The buying and selling of the make-believe currencies used in online gaming has become so widespread that Chinese authorities fear it will affect the real economy.

    To quell that threat, those authorities said on Tuesday that they had issued new regulations aimed at restricting the trade and use of virtual money.

    China is one of the world's biggest markets for huge so-called multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, and tens of millions of young people are believed to be trading virtual goods and credits for real goods and cash.

    The coin of fantasy realms have already moved markets here. So-called QQ coins - a form of currency produced by the Chinese Internet giant Tencent - have sometimes risen sharply in value against China's official currency, the renminbi, alarming officials at the nation's Central Bank.

    Some people have even traded virtual currencies in China, and exchanged them for clothes, cosmetics and other goods.

    Last year, nearly $2 billion in virtual currency was traded in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Some experts say they believe there is a much larger underground economy in the virtual world.

    Most of China's big Internet companies - like Sohu.com, Netease and Tencent - have some gaming component and virtual currencies have grown up alongside many of them.

    Some smaller gaming companies have even set up what are called virtual sweatshops, cramped quarters where young people play online games to earn credits that the companies then sell at a profit to overseas customers in Taiwan, South Korea and even the United States.

    This practice is popularly known in the online gaming community as gold farming.

    Many online marketplaces, like eBay and China's Taobao, even have online advertisements offering virtual goods for sale, like World of Warcraft gold coins and virtual swords for the game Legend of Swordmen.

    Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington who says he believes virtual currencies could pose a threat to world economies, applauded Beijing's move.

    "This action shows that at least one government is concerned about the way virtual worlds challenge its control of society," Professor Castronova said in an e-mail message Tuesday. "As virtual currencies take over more and more purchasing power, control over the effective money supply shifts from the central bank to the game developers."

    On Tuesday, China said that new regulations would restrict the trading and use of virtual money, and that virtual currencies would be banned from being exchanged for goods.

    The government also said it was moving to fight online gambling and disputes over virtual coins.

    In a release, Beijing said that while virtual currencies had helped promote online gaming, they have "also brought new economic and social problems."

    Beijing has repeatedly sought to tame the online gaming market with new regulations （and even Internet addiction camps） but the activity continues to grow.

    The new rules, issued jointly last weekend by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Culture in Beijing, are the government's strongest effort yet to tame virtual money.

    The regulations were widely circulated just as Beijing announced it would delay adoption of a widely criticized plan to install software that was supposed to censor pornographic and other "unhealthy" Web sites in all personal computers sold in China.

    Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley, released a brief report Tuesday saying he expected only limited financial impact on Chinese gaming companies because much of the trading in virtual currencies and goods does not occur on the sites of big, publicly listed gaming companies, he says; it occurs on other Web sites.

    在网络游戏中畅通无阻的虚拟货币正日益流行，中国政府担心这样会对实体经济带来影响。

    为了消除由此产生的隐患，本周二，一些官员表示，他们已颁布新规定，旨在对虚拟货币的流通和使用做一定的限制。

    对于诸如魔兽世界等所谓的大型多人网络游戏来说，中国是世界上最大的市场之一，用虚拟物品、货币与实物、现金进行交易的现象在青年人群中非常普遍。

    在这令人疯狂着迷的虚拟世界中，游戏币的流通已经形成了一定的市场。中国网络巨头腾讯公司开发的Q币的兴起曾一度与中国官方货币-人民币产生影响，这引起了国家央行的关注。

    在中国，甚至有些人交易虚拟货币或换取服装、化妆品和其他物品。

    据中国网络信息中心称，去年在中国发生的虚拟货币交易金额将近20亿美元。一些专家认为在虚拟世界中存在一个更庞大的地下经济体。

    大多数中国网络巨头，比如搜狐、网易和腾讯等，都涉足于网络游戏，虚拟货币的发展也与这些巨头们息息相关。

    一些小型的游戏公司甚至建立了所谓的虚拟游戏工厂，在那里的年轻人投身于网络游戏来赚取点数，然后这些公司把点数卖给台湾、韩国甚至美国的海外客户，以此牟利。

    在网络游戏社区中，这种做法被普遍视为是棵摇钱树。

    许多像eBay和中国的淘宝网购市场甚至打出广告，叫卖像魔兽世界的金币和游戏笑傲江湖中的宝剑等虚拟物品。

    印地安那大学伯明顿分校的电信方面的教授Edward Castronova对于中国政府的举动表示赞同，他认为虚拟货币会对全球经济体带来威胁。

    "虚拟世界对现实社会的管理带来了难题，中国的行动表明政府不会对此袖手旁观。" Castronova教授在周二的电子邮件中表示，"随着虚拟货币购买力的逐渐加强，对货币供给进行有效控制的矛头应从央行转向游戏开发商。

    本周二，中国政府表示，新规定将会对虚拟货币的交易和使用进行限制，并且明令禁止虚拟货币与实物的交易行为。

    同时，政府也表示将打击网络赌博的行为并对虚拟货币持保留意见。

    在新规定发布之际，中国政府也指出虚拟货币在促进网游的同时，也带来了"新的经济和社会问题".

    中国长期以来通过出台各项新规定，对网络游戏市场进行整治，而行动仍在继续。

    上周末，商务部和文化部共同发布的这些新规定是迄今为止中国政府在整治虚拟货币方面最严厉的举措。

    各地已开始执行这一新规定。与此同时，将在中国销售的个人电脑上安装对色情和其他一些不利健康的网站进行监控的软件的计划备受争议，中国政府宣布将暂缓执行。

    摩根士丹利公司的网络分析师Richard Ji在本周二发布的一篇简报中称，他希望这项新规定不会对中国游戏公司带来太大的影响， 因为许多大型上市游戏公司的网站上并没有发生虚拟货币和物品的交易行为，这些行为是发生在其他一些网站上的。