Lesson: don’t mix real and virtual worlds

Reuters today reported that an internet player on EVE — a popular virtual world game — stole virtual money, cashed it in for real money and now is banned from the game.

According to the rules of the game, if the player, Ricdic, had stolen only the online money he wouldn’t have been thrown out.  His venture into the real world for real cash got him excluded.  Here’s that part of the story:

Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he could have stayed in the game. But exchanging the virtual cash for real dollars broke the rules and CCP banned Richard’s EBank accounts.

“It unbalances the game,” Coker said.

Players can only buy virtual money with real money, or use virtual cash to pay for playing time, but they cannot exchange game money for the real thing.