Minecraft - buying things with real money

[AnythingNotEverything]

DS13 is asking if I will help him use his debit card to buy "Minecraft money" to spend in one of the servers.

Apprarently it will allow him to buy weapons so he can kill people and earn money to buy more things.

If we say no, I trust him (and would remind him of this trust!) not to do it by himself secretly.

I'm quite uneasy about buying this sort of thing online. It feels like buying fairy dust.

Does anyone know anything about this? Can you help me develop a list of pros and cons? My gut feeling is to say no, but I can't articulate a good enough reason why not!

TIA

Why can't he craft the weapons?

Dd plays minecraft a lot and I've played in the past .

She's never asked for money to buy stuff, though she's not on a server. But I thought the whole idea of the game was that you mined for the ingredients for stuff and then crafted the item. You could tell him buying the item is cheating and takes the fun out of the game!

Dd used to play FarmVille and I did let her buy stuff for that with real money as it was stuff you couldn't get otherwise. I know what you mean about it seeming like fairy dust but I guess it's no different from buying a computer game.

I've never played so I struggle to ask the right questions! That's a good one though - I'd much prefer him to play it "vanilla" and make to weapons himself.