This article is inane. Whatever the merits of investing in actual gold are, the “gold” in FRPGs is exactly fiat money - some authority says it exists, and how much of it there is in existence.
I’ve never played WoW or the ilk, but in the old JRPGs you did get gold for doing productive work - fetching something for an old lady, slaying a monster so inter-village commerce could resume, etc.
Perhaps if he stuck to the whole “I don’t think it will come to total meltdown” argument it would be more compelling than using video game evidence that clearly does not reflect the real world.
