Once the money and the workers arrive, the men in nice suits are soon to follow. Every now and then, there's a rustling as the IRS begins poking around this new business sector. I asked him whether the government would ever start taxing virtual goods. "I think if they know what's good for them, they'll poke around and go away again, at least for a few years," he said, though that doesn't mean they couldn't start taxing items. "It's literally the case, as I relate in the book and elsewhere, that if you apply tax codes on barter and game winnings to the virtual economy, that every piece of loot that is created or dropped in any game is a taxable event."
That said, he suspects the IRS won't go after in-game assets, "if history is any guide." He uses the story of Mark McGwire's record-breaking home run ball as an example. A reporter called the IRS and asked if the fan that caught it would owe taxes for acquiring a million-dollar asset. "The IRS guy said no, that's technically called a windfall, and there's no taxes on that ... but then pointed out that if the fan had done the right thing and given the ball back to Mark McGwire, he would've immediately be liable for a gift tax of $100,000." They "trotted out some fig leaf legal explanation for why they wouldn't. But in fact, they could, legally." In the McGwire case, he says, "they saw the political writing on the wall and said it's not worth it. ... And I think they're probably astute enough to say there's just not enough revenue here to make it worth our trouble, but once they start looking at things like Second Life, and as things like Second Life start to [move more money around], it's going to be a different story, I think."
Since it's been some time since his adventures in the RMT trade, I ask him if there was anything he took away from it, if it was something he enjoyed and looked back on fondly, or if it was just some crazy thing he did. "Well, it's definitely a crazy thing I did," he says, and he won't be returning to the trade. "Not because it's a soul-sucking horrible thing to do, but I'm not a businessman, and that's a business. And I'm not even primarily a gamer. I think I've earned my chops in that regard, but I'm just more fascinated by the ways that cultures and economies and societies that are springing up in and around these incredibly complex games work. That's what drew me to it. And [that's] what has me stuck to it still."
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Shannon Drake.
