Well you cant really use btc as a virtual currency because it is a cash equivalent. You can sell tokens for btc though. As long as you cant cash the tokens out for any cash equivalents immediately you wont face any repercussions. Once you have the tokens you can use them like any other virtual currency. This is the same reason you cant just use cash and claim it is a virtual currency. Tokens that you can earn however could be cashed out once your users got to an agreed amount.
Bitcoin needs its own virtual currency fork to be used as an in game system and not break the terms of service of zynga,super rewards and other virtual currency products.
If btc had been setup as virtual currency from the beginning it would be different,so now it has to be done differently.
What laws and rules are applicable here? When you say "As long as you cant cash the tokens out for any cash equivalents immediately you wont face any repercussions." what exactly do you mean? How does it work in the context of online poker, or the bitcoin casino? You're playing games with BTC directly, and can win BTC. You could then exchange BTC for USD. Legally you'd need to file a W-2G, correct? As far as I see it, as long as you do not engage in things like interest bearing accounts, engage in fiscal policy like the FED ( money out of thin air ) or provide a method to directly exchange BTC for USD ( that is up to the players to handle ), then there's nothing a government can do, correct?
For instance, say you had a virtual market game, where you bought and sold virtual commodities with BTC. There is no money being created by the game itself, so where is the issue? It is up to the traders themselves to report that income and pay applicable tax, if and when they exchange their earned BTC for a government issued currency. Obviously any profit made by the operators of such a game would need to declare and pay on that, right?
As far as I understand, the IRC discussion revolved around RPG style games where gil is created out of nothing and earned through things like battles and quests and such. In that instance, the concerns are founded - but what about games where money is not created at all - only virtual items that are traded with exchangable monies?