Interreality Business Machines

"The video-game industry has big hopes for so-called massively multiplayer online games. Not only do players pay about $50 to purchase the game software, they have to pay $10 to $15 a month to access the virtual worlds. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. In many of these worlds, in addition to slaying monsters and building empires, commerce has become a central activity, catching the developers by surprise. The economies have grown so complex that players have to take their transactions to other markets -- primarily eBay."