Real money trade hits World of Warcraft game
The introduction of a way to use real money to buy virtual cash for World of Warcraft has prompted a big change in the value of the game's gold.
The exchange rate for dollars fell by almost a third on the first day that Blizzard let people swap real cash for game gold.
At launch, players could spend $20 (£13) to get 30,000 gold coins to spend on gear in the fantasy game world.
But 24 hours later the same amount of cash netted players about 20,000.
Before now the only way that World of Warcraft players could artificially boost the fortunes of their characters was by visiting a grey-market site and surreptitiously buying gold from unlicensed vendors.