The Wow Factor Quickly Turns Sour

I just came across a game called Second Life. I have never heard of this game before, but supposedly it's been around for quite some time now. With the popularity of the Sims series of games, it guess its not too surprising that a game like this is out and doing so well. I read on Wikipedia that this game has an average of $500,000 flowing through this game a week. That is a ridiculous amount of money to be flowing through an online game. Linden Labs states that you can actually make a living by making objects and selling them in-game for a profit. Generally I would thing this is a cool concept other than the fact that they state in the agreement that they are not liable by law for any money lost. Another thing is, if this much money is going to be flowing through a game, the makers shouldn't have total control of the economy (see below). This is like a tyranny. I mean it is just a game, but I would assume if the coding gets better and word gets out, this is going to be quite a (more) popular game.

The concept for the game is really cool, but after doing a little bit of research and exploring a little bit, the whole idea/workings of the game makes my stomach turn. This seems almost evil what the company is doing, or what they are capable of doing. From what I read, there is already favoritism problems arising between certain "groups" of people and the producer of the game. I hope I'm just looking too deep into this, because it would be great to have a good online game like this. I would prefer a less involved version of it.

PS: The game's name makes me the sickest...