Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Pay 2 win becoming legitimate? Have we really lost our way this much?
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I'd have quoted you, but...I really didn't feel like deleting all that other stuff just to keep the post size reasonable. You've made a good point. Arguing semantics IS silly I suppose. I just hate when people try to talk about the way currency operates ingame as though its anything like a real economy. I realize we print money all the time. Its not as simple as a MASTERS OF BUSINESS should have implied. We don't just print money all the time. A central bank can buy government assets, and then print money from that. The money in print is not vapor, it IS based on finite things. Granted, some of those things are debts being printed against...and thats NOT GOOD. But, there is always a thing of value associated with the money in print. There is nothing of value against the currency in a video game. Nothing but time, and usually not much of it.
A good example is the stone trade done in D2, those are vapor currency...but time factors in to those a little heavier than regular game currency so it took much longer for an inflation to be as visible. Still not a solid imitation of a real economy, but certainly a better one, (and this is why it was used). My point, in its heart, is that using RMT in this way is allowing an ACTUAL established economy to set real value to things. I detest when the argument against that is, "Its ruining the economy of the game!". No, its creating one. The game never really had one. It had a terrible imitation that would ruin itself in time and be replaced by another SoJ style one.
Just too many of the "me me me now now now" generation of players out there that want to be 1337 as fast as possible and be given it rather than earn it......sadly. And these gaming companies know it.
Most have no idea of the levels of gratification that can come from earning items/levels, etc through hard work and dedication. You can't get that by entering some credit card numbers and getting the item instantly. I guess for a bit you can be pleased, but it won't last near as long as knowing you worked for it and earned it. Want instant gratification? That is what console games are for. This is why (At one time at least) MMO's and console games (were) are different genre's.
I agree with you. But I love the RMT Blizzard is giving us. I'll still just play the game and have fun. But now I can make a little money from those that won't. My style of play will be unaffected, and I will be rewarded for it.
It is only legitimate if you let it. Don't buy pay to win games.
Or..buy the game and don't use the in game store. An in game store necessarly doesn't mean that game is bad.
Yep, you're right it definitely opens the door. And as many have already said, you ARE expected to report income from sales of anything on your tax return and pay taxes. So income tax is basically already handled by the law.
But what about sales tax? I think that's what we really have to worry about. Will the gov't eventually want to take a percentage of every sale in addition to your income?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You are right about that. With what has been said you should be able to transfer funds made through the selling of virtual items on your b.net account to your "third party" account. When you do this Blizzard has some kind of fee for transfering the funds. We wont really know how it all works out until they give us all the details.
My theme song.
Cannot stand item store in game. I tried. Never again.
Besides even if you don't use item store you still support the game even if you play totally for free. You make population in game - game with opulation is more attractive to consumers so you help game acquire more paying consumers even if you don't pay yourself.
Of course. You are suppsed to show this income in your yearly income statement and pay tax yourself at tax office from every sale you will do in D3 AH. Contact your nearest tax office for details. (serious here)
If you won't do it you breaking the law (unless your country have some kind of unusual tax law)
I keep seeing this same argument on here OVER and OVER again. Guess what, you are wasting your time. The industry, as well as a solid majority of the paying public, have shown that RMT are now being widely accepted, and you think the game companies are not going to feed this demand? Get real, or educated, preferably both. These games are buismesses, sadly, and they are run as such. To think they are here purley here for our enjoyment is, to put it nicely, naive. If you dont like it, dont play it, play something else, but RMT is not going anywhere, in fact its only going to become more prolific im sure, not that im a fan of that either.
I didn't mean to imply that the government prints money anytime they need it
. That would obviously cause massive devaluation of the dollar resulting in huge inflation among other problems. To be fair though, some governments do print money fairly frequently.
And actually...hate to break it to you but paper money is vapor. It is not based on finite things. It is only based on the governments promise that the money is worth something because they say so. You are probably thinking of something like the gold standard where money was essentially based on some finite amount of gold held in a fort somewhere. The gold standard has been gone for some time now...money is pretty ephemeral today.
And currency in a game does have value, just only in the game. It has no value in real life outside of illicit gold sellers, and I think that's the way it should be.
Also, using real money will definitely set a value to things in game, but there will still be problems. Think about this, in a typical game economy, you always have massive inflation over a short period of time. This is because the in game "government" essentially prints you new money whenever you kill a mob or sell things to a vendor. Since there aren't enough measures to take all this money out of circulation (money sinks), the money supply inflates extremely fast and results in players' currencies losing real value...which sucks.
Now think about a game that uses an RMAH. The dollar is not going to be affected by what happens in game obviously, so you're pretty safe from inflation or anything that directly affects the currency. But think about the goods in the game. Items in theme park games typically do not decay so they don't need replacement. As time goes on the players will just loot more and more items flooding the market with supply. This is going to cause prices to decline extremely quickly.
So you basically have problems in both scenarios. In the current in-game economy situation, your gold (the currency) loses value quickly. In the RMAH example, your items will lose value quickly because of the market being flooded with supply and no real increase in demand. I don't see how it makes it any better. You're just trading one problem for another.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
What are your thoughts on the cable TV's Pay Per View system - paying for premium content that subscription customers either will have to wait to see or will never receive?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well...I wait to see them. It's called having patience. Something most of today's MMO gamers have little of, as stated earlier. That or I just don't bother with them.
I'd rather pay to see a movie I am slightly interested in at the dollar movies months later and possibly be disappointed for cheap rather than jumping right away for $9 to $12 for the disappointment at a steeper cost. Which, that jumping right away is much like the thread's argument here. Those that P2W may get some entertainment faster than those that don't....but they also stagnate the game for themselves much faster than those that don't buy.
There is just an insane amount of players, who are like:
"Mom? They don't let me raid with better equipment: I need 50$ to buy some."
"Ok honey!"
And: "Mom? Peter is constantly killing me in pvp! Give me 50$ for stuff!"
"Sure honey!"
Not to mention lots of people who work and rather spend some money instead of having to grind. I don't like it either, but what are you gonna do? I also don't like instant travel, dungeon finder and lack of or just simple crafting. How many games are left for me? None. It's all been simplified to death. "to death" = ideal for the stupid masses.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Since you stated that as some kind of fact, it would rock to see the data you are using to support it. The "using Daddy's credit card" talking point is a common one, but I haven't seen data to support that there is "an insane amount of players" doing that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Good grief. What if you do see the movie in the theater? Does that make you a Pay2Win Elitist Weanie? Criminy!
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is the bottom of the slope that many of us have been predicting for a long while now,and it seems we are finally getting there, despite all those telling us that we were stupid for caring about it and that it would never happen.
Well, we wernt, and it has. The frogs have been successfully slow boiled.
It's sad and tragic imo.
This generation of gamers should be ashamed, as should be the so called 'independant' gaming sites that have pushed this agenda as normal and 'inevitable', selling it like cheap prostitutes for a bit of advertising revenue and some exclusives.
No one who uses a cash shop to buy in game rewards has the right to call themselves a gamer. They may as well be playing Farmville.
Seeing it in the theatres, is simply cheating.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
LOL yeah...paying to see a movie on a nice convenient pay per view system in the comfort of your own home is not in any way analogous to pay 2 win
.
Pay 2 win with movies would be like if you paid for the movie, decided it was boring a quarter of the way through and then paid someone to just tell you the plot of the movie so you wouldn't have to watch it
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I do not believe people continue to enjoy a game they can buy and win because it becomes boring. So the people who continue either will not participate in that path to winning and therefore enjoy their game more.
All things in life go through cycles .This is part of one where MMORPG and other games reach a pinnacle and then they decline and change and something stronger evolves. You need to go through this phase for the companies to start to lose players and realise this might not be the way to do things. Or it might be hugely successful then I guess those of us who oppose won't really have a leg to stand on.
I cannot PvP really I try but I suck at it so this issue does not affect me but I understrand where you all are coming from.
Personally, I think p2w is being embraced, because it already exists in every MMO anyways. Just not always legitimately. You really think EverQuest wasnt pay to win? tell that to the guy who paid $700 for my brothers level 55 Shaman back in the day.
There will always be a pay to win market, and it cannot be stopped because people will always find ways around attempts to control it.
So, it would bother you that someone paid for highlight reel of the movie instead of sitting through the entire 90 minutes like you did?
So far very little has been presented about "pay to win" and most of the arguments against the F2P model is based ion some kind of odd competition that doesn't exist in the game but in the self-enforced 'race' that you are others are creating. Your example above clearly highlights that.
It's not even a matter of whether one works for certain things or buys them becaue in most games the stuff you buy and the stuff you gain in-game have little, if any, overlap. Where there is overlap is in the purchase of a la carte content such as additional campaigns or additional zones.
If MMOs were predominantly PVP games then I could maybe understand some of these complaints. Maybe. In a PvE, environment, what difference does it make if the guy next to you has a 10% XP boost or Pac Man deelyboppers?
Even in the PVP situations, the examples given are usually Perfect World, Runes of Magic and other games where 1,000's of dollars are supposedly spent in order to compete but here's the thing.... most of you already said you wouldn't play those games to begin with because they are "shallow" or "Korean grinders" or "kiddie games."
Your reply truly highlights your real issue, Creslin, and it has nothing to do with paying to win anything.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Our company is making an iPhone MMO, and the subscriptions vs Micro-transactions debate is something that has caused us a lot of trouble.
The biggest problem of course is that we are launching a new game, and need players. And every piece of market research is showing us now that It's REALLY hard to convince people to pay a subscription, when there are free to play (With Micro Transaction) games available.
In essence, many new game developers are being forced in to Micro-transactions because unfortunately the majority of players do not want to pay a subscription, even though the players who are least likely to pay a subscription, are some of the most likely to spend money on Micro transactions.
We are trying to make MT's as low impact as possible in our game, we are using them for things like Ship insurance, etc, maybe cutting away a little bit of the grind, but not giving one player an advantage over another in battle.
Our decision to launch with micro-transactions was not easy, especially after witnessing the backlash on EVE. However we can't ignore that creating a game on a subscription basis just is not as viable as it once was. Like EVE our main player base is adverse to unfair advantages (The game Traveller-AR is based on the Traveller Tabletop RPG) so we have to carefully balance that fine line between profitability and fairness.
Helping develop a new space MMO for the iPhone - Traveller-AR
deelyboppers?