Forget fretting about microtransactions in video games for a moment and take a look at how, tongue-in-corporate-cheek, Electronic Arts added microtransactions to a charity game of real golf, last week in Las Vegas. Read more...

The moment MTV News revealed Microsoft was working on a Mii-like system called Avatars, accusations of copying Nintendo started flying.

That reaction only intensified when the rumors became fact at this year's E3. Microsoft expected this reaction. At least, that's what they told me while showing the "New Xbox Experience," a complete dashboard revamp coming later this year.

"I remember the CES right after the Wii launched and all the [gaming] editors were asking, 'When are you guys going to do your version of the Miis?," Xbox director of marketing Albert Penello told MTV Multiplayer in a hotel suite interview two weeks ago. "I remember going, 'You guys are going to slaughter us in the press if we ever do it.' [laughs]"

Penello believes there's enough distance from the announcement that people are looking at Avatars differently now. He even brought up Miis.

"For obvious reasons, it's certainly hard to avoid the comparison with the Mii," he admitted. "You know, it's a tough one, because it's sort of like giving them maybe a little bit more credit for [it]…it's not like Nintendo created the concept for having a virtual character."

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San Francisco -- If you're an MMO gamer who buys his/her virtual in-game goods on the black market, your days of shady dealings may be numbered.

A panel I attended earlier this week at the Game Developers Conference's "World in Motions" series suggests that player-to-player item selling is going to be increasingly legit -- whether many MMO players like it or not.

The session was called "Learning to Love Virtual Item Sales." The half-hour presentation was led by Andy Schneider, president and co-founder of Live Gamer, "a legitimate market for virtual trading," and Steve Goldstein, co-founder and president of Ping0, a Live Gamer partner and distributor of Flagship Studios' "Hellgate: London."

Legitimate virtual item sales are common, particularly in free-to-play games, and especially in Korea, where micro-transactions -- the buying and selling of in-game assets and content -- are rampant. But for games that don't offer real-money transactions, like "World of Warcraft" for example, websites like IGE and ItemBay have transformed illicit virtual item sales into a billion-dollar business -- over $1.8 billion according to analysts' estimates given in the session -- and game publishers aren't getting a cent.

Schneider and Goldstein want to change that.

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