Sony placed a full-page
advertisement in the April 2006 issue of PC Gamer congratulating that magazine on their recent decision to stop
taking advertisements from companies that amass huge piles of gold and other virtual items in games like World of
Warcraft and Everquest in order to sell these virtual goods for real money. (The practice is often
referred to as "real money trade," or RMT.)
First, we've got to give props to PC Gamer, because they've taken an editorial stance against advertising that they feel harms certain game environments. More game magazines should be willing to turn down advertising revenues when they feel it compromises editorial quality.
That said, Sony's note sounds a little whiney. They write, "For every fix we make in our games, for every new tool we develop for our customer service teams, there are literally thousands of unscrupulous people around the globe looking for ways to poke holes in our games and find exploits in our worlds."
Replace
"games" and "worlds" with "software" and you've got a statement that could have been
written by any company developing Internet-enabled applications. Welcome to the Intarwebs, dudes! Address complaints to
Al Gore, plz thx.
(Click image for a version large enough to read in full.)
