In the online gaming worlds of Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games, where thousands of people exist and live a life, or several lives, in a computer generated game world.  Depending on the Game World you are living in you have property, a home town, a 'job', friends and opponents, allies and enemies, pets, and families.  You can accumulate virtual possessions on adventures or build up your skill set and turn raw materials into new more valuable items.  Some of these items are very rare, powerful, or difficult to acquire, so in the Game World they are worth allot of money.

The problem is that Game World money and objects are worth Real Life Money.  Real Life (or RL as the players call it) people who have the money are willing to pay for the Virtual Money, Items, services, and even the entire characters.  The characters are also highly valued as in the early stages of a characters development it takes allot of tedious work to build up from fragile and weak to the point where gameplay gets really interesting, let alone a character that has been built up to become very powerful, or even renown in the Game World.  Imagine skipping the weakling stages and playing a master sorcerer or feared warrior without the work.  What would that be worth to you?  How far would you be willing to go in an auction to get one of the top characters or the greatest weapon your character could use?

What if someone defeated you in the Game World and Took your Virtual Belongings?  Is it Really robbery?  The Item have an actual value, and in most cases you actually pay to play the game and accumulate these things. 

If I take them from you am I not depriving you of items of real value, unlike file sharing/piracy where nothing is actually deprived from the owner as it is a copy of the original that is taken and used? 

What if I robbed you then sold those items in Real Life?  Am I fencing it?

Am I actually stealing from you in Real Life?  Am I breaking the law in Real Life?

What if I cheated or Broke the End User Licencing Agreements to do so?

What If I used my superior character to hunt and harass your character, or run a protection scheme, Ponzi scheme, or other organized crime for Real World money either directly or indirectly?

The New Scientist wrote an article on an MMORPG "Mugger" that used 'Bots', computer automated programs that control your character for you, that gave his characters an unfair advantage in battle.  He then used These characters in Lineage II to rob weaker characters, then fence their goods through a Japanese Website for Real World Money. 

I say that putting real life commerce into the gamming world just shows the greed and laziness of people. Sure you could buy a all powerful character and then just go out and destroy and take what you want, but these people don't think about one thing. I could happen to you and how would you feel. Some peoiple have really worked hard on these character's and possessions. It makes me kinda pissed off that some jerk actually wants to take one of the major things that is wrong with the world we live in and bring it to some place where people are having fun. So to you guys and gals that are doing things like this watch your ass, play nice, because The Friendly Giant just might be watching you and he may not be too friendly to you when he comes a knocking on your door.