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I'm Drew Breunig and I obsess about technology, media, language, and culture. I live in New York, studied anthropology, and work in advertising technology.

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What Happens when a Virtual Currency Disappears?

In 2011 Google acquired social games maker Slide for approximately $200 million. Only a few months later, as part of their 2011 spring cleaning, Google decided to shut down all but one of Slide’s existing games including SuperPoke! Pets. Player outrage was impressive following Google’s announcement, and today we learn that it was not empty: a class action lawsuit against Google has been filed.

The suit focuses on the matter of virtual currency which was purchased with the expectation that it’s value would hold. I Programmer quickly sums up the complaint:

Although the lead plaintiff,Christalee Abreu, says she spent more than a thousand dollars on virtual gold, the class action represents thousands of people across the who purchased gold and/or subscribed to a $4.95/month VIP subscription with the total “amount in controversy” exceeding $5,000,000 - a sum that is credible given that there were at least 7,000,000 users of the SPP site just before Slide sold out to Google.

Not versed in law, I cannot evaluate the claims Abreu makes but it is interesting to consider the long-term contracts that virtual currency might imply. When an app or service goes under is their an obligation to refund the currency? Should virtual currency be treated as bonds or debt? I imagine these products receive similar treatment to gift cards, but what happens if a Facebook currency catches on as a standard? At what point does the currency graduate from gift card to currency?

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  1. diskgrinder reblogged this from dbreunig
  2. cacioppo said: if you’re curious, take a look at zynga’s accounting. the main difference between “revenue” and “bookings” is currency-asset depreciation over the expected life of virtual goods. gaap doesn’t yet discuss digital tractors, but i bet they will soon.
  3. crosswordinspirations reblogged this from dbreunig
  4. dbreunig posted this