#13 - Specific Reference, Must Be True

[sqmusgrave]

Hi, I'm sorry but I don't understand your explanation for A. The admin says
"Answer choice (A): This is a very popular wrong answer choice, because the author says that with respect to games that are commodified, even in-world sales for virtual currency would be taxed regardless of whether the buyer cashes out—but the author of the passage refers to the sale of virtual currency for real world currency, not for real world items. "

But the stimulus says" even of in-world sales for virtual currency" around line 54. Where is the "real world currency" coming from? This says virtual currency, and answer choice A says "real world items for virtual currency". How is the author referring to virtual currency to real world currency instead?

[Chandler H]

Hi, I'm sorry but I don't understand your explanation for A. The admin says
"Answer choice (A): This is a very popular wrong answer choice, because the author says that with respect to games that are commodified, even in-world sales for virtual currency would be taxed regardless of whether the buyer cashes out—but the author of the passage refers to the sale of virtual currency for real world currency, not for real world items. "

But the stimulus says" even of in-world sales for virtual currency" around line 54. Where is the "real world currency" coming from? This says virtual currency, and answer choice A says "real world items for virtual currency". How is the author referring to virtual currency to real world currency instead?

Hi sqmusgrave,

The admin's post explains that answer choice (A) refers to exchanging real-world items for virtual currency, whereas line 54 refers to exchanging virtual items for virtual currency. The author of the passage also refers to exchanging virtual items for real-world currency (line 30), which I believe is what the admin's post was referencing.

I understand your confusion—there's a lot at play here! Regardless, it's never mentioned that real items would be exchanged for virtual currency, so answer choice (A) is wrong.

[miriamson07]

Hello,

I understand that the key to solving this question is more or less equating “real-world trade in virtual items” (line 27) to “intentionally commodified, even of in-world sales for virtual currency.”

But I understood the former to mean real-world trade of game items, without currency being involved. I struggle to picture how this would really look, but I imagine people trading the items they’ve earned in games with each other.

In contrast, the latter indicates that “intentionally commodified” games include trading for virtual currency.

I thought these two couldn’t be the same thing, since I assumed line 27 wasn’t referring to trade for currency. But perhaps it was? Or perhaps I am missing the right answer for another reason. Please let me know; thank you.

[Adam Tyson]

The passage differentiates the real world from the virtual world, miriam. When they say that some games encourage real world trade in virtual items, they are talking about exchanges like "I'll give you my Spiderman action figure if you'll give my avatar in this video game some of your avatar's virtual gold." Or, "I'll give you $20 if you give my character that cool sword you found in the cave after you beat the troll."

Those games that encourage this sort of trading are the ones that grant users intellectual property rights in their creations. I'm picturing that as something like a player creates a unique character in a game, the game creator gives that player the intellectual property rights to that character, and then the player sells the rights to that character to someone who wants to make a movie about that character. Or, maybe they just transfer ownership of that character to another player in exchange for money or some other real, tangible things in the real world.

"Real world trade of game items," as you put it, looks like a contradiction to me. If it's in the game, it's not in the real world, and vice versa. If your character has a piece of treasure like some gems, and mine has some magic crystals, and we trade inside the game so that you get the crystals and I get the gems, the real world is not involved. It's when I give you my skateboard in exchange for your character giving the gems to mine that we have real world trade for virtual items.