Uncovering Missed Insights

All of us got so excited about Sony Station going live that we somehow missed EA’s attempt to sell Ultima Online items for real US$.  I say “attempt” because Stratics has details on their emergency publish to roll back all of the items.  Apparently there was a dupe bug, which is unfortunate when you had players paying $2.99 for each item (or $12.99 for all 6).  Sounds like they’re going to try again once they debug their problems.  While this isn’t traditional real-world transactions, selling upgraded and special items seems to be in line with the approach that would fit other EA games, like Madden, with online components.