Diablo - Is Diablo III Turning Virtual Economies Into Real Ones? | Idea Channel | PBS

Diablo actually makes a smart move by legalizing the selling of your in-game items. By making something like that legal, they’re killing the illegally market on these things. So not only are they making money out of their in-game content earned by players, they also stop others from illegally making money out of it. It’s a win-win situation for Blizzard and thus a very smart move on their side.

For example: In the Netherlands, certain types of soft drugs are legalized (only the ones that have a very low risk to a person’s health, even less than smoking or drinking). Of course there are still laws surrounding the legal drugs, so no worries on that. But nonetheless, the legalizing of certain types of drugs gives the drug market in the Netherlands two advantages compared to countries where everything is illegal by default.

1: By making certain softdrugs legal, they lowered the usage of the more dangerous harddrugs. Why would you use a more dangerous harddrug that can get you arrested and addicted, when you can legally use a less-dangerous softdrug that is also a lot less addictive?
2: They are partly destroying the illegal market on drugs. Same as point one, why use an illegal drug when you can buy a different one legally. But not only are they destroying a part of the profit dealers could get from it, the goverment is also getting a part of the legal profit on these drugs through taxes and excise on this. Like with Blizzard, it’s a win-win situation.