Reldan
6581
It’s more likely they’ll just ignore the regulations and the taxpayers will simply not report the income unless some auditor gets a wild hair up their ass and decides to press the issue. Unless you get a person or group of people who organize and figure out some way to make serious bank off this entire thing, which would draw attention.
What ought to happen and what probably will happen are two different things, but I think the Blizzard guy was talking out his ass in his hand-waivey explanation for how they’re taking no responsibility for the business they built.
Well - the regulators have lawyers too. And in many jurisdictions you pay the assessed taxes first and fight them later.
I would expect that Blizzard will have no issues paying taxes on what they make off the RMAH - the real fight will be when taxmen globally demand that Blizzard share information on gamers who are making handsome profits on the RMAH.
Yeah. I read the RMAH EULA carefully as I was wondering how they would phrase it, since retaining (strong, legal) ownership of the items by Blizzard is needed for them to pursue RMT.
The wording in the EULA is you are buying & selling “licenses to use” the loot. Legally though I see that as putting it more in line with stock certificates. So, should I be reporting this as income or capital gains? (rhetorical I’m not using the RMAH). But it makes more sense financially as my “loot” now does have a dollar convertible value, but I only realize that gain if/when I should ever sell it.
So, if my chars loot was worth $10K when I got it but only $1K when I stripped and sold it, can I make a case for capital losses to shelter other income? Things like this amuse me as exercises.
Teeheehee. The Blizzards are total idiots when it comes to taxes. They are soooo fucked! I bet they haven’t paid taxes on WoW either.
You got it. If only they would have read this thread, they could have saved themselves BILLIONS. I bet no one at Blizzard even considered that while prepping the multi-million dollar Triple-A blockbuster title. Does anyone in this thread know a lawyer? Blizz might need one. One of those accountant guys, too.
For the next magic trick, now have the Internet tell us about all the plot holes in movies you find.
Reldan
6586
Corporations push the boundaries of what’s legal all the time. A lot of them cross the bounds and tend to make quite a bit of money until someone decides to push back. I’m sure they know exactly what they are doing, what the risks are, what the possible outcomes might be, and the math says it’s profitable to do it anyways.
You’d have to be an idiot to think corporations are morally upright entities that never take advantage of grey areas. I’m simply pointing out what I see the RMAH as, and what probably ought to happen but probably won’t. I doubt parts of what they are doing are entirely legal, but honestly it’s unlikely anything will come of it because that would require somebody taking the time to bother (which Activision Blizzard is fully aware of).
South Korea certainly is taking this kind of thing quite seriously.
I don’t know of a country where it’s otherwise. I’m quite open to learning about them, but the law in the US, Canada and EU is clear on this.
Reldan - Quite. Did you know that, for example, Brock Pierce, the founder of Affinity Media (former owners of IGE, and now of Thottbot/Allakhazam) sits on the board of Xfire? The entire issue around “gold selling” was and is one treated as no different from other civil disputes in business. AM just moved from what PLAYERS see as unacceptable cheating (on progression) to what they see as acceptable cheating (on exploration).
rowe33
6588
Made my first sale! $1.50 minus $1.00 Blizzard fee minus 0.08 transaction fee leaves me with an excellent profit of 0.42! Is there a further fee when I move it to Paypal or was that the 0.08?
Now don’t spend it all in the same place
Reldan
6591
People are selling stuff such that Blizzard keeps 72% of the earnings? That’s… obscene.
I don’t bother listing anything for under $2.50. What’s the point?
JMR
6594
Have any of you seen such a high DPS weapon for a level 52 character? The highest DPS weapon I see on the AH at level 52 maxes out at 437.7.
An Asian player jumped into my public game with this weapon and tore the house apart with that damn thing. Is that weapon legit?
maxle
6595
Go back to the AH and add reduced level requirement to the search criteria. There are tons of similar weapons.
JMR
6596
Well I’ll be damned I had no clue about that until now.
As an aside, is there an advantage of sticking with ceremonial knives over other one handed weapons for witch doctors?
Class specific weapons can have stats that are only useful for that class. Ceremonial knives can have things like +mana regen or more damage on a particular witchdoctor skill.
To follow up on what JMR asked:
Absolutely! Said another way, I don’t think other weapon types can have mana regen or max mana on them, since those abilities are Witch Doctor specific.
How do you guys value items when selling in the AH? I mean the normal one, not really money?
Any factor of the in-game selling price?
I believe the in-game price simply reflects on the item’s iLevel.
I typically search the AH for similar items and then try to make a guess as to whether mine is better or worse than what’s there. Then I usually price it a little lower.
I haven’t every gotten anything amazing, though, so most of the time nobody buys it! But I can usually sell my old gear when I upgrade to something newer.
