I think many people already realize that online gaming is going to be a giant catalyst for bitcoin adoption, especially as an MMO in-game currency. It is only a matter of time before you buy your armor and weapons with btc, loot monsters for btc, and can cash out your btc. Imagine the day when you battle another player, loot his armor, sell it, withdraw, and make your car payment.
I project that in a few years btc use in virtual economies will surpass btc use in the "real" economy. If there is anything btc would excel at, it would be for in-game currency. Adoption in virtual worlds could take bitcoins to an entirely different level. Odd that no one is even talking much about this.
Another great post Rival. I think you are a visionary who can more clearly see the bigger picture developing. So many exciting possibilities here...
Peter just read the forums a bit more; this is a well trodden path. The is a great idea on the surface, but fundamentally when you grind a dungeon (loot monsters, etc) you are not contributing anything valuable. Its supposed to be "fun" to play a game, so why would the company pay you for it in real money? In other words, you will never loot monsters for btc.
OTOH, BTC works well for in-game purchases and players-2-player sales of virtual goods. These (and other all-digital) transactions are plagued by CC fraud because there is no home address the physical goods get sent to where the cops can go knocking. So you steal a CC, buy a virtual item, transfer it to another account and sell it for cash or simply use it in the game. When the inevitable chargeback hits the original purchaser and the virtual item are long gone. The company gets hit with the bill. This is a big reason why these goods were universally banned from ebay AFAIK.
BTC is the perfect solution to digital good purchases because it cannot be charged back. So the person who loses the money is the person who lost the BTC in the first place. The pain goes to the person who needs an injection of responsibility. And of course its much harder to steal BTC as compared to a credit card... you can't crack a sales exec's laptop (or target) and get 1 million card numbers...