Online gamer stabs another for selling his online weapon.

Supposedly, A & B jointly won a ''dragon sabre" in an online game & lent it to C, who promptly sold it for US$870. Which begs the question: why would anyone lend someone (least of all a competitor) something that valuable without having at least some sort of guarantee?

But I digress... What has this article got to do with my research anyway? Well, consider the following facts.

"A went to the police to report the "theft" but was told the weapon was not real property protected by law"

essentially, this means that C was stabbed to death over something which isn't even recognized as property by the law. 1's & 0's generated by a game server somewhere actually have a value of $870? Even enough to kill for? Why?

Which brings up the idea that value is a human construct. Cost can be measured in monetary terms, but value? Thats a totally different basket of (insert preferred seafood here). Lets take the purchaser of the dragon sabre as an example. The actual cost to him/her is US$870(Surprise Surprise). What did the buyer receive? Well, a bunch of 1's & 0's stored on a game server Somewhere which can be accessed when the buyer feels like it. The value derived isn't that easy To quantify Though. the enjoyment & fun derived from gleefully murdering other online gamers can probably be summed up in a parody of the advertisement:

• · Setting up new game account - $65

• · Purchase Dragon Sabre online - $870

• · Killing your irritating neighbour in an online game - PRICELESS

Value, dear readers, is something exceedingly difficult to grasp.
Which is something I'll probably elaborate on further as I foresee plenty of long bus trips in the near future.