Random round-up
If you read the right blogs, you have seen all of this already. Consider yourself warned!
- Some analysis of financial services in SL
- The Library of Congress is going to work to preserve games. How exactly they can preserve VW’s, which get patched and change, is a whole other question. 🙂
- Linden says it has a one to two year timetable to release their servers.
- The UK is looking at taxing virtual goods profits, and of course, this is the month that the US is supposed to issue a report on it.
The “Preserving Virtual Worlds” project is led by the University of Illinois, which is where PLATO was developed. I wonder where future generations of game historians will come to believe virtual worlds were invented?
The UK taxing of virtual goods profits thing is mainly a headline-grabbing piece for Blick Rothenberg, by the looks of things. Unless the view taken by the Inland Revenue has changed since I spoke to the Financial Services Authority earlier this year, they’re only interested in taxing any real-world profits you make from selling virtual goods; if you keep all your money virtual, they don’t care (yet – this kind of thing is always subject to review). That said, the fact that they’re looking at capital gains as well as income from the sale of virtual goods and services is different.
Richard