Play Money -- Gold Diggers

Looking over the rules to my ever-beloved RuneScape, one finds that Dibbell and co. break 5 out of the 15 rules.
-- Cheating/Bug Abuse ("Unintended bugs can spoil the effect of the game, so we obviously want to fix them as quickly as possible. Deliberately taking advantage of a bug can unbalance the game economy or devalue other players' achievements, so it is against the rules.")
-- Using Third Party Software ("macroing ruins the game for everyone else. We don't want some players having an unfair advantage and filling up all the best training spots with bots. This game is designed to be enjoyed by humans, not bots. In the past, when we have not enforced this rule, we have rapidly found it quickly spoils the game, and players themselves start demanding that we enforce it. So now we enforce it thoroughly.")
-- Encouraging Others to Break Rules ("Encouraging or helping others to break the rules is as bad as breaking them yourself, and therefore anyone doing so will be treated as if they were the one breaking the rule.")
-- Account Sharing/Trading ("Firstly, many of the accounts people try to sell are actually accounts they have stolen, so, by buying the account you are helping them profit from their crime, and encouraging them to do it more! Secondly, this rule is for your protection, as people who share accounts run the risk that the person using the account won't give it back, or that the person will break a game rule causing your account to be banned.")
-- Real World Item Trading ("We have this rule for three reasons: Firstly because we don’t want RuneScape to be just a game in which you can buy your way to success, if we let players start doing this it devalues the game for other players. We feel your status in real-life shouldn’t affect your ability to be successful in the game. Secondly we cannot monitor the transactions made between players outside the game, and if players swap items for external benefits we can’t see, to us it looks like an unbalanced suspicious trade. Thirdly, often when players attempt to break this rule and sell items for real cash the items are actually stolen, so you could even end up getting in trouble for receiving stolen property. If you purchased an account you might find it suddenly returned to the original rightful owner and yourself out of pocket.")

I'm not as familiar with Ultima and therefore am only going by the rules for Runescape, which, by the way, I agree whole-heartedly with and wonder why Ultima has not adopted the same rule sets.

Through some searching, I actually came across a site much like something Dibbell would have set up: http://www.runescape4u.org/rs.htm

I'm not at all surprised that people would sell and buy these items for real-world money, however, it is not something I would condone or think about doing. I guess I just have too much integrity for my sitting there and clicking the mouse for hours on end that I feel angry when other people don't go through that same process.

Sorry this isn't more in depth, it's nearing 2am and I'm burnt out :-(. I can't wait to continue reading, however, I love this book so far!