So RMT was OK before "The moment ANet announced GW2 would have it." It certainly became more controversial when ANet announced it. Maybe because we can all speculate on how good or bad it will be. Don't get me wrong it's fun and leads to many a long discussion thread.
Actually this 'debate' has been going on for years. Nothing new there.
Every so often it sparks up and the division of the Fors/Against rise up like the tide and argue it.
Nothing wrong with it, it's what forums are for, IMO.
The reasons for/against are just opinions by those polarized about the issue.
Because you think it's not OK does not make it so for all. It's simply your opinion and should be respected as such.
It's OK because it's the best thing for ANet/NCSoft. Not necessarily the players of GW2.
See? That's your perspective because as obvious to this and many other threads, not all the players agree. Some like it, while I could care less since I've never bought anything from them anyway.
If it hurts the game in the future, only those that have invested in it will suffer. Those that won't even buy it should have nothing to worry about, even less to fret over.
I can't argue.
But I won't call a big steaming turd in the middle of the dining room table a "cernter piece" that's just how I see Cash Shops.
If it's RMT, it's not a "don't buy if you don't like it" issue. It's more of a "don't play if you don't like it" issue, because it's pervasive and it surely does effect you. So as more and more games do RMT, players who dislike RMT are running out of games to play. Hence the resentment.
When you go and pay real money to get in-game money, that's an unfair advantage, plain and simple. Really, how is it fair; there's going to be nothing worthy in terms of gameplay that you can buy with in-game currency? Nothing you can buy with gold is going to effect your gameplay? That's absurd. Even if you can buy buff food with game currency that you bought with real money, that's unfair advantage right there.
EVE has Plex that you can turn into money pretty quickly and it *surely* gives you an advantage. It doesn't turn you into a killer or even make you a better player on the spot, but it makes it possible for you to get better gear faster or come back more quickly after getting killed.
Next we'll have quiz shows where you can buy out "choices" with real money. :P
(But then, hey, maybe we already do, I don't watch TV)
It became ok the second the GW2 devblog said you would be able to buy gems with cash and buy gold from other players with gems. Well for many at least, there are still some that you see in the GW2 forums protesting this or voicing their concerns with it. Me, I've always been ok with it, but I always felt myself to be a minority in this, at least until the announcement from GW2.
Didn't Eve already do this? So, why hasn't it been an on going rant on the Eve forums? What made it not OK for GW2?
For plex, because the hardcore veterans got to play for free as the Plex(gems) could be used for gametime(expansions) so there was a trade off in real cash terms. For the p2W cash shop, Eve players had a virtual riot and quit in droves to stop it, CCP had to stop their company expanding and back down, if only GW2 fans had the decency to do something similar rather than suddenly all cheer "Hurrah, we love cash shops they are brilliant, thank you so much". It's an embarrassment.
This. I find it amusing how many people are cheering it on, and its always the 'you don't have to buy it you can play for free' argument that amuses me the most. It might be true to a point, but if noone is buying there will be consenquences and those come in one word, NCSoft. They own arena net, and this game just doesn't need to do 'well'. This games devolopment may not be tor big, but I can't see this game being in devolopment for as long as it has costing less then aion. I would guess it cost significantly more then aion and if gw2 cash shop does not out perform, both aion and l2 cash shops there is going to be an intervention. All the box sales are going to do is give it a 'grace period' before the cash shop needs to start bringing in the real profits.
Blame developers all you want but the bottom line is people accept it. If it was such a bad thing then perhaps people would not buy from the cash shop to send a message but they don't.
I think this whole topic falls squarly into the purveiw of the "back in my day" clause:
When did it become okay for candy to cost more than a nickle?
When did it become okay for the internet to be charged a flat fee per month rather than hourly like in the beginning?
When did it become okay to have unlimited talking/texting plans for cell phones?
When did it become okay to feature all-you-can-eat buffets?
When did it become okay to put caps on bandwidth usage?
When did it become okay to stream all the movies/TV you want for a monthly flat rate?
The future marches on.
Things change.
Markets change.
Business models change.
Personally? I like the subscription based business model for MMOs - but that doesn't mean I'm adverse to trying something new for a game I'm really excited about.
It's not okay for a P2P game to sell additional items that have an in-game advantage IMO. They can still do it but I don't think it's right. Pets, Mounts, visual only clothing, etc. these things are borderline okay IMO. Reason being they are taking sub money up front to make something you have to pay for additionally. As time goes on the item shop might support itself but only the company's financial department would know that.
When 3rd party RMT traders made gold selling a lucrative business the ball started rolling. The game software we buy and sub we pay does not make the game "ours". We rent the entertainment even though it feels like our property because we spend so much time on our characters. The IP belongs to the developers (or parent company of) so if anyone is going to be making real money off the game apart from box/sub it should be that entity.
There are two subjects going on here. 3rd party RMT for gold is vastly different than a company item shop.
I don't mind if people are allowed to buy into the game at the lvl cap...actually I think this is a great Idea for casual players who have no intersted in the leveling process.
My problem with a cash buy in to a game is when the publishers are selling uber gear only available in the cash shop and not to general play accounts.
As long as cash buy ins and general play accounts are equal its all good in my opinion.
I will not play any game where the cash shop is selling uber items not available in general play. A perfect example is Aika, Ruins of Magic(pay to win ). Played them both got spanked by PKs with cash shot only gear and quit playing both.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition 8 gig Ram Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
To claim that "vanity" items, even xp and recovery boost scrolls, are the same as the spamming gold sellers is far far far from the truth.
To be honest the chance to only put the moiney I deem to be worth spending, into my game time is fantastic in my view.
I used to get way more than $15 dollars a month of game play, but now I have a full time job, wife, child, and house to take care of. I cringe when I spend my sub fees.
Let me buy a character slot here, a xp boost here, some bag slots, maybe some vanity items on occasion. That way I pay ONLY what I want, and deem to be worth the cost.
On the subject of "my guild is insisting I have what ever CS item to do what ever instance or whatever".........SERIOUSLY???? Grow up, quit said guild of jerks, stop being whiney.
When you go and pay real money to get in-game money, that's an unfair advantage, plain and simple. Really, how is it fair; there's going to be nothing worthy in terms of gameplay that you can buy with in-game currency? Nothing you can buy with gold is going to effect your gameplay? That's absurd. Even if you can buy buff food with game currency that you bought with real money, that's unfair advantage right there.
EVE has Plex that you can turn into money pretty quickly and it *surely* gives you an advantage. It doesn't turn you into a killer or even make you a better player on the spot, but it makes it possible for you to get better gear faster or come back more quickly after getting killed.
Next we'll have quiz shows where you can buy out "choices" with real money. :P
(But then, hey, maybe we already do, I don't watch TV)
its fair because all players and accounts have the CHOICE to do it. If you do not want to buy things that is certainly fine but then you cant cry about it not being fair.
How is it fair that some gamers have the most expensive latest and greatest hardware giving them an advantage? Shall we deny any computer from connecting to the game above minimum specs?
There are varying degrees of network connections and speeds shall we install throttles to slow things down?
How is it fair that someone without a job or responsibilities gets to play 10 hours a day while others do not?
Those people claiming RTM isnt fair are just saying they want everyone to play their way. Which is fine but at least have the courtesy to say it instead of painting a false picture of equality and justice. Its a freaking video game not human rights.
Blame developers all you want but the bottom line is people accept it. If it was such a bad thing then perhaps people would not buy from the cash shop to send a message but they don't.
Thats pretty much it. People will send a message to Arenanet one way or the other by how many gems are sold.
Its still not ok to me at all. And yes i did pay in some p2w games too (that are far worst that the one the op mention), probably like most of us.
And it is not ok at all for the majority of the gamers. AFAIK all the studies and data published about this aspect all point an average of 10% consumer using cash shop regularly (and the poll don't fail here), but they generate huge amount of profit.
Its not hard to see, they actually get as much profit from few virtual items (60$ isn't much in any cash shop) as they get from the whole damn game, so the ratio cost/profit is pretty obvious. You just have to watch from their point of view and everything is crystal clear. They are duplicating their income with a snap of finger, anyone that ever modded a game know how easy it is to create new nice items in an already made game, even people with 2 hours of coding lesson can do it in few hours. So you see the ratio, one or 2 coder working few days on a item generate as much revenue as the entire development team for few years. That's just amazing isn't it?
At this point its pretty clear whatever argument you'll bring won't do shit about the affair.
I don't think we will be able to get rid of this crap any time soon guys, so prepare for a very long and tedious fight. One of those so many "is already lost fight".
Blame developers all you want but the bottom line is people accept it. If it was such a bad thing then perhaps people would not buy from the cash shop to send a message but they don't.
Thats pretty much it. People will send a message to Arenanet one way or the other by how many gems are sold.
Agreed.
I am just sad that I don't have options to play without legal RMT in many games.
Separate no rmt servers / microtransactions (with higher sub for example) would be great.
I think this whole topic falls squarly into the purveiw of the "back in my day" clause:
When did it become okay for candy to cost more than a nickle?
When did it become okay for the internet to be charged a flat fee per month rather than hourly like in the beginning?
When did it become okay to have unlimited talking/texting plans for cell phones?
When did it become okay to feature all-you-can-eat buffets?
When did it become okay to put caps on bandwidth usage?
When did it become okay to stream all the movies/TV you want for a monthly flat rate?
The future marches on.
Things change.
Markets change.
Business models change.
Personally? I like the subscription based business model for MMOs - but that doesn't mean I'm adverse to trying something new for a game I'm really excited about.
Well said. I see this same fear/anger issue of "thats not how MMOs are supposed ot be!" when change comes up with every alteration of what used to be...
Corpse runs, exp loss on death, player controlled mounts for faster overland movement, lfg features, instance queues, cross server grouping/pvp/instancing. being able to respec your character choices at all.
If it's RMT, it's not a "don't buy if you don't like it" issue. It's more of a "don't play if you don't like it" issue, because it's pervasive and it surely does effect you. So as more and more games do RMT, players who dislike RMT are running out of games to play. Hence the resentment.
What game doesn't have RMT? Illegal RMT counts, because it has the same in game effect.
Blame developers all you want but the bottom line is people accept it. If it was such a bad thing then perhaps people would not buy from the cash shop to send a message but they don't.
Thats pretty much it. People will send a message to Arenanet one way or the other by how many gems are sold.
Agreed.
I am just sad that I don't have options to play without legal RMT in many games.
Separate no rmt servers / microtransactions (with higher sub for example) would be great.
Hey. thats a good idea. That would be another way to send a message to Arenanet.
If it's RMT, it's not a "don't buy if you don't like it" issue. It's more of a "don't play if you don't like it" issue, because it's pervasive and it surely does effect you. So as more and more games do RMT, players who dislike RMT are running out of games to play. Hence the resentment.
What game doesn't have RMT? Illegal RMT counts, because it has the same in game effect.
Thats silly. When something is made illegal it magically goes away and has no impact on other players. Or at least when a player losses in a pvp match they won't be blaming it on RMT from Arenanet.
I have never been a fan of RMT (Like all of us, I have my reasons, believes and theories about RMT) by the company or third parties, but I see it like something that instead of going away will become the next "standard" mmorpg feature.
You know, like a prostate exam: The finger goes with the pack.
I don't really care too much about RMT, as long as it doesn't provide a clear advantage over those who don't use RMT. D3's RMT AH is a bit out there for me, but at the same time, I don't plan on pvping...so again, what do I care? I actually might make a little cash off the RMT AH in D3.
If more mmos became B2P with optional DLC and RMT options, I'd be mostly ok with that too. Again, as long as it doesn't provide a clear advantage.
As soon as it becomes all about paying to win, then I'll vote with my wallet.
EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 are AAA games that are now implementing legitimate forms of Real Money Trading. All four of these games now allow players to purchase gameplay-affecting items and boosts using real world currencies.
When did this become okay?
The above companies rationalize the introduction of RMT trading by touting that it prevents illegal RMT, hacking, scams, etc. However, these are NOT the reasons why RMT was banned in the first place.
RMT was banned because it provided in-game advantages for out-of-game resources. That is, RMT was considered cheating.
What happened to make these companies believe that main evil of RMT is hacking and scaming instead of the loss of the game's integrity? How did the paradigm shift so much that people actually stand for it now when you would have had internet riots if this happened only 6 years ago?
it's around for ages now, good thing you noticed it too :P
eve online was released in 2003, and basically all "free" to play games have some RMT.
the point why it was "banned" before is just because it gave an unfair advantage that WAS NOT PLANNED to be used that way. third party orgs gained money out of it that should have gone to the devs.
anyway, global agenda, eve online and most other games that feature a f2p option had those for years already ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
The main reason they did it is because they cant stop it.
+1
At some point, no matter how much of a purist you are, you have to be tempted to say "if people are bound and determined to spend real money on in-game gold, I would rather the publisher profit off it than a black market of botters and account-thieves".
Unfrotunately, it still does create a conflict of interest between the suits (who want to maximize this new revenue stream) and the consumers (who can feel the game design decaying into something fundementally different than the hobby they signed up for). And in some ways it's probably harder to fight against company's own executives than it is to fight with an external black market in the effort to preserve the heart and soul of a game experience, especially when many (most?) consumers see the game's business model is only one out of many issues to debate and consider.
Comments
true enough
I can't argue.
But I won't call a big steaming turd in the middle of the dining room table a "cernter piece" that's just how I see Cash Shops.
If it's RMT, it's not a "don't buy if you don't like it" issue. It's more of a "don't play if you don't like it" issue, because it's pervasive and it surely does effect you. So as more and more games do RMT, players who dislike RMT are running out of games to play. Hence the resentment.
When you go and pay real money to get in-game money, that's an unfair advantage, plain and simple. Really, how is it fair; there's going to be nothing worthy in terms of gameplay that you can buy with in-game currency? Nothing you can buy with gold is going to effect your gameplay? That's absurd. Even if you can buy buff food with game currency that you bought with real money, that's unfair advantage right there.
EVE has Plex that you can turn into money pretty quickly and it *surely* gives you an advantage. It doesn't turn you into a killer or even make you a better player on the spot, but it makes it possible for you to get better gear faster or come back more quickly after getting killed.
Next we'll have quiz shows where you can buy out "choices" with real money. :P
(But then, hey, maybe we already do, I don't watch TV)
No need to argue, it's a discussion.
However, if you've been following a little on science, you'd know the japanese have been experimenting with 'turd' as a food source..FYI
http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Make+Delicious+Nourishing+Steaks+From+Human+Feces/article21932.htm
Food for thought.
This. I find it amusing how many people are cheering it on, and its always the 'you don't have to buy it you can play for free' argument that amuses me the most. It might be true to a point, but if noone is buying there will be consenquences and those come in one word, NCSoft. They own arena net, and this game just doesn't need to do 'well'. This games devolopment may not be tor big, but I can't see this game being in devolopment for as long as it has costing less then aion. I would guess it cost significantly more then aion and if gw2 cash shop does not out perform, both aion and l2 cash shops there is going to be an intervention. All the box sales are going to do is give it a 'grace period' before the cash shop needs to start bringing in the real profits.
HAHA!!!!
Touche
Edit 1: Where on Earth did dig up that?....Never mind..I don't think I want to know.
Blame developers all you want but the bottom line is people accept it. If it was such a bad thing then perhaps people would not buy from the cash shop to send a message but they don't.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
I think this whole topic falls squarly into the purveiw of the "back in my day" clause:
When did it become okay for candy to cost more than a nickle?
When did it become okay for the internet to be charged a flat fee per month rather than hourly like in the beginning?
When did it become okay to have unlimited talking/texting plans for cell phones?
When did it become okay to feature all-you-can-eat buffets?
When did it become okay to put caps on bandwidth usage?
When did it become okay to stream all the movies/TV you want for a monthly flat rate?
The future marches on.
Things change.
Markets change.
Business models change.
Personally? I like the subscription based business model for MMOs - but that doesn't mean I'm adverse to trying something new for a game I'm really excited about.
@OP
It's not okay for a P2P game to sell additional items that have an in-game advantage IMO. They can still do it but I don't think it's right. Pets, Mounts, visual only clothing, etc. these things are borderline okay IMO. Reason being they are taking sub money up front to make something you have to pay for additionally. As time goes on the item shop might support itself but only the company's financial department would know that.
When 3rd party RMT traders made gold selling a lucrative business the ball started rolling. The game software we buy and sub we pay does not make the game "ours". We rent the entertainment even though it feels like our property because we spend so much time on our characters. The IP belongs to the developers (or parent company of) so if anyone is going to be making real money off the game apart from box/sub it should be that entity.
There are two subjects going on here. 3rd party RMT for gold is vastly different than a company item shop.
Just not worth my time anymore.
I don't mind if people are allowed to buy into the game at the lvl cap...actually I think this is a great Idea for casual players who have no intersted in the leveling process.
My problem with a cash buy in to a game is when the publishers are selling uber gear only available in the cash shop and not to general play accounts.
As long as cash buy ins and general play accounts are equal its all good in my opinion.
I will not play any game where the cash shop is selling uber items not available in general play. A perfect example is Aika, Ruins of Magic(pay to win ). Played them both got spanked by PKs with cash shot only gear and quit playing both.
AMD Phenum II x4 3.6Ghz 975 black edition
8 gig Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
To claim that "vanity" items, even xp and recovery boost scrolls, are the same as the spamming gold sellers is far far far from the truth.
To be honest the chance to only put the moiney I deem to be worth spending, into my game time is fantastic in my view.
I used to get way more than $15 dollars a month of game play, but now I have a full time job, wife, child, and house to take care of. I cringe when I spend my sub fees.
Let me buy a character slot here, a xp boost here, some bag slots, maybe some vanity items on occasion. That way I pay ONLY what I want, and deem to be worth the cost.
On the subject of "my guild is insisting I have what ever CS item to do what ever instance or whatever".........SERIOUSLY???? Grow up, quit said guild of jerks, stop being whiney.
its fair because all players and accounts have the CHOICE to do it. If you do not want to buy things that is certainly fine but then you cant cry about it not being fair.
How is it fair that some gamers have the most expensive latest and greatest hardware giving them an advantage? Shall we deny any computer from connecting to the game above minimum specs?
There are varying degrees of network connections and speeds shall we install throttles to slow things down?
How is it fair that someone without a job or responsibilities gets to play 10 hours a day while others do not?
Those people claiming RTM isnt fair are just saying they want everyone to play their way. Which is fine but at least have the courtesy to say it instead of painting a false picture of equality and justice. Its a freaking video game not human rights.
Thats pretty much it. People will send a message to Arenanet one way or the other by how many gems are sold.
Its still not ok to me at all. And yes i did pay in some p2w games too (that are far worst that the one the op mention), probably like most of us.
And it is not ok at all for the majority of the gamers. AFAIK all the studies and data published about this aspect all point an average of 10% consumer using cash shop regularly (and the poll don't fail here), but they generate huge amount of profit.
Its not hard to see, they actually get as much profit from few virtual items (60$ isn't much in any cash shop) as they get from the whole damn game, so the ratio cost/profit is pretty obvious. You just have to watch from their point of view and everything is crystal clear. They are duplicating their income with a snap of finger, anyone that ever modded a game know how easy it is to create new nice items in an already made game, even people with 2 hours of coding lesson can do it in few hours. So you see the ratio, one or 2 coder working few days on a item generate as much revenue as the entire development team for few years. That's just amazing isn't it?
At this point its pretty clear whatever argument you'll bring won't do shit about the affair.
I don't think we will be able to get rid of this crap any time soon guys, so prepare for a very long and tedious fight. One of those so many "is already lost fight".
Agreed.
I am just sad that I don't have options to play without legal RMT in many games.
Separate no rmt servers / microtransactions (with higher sub for example) would be great.
Well said. I see this same fear/anger issue of "thats not how MMOs are supposed ot be!" when change comes up with every alteration of what used to be...
Corpse runs, exp loss on death, player controlled mounts for faster overland movement, lfg features, instance queues, cross server grouping/pvp/instancing. being able to respec your character choices at all.
It goes on and on.
What game doesn't have RMT? Illegal RMT counts, because it has the same in game effect.
Hey. thats a good idea. That would be another way to send a message to Arenanet.
It was something I saw last week on Discovery, when you mentioned that steaming pile, it just brought it to mind.
Thats silly. When something is made illegal it magically goes away and has no impact on other players. Or at least when a player losses in a pvp match they won't be blaming it on RMT from Arenanet.
It is their game. They can define cheating anyway they want to. If you don't like it, you can always vote with your wallet.
I wouldn't care less as long as the game is fun. In fact, may be i can make some money while i play Diablo 3 .. win-win!
I have never been a fan of RMT (Like all of us, I have my reasons, believes and theories about RMT) by the company or third parties, but I see it like something that instead of going away will become the next "standard" mmorpg feature.
You know, like a prostate exam: The finger goes with the pack.
I don't really care too much about RMT, as long as it doesn't provide a clear advantage over those who don't use RMT. D3's RMT AH is a bit out there for me, but at the same time, I don't plan on pvping...so again, what do I care? I actually might make a little cash off the RMT AH in D3.
If more mmos became B2P with optional DLC and RMT options, I'd be mostly ok with that too. Again, as long as it doesn't provide a clear advantage.
As soon as it becomes all about paying to win, then I'll vote with my wallet.
it's around for ages now, good thing you noticed it too :P
eve online was released in 2003, and basically all "free" to play games have some RMT.
the point why it was "banned" before is just because it gave an unfair advantage that WAS NOT PLANNED to be used that way. third party orgs gained money out of it that should have gone to the devs.
anyway, global agenda, eve online and most other games that feature a f2p option had those for years already ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
+1
At some point, no matter how much of a purist you are, you have to be tempted to say "if people are bound and determined to spend real money on in-game gold, I would rather the publisher profit off it than a black market of botters and account-thieves".
Unfrotunately, it still does create a conflict of interest between the suits (who want to maximize this new revenue stream) and the consumers (who can feel the game design decaying into something fundementally different than the hobby they signed up for). And in some ways it's probably harder to fight against company's own executives than it is to fight with an external black market in the effort to preserve the heart and soul of a game experience, especially when many (most?) consumers see the game's business model is only one out of many issues to debate and consider.