He doesn't strike me as the the kind of person that will give up easily.