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by wbobeirne 1482 days ago
You end up with a huge security incentives problem. If there's a way to extract the value from one account and give it to another, you massively increase the incentive to phish users, set up black markets for buying items off of a hacked account, or just transfer it to your own.
2 comments

You could set up a payment system to buy items that's not a player account. You buy an item just to give. There's still a phishing incentive, but is it worse than any of the other content you can buy online?
Credit Card theft/fraud is why. If it was possible to "transfer" funds like this then mechanisms for fraudulent purchases will increase dramatically. Eve Online introduced purchasing in-game currencies because it was rife on the "black market" anyway and they also saw a huge number of fraudulent purchases and/or charge backs. 3rd party grey "broker" sites popped up with way below market rate prices, 99% of which are using fraudulent CCs to fund them, and bot accounts to transfer the in-game stuff.
Why not steal the idea of Pokémon go? Transfer doesn’t go to a person but to an area or group of people. You could pay to unlock an area and take a group of people on a quest. Or perhaps a boost or buff in an area.