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MMORPG.COM News: Editorial: Real Cash Buys Game Items
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Jon Wood is back with an editorial that examines the officially sanctioned sale of in-game items for real world cash. It has been a hot topic for debate lately, and with the recent announcements of success from SOE's Station Exchange, the debate has never been hotter!
;) Right now, this is one of the most hotly debated issues on the internet. Blizzards World of Warcraft strictly prohibits profit from in-game products. Sony Online Entertainment, on the other hand, encourages the practice (albeit within the confines of their own Station Exchange). Should it be done? Of 3956 votes tabulated (as of August 24th, 2005), an overwhelming majority of 55.7% answered that it ruins games, while only 5.7% felt that it was wonderful. Why is it then that it happens at all? Should it happen? Is it wrong for players to buy an edge over non-buying players?
Sony Online Entertainment recently announced the first months figures from Station Exchange, their own forum for the sale of in-game goods. According to SOE, over 45,000 characters from EverQuest II have been active on the exchange and have spent over $180,000 USD. In ONE month. Over half of the items that go up for sale end up selling, and 60% of those end up selling for $20 or less. The monetary limit over there in the Exchange is $2,000. Someone met that price when one user paid that much for one character (Iksar, level 50 Fury/ level 50 Sage). |
You can read his full article here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Steve Wilson
Staff Writer
www.mmorpg.com
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
My feeling is this:
Why are you gonna even play if you're gonna buy everything?
The whole point is to play and earn the levels and gold and recognition. What's the point if you buy everything? Then why even play?
"I have live my life by these nine simple words: It sounded like a good idea at the time."
--Livingston Taylor
The fact of the matter is it doesnt hurt ingame economies at all.
The only way that the ingame economies can be hurt is through duping exploits. Where truly someone makes something from nothing. When people buy from sites like IGE, Sony Exchange or Ebay they are "usually" purchasing something that was gotten ingame. Either trhough farming, camping or other legitimate ingame activities.
MMORPGS are a source of entertainment. If person A works a fulltime job, has a family and other rl concerncs which take their time yet pay their subscription fees as well as everyone else then shouldn't they be able to enjoy the game as well?
Not everyone derives pleasure from standing in one spot farming gold, platinum, credits, adena or what have you. Because person B has 18-24 hours a day to throw into a video game does not make them better or more skillful than person A. If it did, then what is the big deal? Come time for pvp if the farmers skills are that much better than person A, person B should be able to wipe the floor with person A.
I dont buy stuff from these sites, havent had a need to, but if someone else does then thats a choice up to them. It has 0 effect on my gameplay at all, what does have an effect are the farmers. And that is not limited to the employees, but the 12 year old kiddies that have 0 life but prevent me from doing whatever quest I need to get done because they are farming items and or cash and curse at me in thier bastardized form of leetspeak that went the way of the dodo bird long before they were an itch in their daddy's drawers.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Since when is 55.7% an overwhelming majority?
that is just 5.7% above completly even.
So, 44.3% really like it... that is still a lot of people.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The figures from this editorial can be found in our Newsroom. They were taking from a SOE press release.
The poll figures were taken from the poll area of our site. 55.7% can be an overwhelimg majority if more than 2 answers were available.
Cheers!
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Here is a thought. When I played EQ2 for one month, I was broke all the time. I know a level 40 in the game, who is broke all the time. Now I'm playing SWG and I have all the money I need, except for the outrageous prices asked for the rare items given to players for their length of time spent in playing the game. Both are SOE games. Why the difference?
Also, in SWG we have far more storage space.
Since SOE allows paying rl money for virtual money in EQ2, anyone think there might be a conflict of interest there? Of course, you can buy virutal money for SWG too, but Sony doesn't profit from that.
All I can say is more power to SOE or any other game publisher that endorses buying in-game items for money.
I disagree with all the folks who think "It's not fair."
It is perfectly fair, in the same way that people that work hard might be able to afford, say a high
end sports car, while others can't. If a person can easily go pay cash for a 55" plasma TV, while their
buddy can't even afford basic cable, do people scream about fair? Well, the buddy might, but basically
it's just life. Same as in-game. I just don't see the distinction between buying virtual property in a virtual world and buying real property in a real world, when it comes to the "fair" argument. People can choose to play or not to play *and* choose their play style. If a person's play style is to pay $$ for levels, money, and equipment, who cares? It's your choice to play the game to level/get items.
*shrug*
Lot of noise for little reason.
Players will only buy stuff if earning it dont interest them (aka, they think earning it is boring rather then fun).
If the game is well designed, even with all the advertisement, peoples would not buy anything...simply because it is fun to earn it. If you ask peoples to grind levels before they can raid, or you ask peoples to raid to become better at grouping, then you ask peoples to do something they dislike, they will naturally check the others alternatives, and this include using RL $.
IGE (by pinpointing the weakness of many games) is doing us a favor. No, I will never buy or sell stuff at IGE, but a game that see it economy crippled is simply not a fun game to start with. Prior the HOs, CoH was laughing at IGE...now they are still smiling, but not laughing anymore. IGE is not making huge profits from CoH, simply because peoples think it is fun to earn it...except for the HOs.
If I make fun while I earn something, and my neighbor spend $2k to earn the same stuff, I will be laughing! I will just find it more fun and the guy who pay $2k will cry if he cant do what I do. A well designed game is immune to IGE, look at CoH prior the HOs...when they nerf the HOs, I am sure IGE see it profits and prices for HOs drops...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I couldn't help feel anything other than complete disgust when SOE first announced their 'Exchange' concept and went live with it. I play MMOGs for their recreational value, an escape from the toils of the day. There is a certain sense of accomplishment in acquiring one's own gear and wealth in a microcosm that is distinctly removed from real life. I find the practice of buying in-game items for real life currency not only disheartening, but game-breaking in many regards.
I'm a firm believer that a player should only be entitled to monies and equipment that they have earned through in-game efforts, whether adventuring or in honest trade. Being able to purchase items and wealth by means external to a game cheapens the experience immensely.
Encouraging farming and selling off characters wholesale diminishes a game over many facets. The vast majority of these issues have been discussed ad nauseum in many different forums over the years. I find it unfortunate that SOE opted to line their pockets instead of stepping down even harder on the necks of 'players' who participate in such activities. I placed players in quotes in the previous sentence because I don't feel that those who engage in buying and selling of items out-of-game are worthy of the name. The sellers are scarcely interested in what makes a game a game and the buyers are those who lack talent and patience to achieve what they want on their own.
With all due respect to this site, it's people and the poll, it still is not an overwhelming majority.
55.7% said it ruined games. The rest of the questions indicated either indifference to loving the idea.
Even if what you say is true and that if 3 people take part in the survey, an overwhelming majority of "2" has something of a different sound then "An overwheling majority".
It's just nitpicking I suppose but it really seems like Slightly more than half hate it (of which I am in that catagory) and slightly less than half are either indiferent or support it.
That seems to put a different spin on the whole poll.
Again, it's a bit picayune but it just seems that to make the initial statement "colors" the article toward a specific point of view.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I like MMORPG.com. But I must point out that one of your advertisers is in fact a big player in this virtual market. I'm not sure how much I can trust such an essay because of this.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
This is news? Not one person on that poll is an economist who can grasp the concept of how these systems work (me included). Therefore having anwers like "They ruin the game" are stupid.
When people think about paying money for virtual money they think all wrong. They think of the people of spend $5000 on a jedi character, but mostly i believe its people buying like $10-15 worth of currency just so they don't need to do the boring things.
People say that its not fair but thats not true.
For example eve-online.
You could work like 2 hours for around $10 dollars and save yourself a month of mining.
-----------------------------
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I'm not sure how long most of you have been playing online games but I can GUARANTEE you have someone in your guild or group of close online gaming friends that has had his or her real life come crashing down because of an online gaming addiction. By 'crashing down' I mean lost job, spouse leaving, etc. Though they may have not told you about it, it has happened and continues to happen.
The way I see it, if someone has lost a job due to online addiction, why not turn your addiction into a profit? Gamblers try every day. I can't get mad at anyone who's been in a place in their life where a spouse may have left. The bottom line is you've hit rock bottom in the real world and about the only place you can go to avoid being judged is online. Profit if you can... spend the hours farming if you can...better for me to buy your SuperSlayer Sword for the price of a night at the movies rather than spend 12 hours camping something when I can barely get 2 hours consecutive game time without interruption.
For everyone who disagrees with the practice I believe you are probably in the same boat as I am with a wife, kids, a job and every bit of 'me time' spent rounding out your character.
For everyone who agrees with the practive I believe you are probably in the same boat as I am, and have bought/sold something at one time or another.
I hope this poll gets a lot of votes, I think the results will be surprising...
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/28371832@N02/2648951313/[/url]
You'll note in my editor's note I mentioned that market and IGE by name. However, the third party market was not the subject of Jon's article. As I noted there, it will be a forthcoming seperate piece. I assure you, advertising and editorial departments are 100% segregated. It is like saying that a car magazine cannot review cars because Ford advertises in it.
In the end, some people's ethics are stronger than others and it is up to you all to decide who you do and do not trust, but for what its worth, who advertises with us is the last thing I or anyone writing for the site considers.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I am a busy professional. I've earned every cent to my name. Between work and commute time I spend over 70 hours a week earning real world money. I don't have the time to play 8 hours a day, every day, like some people do, but I want to be able to be a contributing member of my guild and to be able to have fun grouping with my friends.
So I buy guides, read websites, and do other things to improve my gameplay in order to maximize the value of my time. And I have spent real world cash in the past to gain in game coin to outfit my characters so that I could at least keep up with the powergamers and their twinks.
I am not ashamed, and I think that I am a real player. I don't buy pre-made characters, but I enhance the ones I play. Money doesn't earn exp for me or finish quests or unlock access...I do those things myself, with the help of my friends. No amount of purchased coin or items can make a bad player into a good one, but it can give good ones better characters to play.
My concern with people buying and selling characters and accounts is that those people often don't know how to play their new characters well enough for higher level content. Everyone has met that one person whose skills are so horrible that you suspect that they bought the character or had someone else powerlevel them with minimal playtime.
Vicky
Don't you ever get stuff from friends or guildmates for free? i get much stuff and give much stuff .....FREE,only for friendship and having nice gameexperinces's with people.....and nobody owes me something because of an virtual item...
if you don't get fun and good feelings out of a game without using rl-money you should think about changing the game-a game doesn't become better with more money,gold ,credits whatsoever.(earning it INGAME should be a funpart)
-to do some more or less boring grinding,questing,....and then you ACHIEVE something which is worth the "effort".-if you don't do this,then you arn't "playing" the game.(holding item xy in the hand can make you proud if you have earned it ingame- if you bought it with rl-money its pure greed)
I will never be able to compete with powergamers and i dont want to be forced to to get fun out of a game.(not all are powergamers,and not all powergamers are bad-they are able to give really nice presents
- the best feeling isnt the item itself-it is friendship and caring )
if you don't get the help you need from "friends" and guildmates - well,you wanna stay and play with greedy people?( usually a powergamer can equipp many people for free with good stuff - or sell the stuff for rl money
)
AN important part for me in mmorpg's is the community-I just don't want to play a game where buying and selling stuff for rl-money is the normal behavior.-its that rl-shit i want to avoid in a GAME (it wouldn't be a game anymore)
I am against this concept but as the article says there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. That being the case and if someone wants to waste real money on buying a top level character, and in so doing miss pretty much 99% of the games content then so be it.
What I find more disturbing is the emerging trend that some developers are currently looking into of including real world trade as part of the game design, the so called micro purchases. In this game model the player can of course play his character as normal and collect any of the mediocre items that the game has to offer. If however that player should desire a suit of uber armour, megasword of death or rifle of doom then he purchases it, in game with real money from the game company and hey presto it appears in his inventory.
I firmly believe that this practice would indeed destroy the mmo game as we know it, far more than Ebay or IGN ever could.
On another note a previous poster stated that only duping destroyed a games economy, not so. Inflation that is running wild and out of control destroys a games economy every bit as much as it can destroy a real world economy.
Take a pretty decent weapon that isn't really easy to get in game that has a ballpark value, in game of say 10,000 gold. Along comes Ivor Bigwallet with daddies credit card and buys a million gold on Ebay of which he makes a bid of 50,000 for the weapon to make sure he gets it. The seller now knows that he can get 50k for that weapon at least and he knows how to get another one. This time the bidding starts at 50k and along comes another Ebayer paying 100k etc. etc. Inflation starts to spiral and before you know it that weapon is selling for millions and totally out of the reach of anyone that is unfortunate enough not to be able to afford 3rd party gold from Ebay.
I was reading in PC Gamer about this dude that just went around joining guilds to get free stuff off them, when he had got enough stuff he'd just quit and move on to the next guild.
I assume that SOE is just using the phrase "if you can't beat em join em.". They've been trying to stop this for years ever since Ebay started with EQ1.
You're not right here.
You see SOE Exchange works just like IGE. It only sells stuff that people have sold them, infact the SOE Exchange limits this and only sells a fraction of what they buy.
As for your whole inflation thing i've read news about inflation because of a duping exploit but never because of someone buying a load of money off the internet. Also just because someone has alot of money doesn't mean they just throw it away.
-----------------------------
Want to get into the game industry? Read the game business advice guide.
Also read GameDev and Gamasutra
Download Impulse - Like steam but only DRM Free Games
From polls section
IMHO: It is stupid to use real life money to game items. It ruins game, because it supports allkind unacceptable behaviour like farming ingame money and macroing. It also causes unbalance to player based economies.
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
I myself wonder at what server the developers are playing? They can pop items at the twitch of a gamecode and thus get rich on pixels. I think this goes to far.
Also if allowed it will be in short time that the RL taxes will include your game wealth....
My 0.02
Lampie, The Netherlands
I have seen where some players in MMOs have turned their game playing into a business enterprise, selling in-game items for real-life cash. The instances of this that I have witnessed have convinced me that it can ruin the game for other players by providing a form of encouragement to some players to rip-off other players of the game in order to turn a profit. Some people I know have lost sight of the objective of playing a game and turned what is supposed to be a fun pastime into a ruthless, cutthroat venture where profits are most important.
I don't pretend to have a solution to the problems that selling in-game materials can cause and I don't believe it is possible to prevent it. I do object to people turning my escape from reality into a nightmare of profit and loss. I'm sure I'm not the only person seeking refuge from such things when I log into my favourite MMORPG!
I hope that all players of these games have a little respect and consideration for the other inhabitants of these virtual worlds. There is enough grief and strife in the real world without bringing such things into our fantasy realms.
You'll note in my editor's note I mentioned that market and IGE by name. However, the third party market was not the subject of Jon's article. As I noted there, it will be a forthcoming seperate piece. I assure you, advertising and editorial departments are 100% segregated. It is like saying that a car magazine cannot review cars because Ford advertises in it.
In the end, some people's ethics are stronger than others and it is up to you all to decide who you do and do not trust, but for what its worth, who advertises with us is the last thing I or anyone writing for the site considers.
Well said. It is unfortunate that there are those people who cannot distinguish between the needs for incoming revenue to run a site like this (or a magazine, or a radio station) with gaming news, and the freedom of journalists to say/write their own opinions. Sadly, it is not cheap to run such news sites for the general public (as much as we all wish it were). Income from advertising is the only reason such endeavours remain viable, again whether it be a website, a magazine, or a radio station.. or even your local town newspaper.
Simply put, just because MMORPG.com accepts advertising from SOE (for example), does not mean that it cannot report what SOE does. Nor does it mean that anything they write about SOE is "suspect" and should not be trusted. Any journalist worthy of the title will report the negative just as accurately as the positive, regardless of who advertises with the company the journalist represents... whether it be on MMORPG, a gaming magazine, a gaming-news radio station, or even your local newspaper..
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DJ Cavalier -- Gamer Radio Initiative
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Gamer Radio Initiative (www.gri-network.com) - Serious About Gaming
I played EQ for 5 years. I know what it is to level up and earn those treasured items. I was also aware of plat and items being sold and bought and even accounts. Sony would ban an account if it was found out. Also when an account was sold the buyer would always have to worry about the original owner taking it back and the money spent would be lost to the buyer. The original owner could do this and many times I am sure it happened. Peeps did it anyway. Is it right or is it unfair to buy in game items, play and accounts for real life cash?
To those who can't or don't do it and don't believe in it, the answer would be no. To those who can and do of course the answer is yes. Maybe it is unfair but it was happening and will continue so the most logical thing for Sony to do was set aside servers that it can legally be done on without the fear of loosing your account or being banned. The other option for items anyway would be to make all the really good items no drop thus you would have to earn them. Many of those items are/were just that no drop. I think Sony made a smart move. There is no way to please everyone but the fact that they made severs allowing real life trade sales to be done without fear of penalty was as close as they could come. I would guess that plat items and accounts are being sold on other severs as well as accounts still but to keep up with it all would require a great deal of staff staff and time.
Think of it this way though, you develope a character through the levels and equip them with nice gear. After years of play real life changes and you don't have the time to commit to the game. Truefully it takes a great deal of time in EQ to develope a character and equip them and at higher levels you need a good guild to be able to progress. It is your money and time that developed that character, why then should you not be able to recoup some of that money? In all honesty in EQ many of the characters are being two boxed or even a whole group might be being played by one person. So many had left the game thus leaving key classes low so two boxing became a thing of need much of the time. I had two accounts and two comps and played two at one time many times. Alts are pretty common in the game. I would guess EQ2 is about the same. I only did a trial of it but I found many alts being played in that short time.
Gikku
(First 2 replies to this didnt seem to post, so making a new attempt. Mods, if this post appears multiple times, please delete the extraneous copies. Thank you.)
This is where statitical analysis comes in handy.
Following is an analysis based ont he figures available from the MMORPG poll site (as linked by Stedden, on page 1). [Note: Figures are accurate based on time of posting. All numbers, except for percentages, have been rounded down to nearest whole number.]
Total Respondants: 3996
Total Respondants by Category:
1. It Ruins Games: 2217 (55.5%)
2. Not For Me, But Not a Problem: 927 (23.2%)
3. Indifferent: 463 (11.6%)
4. I Do It, But To Keep Up: 155 (3.9%)
5. it Is Wonderful: 231 (5.8%)
From these figures it is easy to see that the overwhelming majority (by a factor of 2.4) is that it ruins games, compared to its nearest rival (Not for me, but not a problem).
The figures can also be examined thusly:
Bad Idea: 2217 of 3996 "It Ruins Games" (55.5%)
Neutral: 1390 of 3996 "Not For Me, But Not a Problem" and "Indifferent" (34.8%)
Good Idea: 386 of 3996 "I Do It, But To Keep Up" and "It Is Wonderful" (9.7%)
Again, it is easy to see that those considering it a bad idea heavily outweigh those neutral to the idea (by a factor of 1.6), and by a factor of 5.7 to those who feel it is a good idea.
No matter which way you slice it, the figures show that the "overwhelming majority" opinion is against the idea. The percantages only make it SEEM like there is less opposition than there really is.
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DJ Cavalier -- Gamer Radio Initiative
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Gamer Radio Initiative (www.gri-network.com) - Serious About Gaming