Disclaimer: I don't play MMORPGs, so I may not know what I'm talking about. Sony (EverQuest, Star War Galaxies) and World of Warcraft were all against trading virtual items, weapons and characters in exchange for "real-world" money, as were many players of the game. The corporations might not explicitly state why they imposed a ban on buying virtual goods, but the players pointed out that people who buy their way to level 60 (or whatever the highest is), instead of working their way there, are generally looked down upon.

Sony has changed its policy and will launch Station Exchange by the end of June. It's a site for auctioning off your virtual goods, with guaranteed delivery by Sony. Not everyone is happy with the idea, especially since Sony will be taking a small cut.

[Longtime Everquest Michael Shea said in an interview with an interview with Wired] the EverQuest community reacted furiously when SOE conducted a survey a year ago asking for opinions on initiatives like Station Exchange.

"People were like, 'You money-grubbing bastards,'" Shea said. "People were saying, 'I'm quitting this game if that's the kind of company you are.'"

To deal with the first issue of people buying their way to the top, Sony said it will make some of its servers "exchange-enabled", and others not. People who refuse to play with people with bought characters can simply play on the non-exchange servers. As for the second issue of being money-grubbing bastards, Sony points out that a lot of its paid support staff spend most of its time dealing with exchange fraud (probably by saying "Read our EULA. Selling and buying virtual items is not allowed").

"When 40 percent of our customer service man-hours are dealing with fraud, it's in our interest to deal with it," said John Smedley, [Sony Online Entertainment]'s president. "We don't want to hide the fact that we're going to make money."

If you actually go to the Station Exchange, you'll be treated to a quite funny series of cartoons (in the American trying to do Anime style), illustrating why Sony's Station Exchange is better than "the old way".