Guild Wars 2

Would be nice if we could sell the gems for real money. That would somehow legalice Goldselling ingame.

Would also open Anet to a huge legal nightmare. The fact that you can’t trade gems with other players or convert them back to money in any way prevents them from being legally considered a virtual currency.

Depending on jurisdiction, of course, if it were to be allowed, then gems (and everything you can convert to and from gems like gold) could start to be considered taxable income, and that’s without going into all the complexities of international trade and currency exchange.

Just as an example, here in Venezuela there’s a very strict currency exchange control, basically any foreign currency you bring into the country in any way should be sold to the central bank as an specific rate… which of course creates a black market where foreign currency is sold at about 7 times the official price. A system like this would allow me, for example, to bypass the system by buying gems at the official rate, sell them for real money, then use that money for the black market… the game would be blocked here really fast.

Wait, the 30g I have isn’t real!?

This idea is old and over used. Its in many books and a couple old movies I have seen (Avalon, gun gale online)

Although it is theoretically possible for this to happen. The company that controls the currency has to be extremely wealthy and politically powerful. Seeing as both those cases are not even close to reality with arena net. Forget it.
Also to have the in game currency like that would leak money Away from arena net.

arena-net is low on funds as it is. and I don’t want to wait very long for my dlc’s

ANd I sure as hell don’t want the game to crash in financial crisis. I mean what else would we do with our time

:D