If you can trade it freely for dollars or pounds, you can trade them for a cheeseburger. In fact (AIUI) the trade isn't really free, and at the moment I'd say it's probably a bit less of a real currency than various Eastern European currencies were back in the days of the Iron Curtain.
Interesting paper on the EverQuest economy: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828 To some extent I suspect this just shows that if you apply definitions of economic terms to things they weren't really intended to cover, you get unrealistic results. I haven't actually read the whole paper though, just seen commentary.
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Interesting paper on the EverQuest economy: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828
To some extent I suspect this just shows that if you apply definitions of economic terms to things they weren't really intended to cover, you get unrealistic results. I haven't actually read the whole paper though, just seen commentary.