Player Market

Issues such as ownership or compensation are of less concern to players who primarily come to games to play and buy items rather than create and sell them. However, another issue directly affects these players is that they spend real-world money to buy items in-game, but they have no way to recover this money.

For instance, if they stop playing a game, all the items they bought in it immediately become worthless. If the game is shut down for any reason, such as a decline in popularity that makes it less profitable, all the player’s in-game purchases vanish into nothing. This is especially true in free-to-play (F2P) games. Purchases are a one-way street. Players spend money to buy things in the game, but have no way to recover their value if they no longer use an item, and have no way to sell it to another player legally so they receive no compensation if the game is taken off the market.