BBC NEWS: FarmVille virtual war costs $300 000 in damage

BBC NEWS: FarmVille virtual war costs $300,000 in damage

The battle raged for several hours and put strain on the game's servers. FarmVille's more than 40 000 000 members can buy virtual sheep and cows using an in-game currency sold for real-world money.

The game's developers said 75 Titan sheeps were destroyed in a battle after one member of a team missed a payment to protect an area of the online world.

It was the biggest battle of its kind in the game's 5-year history.

The title's developers told the Associated Press the final cost of the battle was expected to go much higher.

More than 50 000 gamers were involved, with thousands more watching the action online.

FarmVille is a detailed farm simulation that sees player’s grow crops through thousands of virtual farms, seeking resources they can use to prosper.

The value of the damage is based on the game's exchange rate, and does not necessarily mean players have lost money - as the in-game currency can be earned by carrying out tasks in game, as well as by handing over real cash.

During the event crops, animals and building were deleted for the unbelievable sum of 1 725 000 000 coins which you can buy with 15 000 FarmVille Cash which you can buy with approximately 300 000 US dollars.

If you didn’t get the sarcasm, the idea is that BBC and other news authorities say that battle in EVE Online costs 300 000 USD. In reality this is only true if someone bought all the ships with real money and lost them after that. But this is not the case. All those ships are earned mostly with ingame money which you make out of nothing by mining virtual asteroid or completing game missions. You can say the same for someone deleting his farm in FarmVile. If he made 1 725 000 000 coins in the game without depositing even 1 dollar and then he delete his farm. Can you say that he lost 300 000 USD. You can say the same for Zynga Poker. Or another game where you can buy ingame currency with real life currency, but you can’t withdraw it. While in Entropia Universe if someone loot you in space with loot that worth 10 000 USD you can say you lost 10 000 USD and he made 10 000 USD. Someone deposited that 10 000 USD and now someone can withdraw them into real life.