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Role Playing (Games) Your Rights Online

Virtual Farming Firsthand 89

Posted by Zonk from the a-sad-state-of-affairs dept.
This past weekend we discussed virtual sweatshops, and the legal issues they bring up. Today Terra Nova has a discussion in which Julian Dibbell, noted VW economics researcher, asks do such things really exist? Firsthand experiences would seem to indicate they do, with extensive chat logs (via Broken Toys) and the experiences of players documenting farming behavior.
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Virtual Farming Firsthand More

Virtual Farming Firsthand

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  • Almost as prevalent (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @06:55PM (#11612320) Homepage Journal
    At one point in time people running macros and scripts (controlling their characters) to produce game-money were almost as prevalent as the sweatshops. Sadly I was stuck on a sub-par internet connection at the time, and not old enough to move out on my own, but I made about $10000/mo for just shy of 8 months running a pair of computers playing Everquest for me while I slept. Today the sweatshops have taken over, but once upon a time it wasnt so.

  • Even more conspiracy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @06:59PM (#11612372) Journal
    I saw one guy on two games: AO and DAOC, selling what amounts to 100 player loads of items. But here's the catch, no one was mature(leveled up) enough to get to the level to sell even 1 player load at the time. Also, everyone else was being banned. So somehow one dude is able to evade detection with his 4 pages of gold selling, while everyone else gets banned within 2 hours of their post. This was about 2 years ago, but there is no doubt in my mind the MMORPG companies were teaming with this guy to sell extra gold. I found out the company would be in the position to make $100,000 a month of the endevour. At the time there was also the philosophy prevailing for companies to spoil the ebay markets by flooding them with loot. I sold lots of stuff in the past, and I have tales of awesomeness and pain. 100$/hr is awesome, losing your apartment, fiancee, and flunking school out because Everquest bans you for selling Asheron Call cheats is pain. But theres degrees within.
    • Heya - mind explaning the Everquestban for AC cheats? And what AC cheats?
      • It was the infamous speed hack. I was selling it for AC1 because if you didn't have it, AC1 was virtually unplayable from other characters using it. Basically it was a network hog that sped up one character and slowed everyone else down. It was a really nasty program that worked cross platform. I called up verant on the phone and they shouted,"Criminal!" in the phone and hung up. Looking back, I shouldn't have been selling vicious debilitating cheats, but at the time it seemed like everyone needed to u
    • Sure that guy wasn't just a AO/DAOC employee trying to catch people in the act of buying?
      • I know it's a grey area, but wouldn't that be entrapment? (Or at least unethical?)
        • Unethical perhaps, but if all they're doing is shutting off accounts that are buying farmed goods, they're working within the license agreement. I think they could even file a suit with the information. Entrapment only counts for actions perpetrated by the state, I think.
        • I know it's a grey area, but wouldn't that be entrapment?

          So what if it's entrapment? Not as if that's illegal!

          Many people believe a myth that entrapment is illegal, but that's just wrong. There is a legal defense of "entrapment" that applies only to police officers, and which is much more specific and limited than what "entrapment" means in the English language.
    • I would think getting banned would actually lead to the girl, better grades, and an apartment.
  • MMO Players have noticed and complained for months because of the game economies being ruined because of the sweat shops and whatnot... Or at least my MMO playing friends have, anyway.
    • I see both sides of the issue I guess. As a developer...it is important for the game world to have it's own economy independant of the real world. It is essential for virtual economies to exitst.

      But, on the other hand I think that if someone wants to provide a service, they should be able to get paid for it. However, as I don't find fault with people working hard and making real money off of that work... I have a problem with the cheaters who buy all kinds of stuff without having to work for it. If you d

      • virtual economy... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by phUnBalanced ( 128965 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @07:38PM (#11612793) Homepage
        You mean as opposed to the "real" economy?

        The "real" economy went virtual the day we didn't have a value in gold to back the value of ever dollar.

        There's no difference between the economies of a MMORPG or a country. You pay a service to play MMORPG, you pay a tax to live in country. While in that country / MMORPG, you have opportunities to earn local currencies. Why shouldn't you be allowed to convert them? (country lock-in?)

        It bugs me that people (not necessarily parent poster) and developers seem to think users have no rights to this. Developers just don't want other people making money off their game, which is silly if you refer to the tax analogy above. (more farmers, the more monthly income) Players seem to think that anything that can be done for fun shouldn't be desecrated by the concept of economy. Only they don't know when to say when, because they're perfectly happy to take part in economies to sell an item here or there but upset when someone makes this the point of the game for themself.

        Who cares? Ok... now if there are sweat shops, honestly, something needs to be done. Otherwise I say let them farm if they want.
        • How about playing chess, but you can buy of ebay extra pieces that can be used in play?
          • Don't pretend that there is any large element of skill in MMORPGs. Achieving your goals just by logging enough hours (which you pay for) is no nobler than cutting out the wasted step and buying the end product directly.
            • Then why are high-level eBayed characters so easily detected by other players? No, wait, I'll answer that for you - it's because the purchaser of the eBayed character lacks the skills to back up the gear and experience possessed by the character. These skills are obtained naturally by spending time learning the game through levelling up one's own character.

            • Achieving your goals just by logging enough hours (which you pay for) is no nobler than cutting out the wasted step and buying the end product directly.

              That's why economically rational game companies must try to prevent gil-farming (to use the FFXI-specific term). They're selling an experience, and revealing that there's a shortcut to the endpoint removes the fun, and will cost customers.

              Imagine how profitable a casino would be if they just gave you a number at the door and just instantly gave you 94.3%

        • Re:virtual economy... (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Well in the real economy the goods are real. There are also a lot of other differences between real economies and most virtual ones.

          In the virtual economy, usually goods and currency are introduced into the economy through a chance of dropping every time a monster is killed. The supply of items and currency is determined by how many monsters are being killed. Very valuable items are dropped from monsters that may take twelve hours or more to reappear after they are killed. Currency is much easier to obtain
        • You don't have a right to convert currencies in the real world. The U.S. could quite easily pass a law making private ownership of foreign currency illegal. And AFAIK people in communist countries don't have any fundamental right to dollars. If MMORPGs are like any kind of country, they're totalitarian oligarchies, with the developers as the rulers. Any "rights" you have within that world are at their discretion, and any rights you have outside it are down to your government, and to an extent the U.N..
          • The U.S. could quite easily pass a law making private ownership of foreign currency illegal.

            That wouldn't be "easy", as it would require passing a Constitutional Amendment to revoke the existing Fifth Amendment [usconstitution.net]. So USA citizens enjoy that right exactly as strongly as the do any other right.
            • Thank you, that's very interesting. I'm not a U.S. citzen so I'm not up on its constitution.

              After thinking about this I'm not sure it applies. Your argument is that declaring foreign currency illegal is effectively confiscating property from citizens. But this happens every time something is declared illegal, people who have been legally dealing in it now have a warehouse of worthless, illegal goods.
              Besides, the constitution can be changed. You're right, perhaps not "easily", but it is within the power of
              • I'm not a U.S. citzen so I'm not up on its constitution.

                Most all constitutions have a line like that. "Life, Liberty, Property" is almost a standard boilerplate. The UN also declares them as human rights.

                But this happens every time something is declared illegal,

                That happens pretty rarely (except with synthetic drugs), and there are mitigating factors: The ban is always pre-announced, so existing owners have a chance to sell it out of the country first. And there is often a "grandfather clause", whe

        • Re:virtual economy... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:20PM (#11614402) Homepage
          The fact of the matter is, you are paying the game company to use their service. You are agreeing to a contract with their rules in it.

          In other words, you are not entitled to ANYTHING. They can make those rules for whatever reason they want, but as long as you pay them and are under that contract, you play by their rules or you don't play at all. There really is no point in debating this.

        • People live in a country because they have no choice and they gain things like a police force, health care, etc. People play in an MMORPG because they are paying to be entertained. The company is well within its rights to prevent things which interfere with "real" players' experiences, and the item farmers have no right to screw up the game for their own benefit.

        • Re:virtual economy... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by C0rinthian ( 770164 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:26PM (#11614463)
          Here's my theory on why game developers will NEVER support this.

          Liability.

          If they endorse sales of items and currency, they agree that said items and currency have real world value. Since they agree to this value, then they could be held liable for losses incurred because of server issues, balancing, database rollbacks, etc.

          Imagine Johnny's $100 Mace o' Doom gets nerfed in a patch and is only worth $10 because of it. He could make a claim that he should be compensated for his loss.

          Imagine a database roll-back on 500,000 characters.....

          • Re:virtual economy... (Score:2, Interesting)

            by DerWulf ( 782458 )
            The virtual goods have value attached to them regardless of the game companies recognizing them. The evidence is clear on this: ask players if he prefered to keep the items he has or loose them with no compensation. If only one of them opts to keep, the goods are actually valuable. But this is unecessary since ebay auction not only proove that people attach value to those things but also establish a price. Whenever there is a price there must be value.

            The liability issues you mention probably come down t
            • The virtual goods have value attached to them regardless of the game companies recognizing them.

              No, no they don't. If Blizzard goes out of business and WoW goes offline, then I don't care if I have 10 gold or 10 billion.

              The evidence is clear on this: ask players if he prefered to keep the items he has or loose them with no compensation. If only one of them opts to keep, the goods are actually valuable. But this is unecessary since ebay auction not only proove that people attach value

              Wrong. That evid
              • you can't seperate 'sentimental' value and economic value. They are identical. The mistake you make is to assume that things have value in themselves. This is not correct at all. Value must always be subjective, therefore everything that someone does value indeed has value. Saying that the in game items are not valueable to the player (with the properties they possed when he first aquired them) is absurd.
                • The mistake you make is to assume that things have value in themselves.

                  No, it turns out my mistake was to take your words at face value.

                  Saying that the in game items are not valueable to the player (with the properties they possed when he first aquired them) is absurd.

                  Correct, it is truely absurd. But if you know that, then why did you claim otherwise:

                  The virtual goods have value attached to them regardless of the game companies recognizing them.

                  The game items only possess properties because the

        • Re:virtual economy... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by dasunt ( 249686 )

          The "real" economy went virtual the day we didn't have a value in gold to back the value of ever dollar.

          Gold has as much inert value as giant stone wheels.

          The value of gold can (and does) fluctuate in regards to other goods, as a minute's worth of research would show.

          Money is the concept to use a scarce good as a medium of exchange, nothing more, nothing less.

          Historically, gold has been useful as a currency, due to its rarity, but there are some problems with gold: The supply of gold tends t

          • Re:virtual economy... (Score:1, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "Gold has as much inert value..."
            I think the word you were looking for was inherent.

            your comments are otherwise thought provoking

            And I love iRate radio.

            Have a nice day
        • Liability, Liability, Liability. If the in game items have value in the real world, they could be held responsible for losses despite the service agreement disclaimers. In the real world, you can't sue God if an asteroid flattens your house.
        • Gawd!

          What is it with gold nuts? Backing currency with gold means that whatever gold is worth, so is the piece of paper in your hand. You could back it with sheep if you wanted, or triangular rubber pieces 10,000 miles to a side, or cling-wrap. It's all the same. Fiat money (which most currencies are these days) is implicitly backed by the future taxation power of the government. If the government's taxation power goes down (civil unrest is a really good way to do this, government debauchery is another) the

        • Re:virtual economy... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @01:10AM (#11615556)
          Here are four reasons why developers would rationally want to avoid monetizing their gold supply:

          1. Establishing an equivalency between real world currency and gold/Archmages Robes of the Eagle/Swords of P0wning invites real world courts and governments to see gold/robes/swords as tangible property. This would lead to a couple of things: taxes, first of all. If every time Onyxia gets capped $150 of virtual goods spawns in Irvine California, sooner or later the CA IRS is going to wonder "Say, where are our income taxes from independent contractor Onyxia?" How long do you think any taxman is going to let a multi-million a year revenue stream go uncounted? Second, if I *own* my little 30 kb that describes the state of my WoW character and Blizzard decides to nerf my Sword of P0wning I could theoretically sue them for taking away my property interest in the Sword. Currently, their EULA protects them (they say its ALL their IP), but if they allow the IP to be bought and sold they can no more expropriate the goodness of my sword than my ISP can arbitrarily delete content off my professional website.

          2. More farmers might mean more monthly income, but the developers will never see a penny of it. It just means there is more gold/items floating in the game than they planned for, possibly bursting their sinks, and thats a problem. For one, it will impoverish non-farming players, because as inflation increases the price of finished goods/endgame content the price of "vendor trash", coin, and static quest rewards will not increase, seeing a drop in the virtual "real wealth" of the casual players -- who aren't going to pay $15 a month just to be lvl 40 Serfs.

          3. Some players are morally offended by the idea that their "fun" is being corrupted, and regardless of whether you think they're hypocrites, off balance, or whatever, their $15 a month is as green as everyone else's and they will gladly take it elsewhere. Most developers think that this segment of their playerbase buys more months of service than the "farming community", and they're likely correct.

          4. Buying upper-level content means content gets exhausted faster, which could increase the churn rate of the same very interested customers the developers are most happy to keep in the system (both because they typically play games for a long time and because they provide structure to the playerbase via guilds/etc, increasing newbie retention and generating "content" for other players via social interaction, guild rivalries, etc).

          • but if they allow the IP to be bought and sold they can no more expropriate the goodness of my sword than my ISP can arbitrarily delete content off my professional website.

            While an interesting discussion, I can't think of any current class of "intellectual property" that your character would fall under. (Remember, there is no such thing as "intellectual property", it's a grouping term, and discussion like this is exactly why it is important to remember this!)

            It clearly isn't trademarkable or patentable.

          • To extend the taxes argument--it's clear that if you can "win" or "lose" the game and get money for it, it's gambling. That's not legal everywhere, and where it is, the government takes their cut.

            • To extend the taxes argument--it's clear that if you can "win" or "lose" the game and get money for it, it's gambling.

              Wrong. Gambling is based mainly on random probability, and is often illegal (unless the government is running it). Games of skill are separate, which is why gambling in poker is legal in many, many more places than blackjack- the skill component is so much higher.

              Furthermore, you're wrong because in many USA states, gambling of all kinds isn't illegal at all. For example, in New York

              • You say I'm wrong, yet you go on to support everything I say. You agree that gambling isn't legal everywhere, and you agree that gambling includes games where skill and chance are mixed.

                Why are you arguing again?

          • Re:virtual economy... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by JavaLord ( 680960 )
            Some players are morally offended by the idea that their "fun" is being corrupted, and regardless of whether you think they're hypocrites, off balance, or whatever, their $15 a month is as green as everyone else's and they will gladly take it elsewhere. Most developers think that this segment of their playerbase buys more months of service than the "farming community", and they're likely correct.

            Yeah but the funny part is this segment of their playerbase is often a part of guilds/clans who screw the e
            • WOW! That's a very good point I failed to make earlier. Yes, people giving newb characters gold and whatnot does often askew the game unfairly as well, But... it's harder to justify or implement the outlawing of something like that. Should we get rid of Guilds 'cause they make it unfair to single-player types? Nah... but, perhaps some sort of restrictions on how much gold can be given or what kind of items can be given by what class??? Very interesting....I will have to think on this alot more now.... ;) S
        • The "real" economy went virtual the day we didn't have a value in gold to back the value of ever dollar.
          No the "real" economy went virtual when we went away from direct barter. Gold, like paper money, is an arbitrary form of wealth measurement, it has no inherent value. Its use as a means of virtualizing wealth relies solely on its ability to be accepted, rare, and hard to counterfeit; same as paper money.

          • Re:virtual economy... (Score:2, Interesting)

            by DerWulf ( 782458 )
            what do you think gold economies are? They are, in fact, direct barter economies.

            And there is nothing abitrary about gold (unlike paper money). The following properties make gold uniquely suitable as money:
            - durability (it doesn't spoil, rust, break or tear, unlike paper )
            - low weight (in relation to the other goods on the market, there is relativly few gold to go around, unlike paper)
            - divisibility (gold does not have to be treated as a unit (unlike cars ie.), many small pieces are almost exaclty as
            • And there is nothing abitrary about gold (unlike paper money). The following properties make gold uniquely suitable as money:
              - durability (it doesn't spoil, rust, break or tear, unlike paper )
              - low weight (in relation to the other goods on the market, there is relativly few gold to go around, unlike paper)
              - divisibility (gold does not have to be treated as a unit (unlike cars ie.), many small pieces are almost exaclty as useful as one larger piece, unlike paper)
              - impossible to counterfeit ( as you noted
            • what do you think gold economies are? They are, in fact, direct barter economies.
              No it is a virtual economy. Direct barter means I give you a cow for a bushel of wheat. However, that system is complicated if you don't want a cow. What virtual economies do is allow indirect trade, and improved valuation. I don't have to trade you a cow, I can trade that cow to somebody else for "economic units" which you would be willing to accept in exchange for the goods you sell. The "economic unit" could be anythi
        • True... with one itty bitty difference.. mmo's are A GAME... therefore when you have situations where you cannot get the monster that you want / need to continue playing becuase the gold/gil seller's lively hood depends on it... uh thats no longer a game. MMO's are "vritual worlds" in some respects but when you break it down, they exist to make money for the devloper and to provide entertainment for the gamer. Having people make money off of it destroys that.
        • Unfortunately, you are missing a key part. The people and groups who are earning a living off of these games are ruining the games for others. They are camping the best items or are agressively taking spots that will earn them money. You are right that if some guy sells some of his stuff it's no big deal. It's the people who do it for a living that skew the economy and make it difficult for others who just want to play the game. So, to answer your rhetoric question of "who cares?" lots of people do. W

      • Re:Heard about this for awhile... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @07:44PM (#11612851) Homepage Journal
        exactly.

        the buyers, the people who don't want to *play* the game in the first place to get those items should be banned if anyone.

        though, if the devs have come up with a game that has an indeed so boring system for gaining wealth that you'll rather work at mcdonalds for few hours than play it then it really has gone wrong right there.

        the game worlds should be designed so that while designing they would keep it in their mind that the real world exists and they *Can't* isolate the gameworld from it.
        • I don't think the issue is people who would rather work an hour than play the game for an hour. The issue is that people in sweatshop conditions might be making 25 cents an hour, with the final seller making $1 for each hour of their labor. While a Westerner might be making $40 an hour. So would you rather work an hour or play one of the more tedious aspects of the game for 40 hours just to enable you to unlock the interesting bits.

          I'm not saying its a wise investment at any price, since you shouldn't
      • it is important for the game world to have it's own economy independant of the real world. It is essential for virtual economies to exitst.

        Why?
      • It is essential for virtual economies to exitst.

        I don't see any justification for that. True, many MMORPG developers state that exact line, but repetition doesn't create truth.

        I suspect that many game designers have a simulationist tendency- they like to create world that are "realistic", or at least self-consistent. It's more satisfying to watch good behavior emerge from a simple set of ground rules than to script in every little detail yourself. (Less effort, too)

        However, looking at existing top
        • Well, most developers have the opinion that the game should be about more than just fighting. I tried EQ back when it first came out, and it was hack and slash. That is not a "role playing game"....that just an action game with RPG elements. What makes RPGs fun is story (which is hard to pull off in a massively multiplayer evironment) and getting to pretend you are someone else in a world not your own. No one ever played old-fashioned table top D&D just to level up or accumulate gold and items. It is th
          • No one ever played old-fashioned table top D&D just to level up or accumulate gold and items.

            No, they do it to win fights. That was the objective of the first D&D game ever played (run by Gary Gygax with variant CHAINMAIL rules). That goal has remained close to the core of most (popular) RPGs ever since.

            No one ever played old-fashioned table top D&D just to level up or accumulate gold and items.

            No one ever played old-fashioned tabletop D&D to play the stock market or trade renewable

  • Virtual Farming? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @07:23PM (#11612637)
    I thought this was going to be a story about Harvest Moon [the-magicbox.com].
  • Am I the only one that first thought of SimFarm when they read the title?

    Ah, SimFarm. It was an interesting game.

  • Is really track the sales on ebay (and similar places). When someone an auction is successful, and the account switches hands, you ban both buyer and seller from the game using their credit card #s, and share this information with other mmorpgs.

    That will stop this nonsense.

    -jeff (getting ready for the privacy freaks to whine)
    • Is really track the sales on ebay (and similar places). When someone an auction is successful, and the account switches hands, you ban both buyer and seller from the game using their credit card #s, and share this information with other mmorpgs.

      I'm sure E-bay will be quick to give away credit card numbers of their customers.
  • ...harvest moon. please tell me i'm not the only one who thought this was an article about harvest moon!
  • I propose letting people farm all they want. In fact, I don't think there is enough. Let's have Everquest and the like just be straight-up one dollar-one vote. Then watch as bread-and-butter players abandon them in droves and the user base becomes five millionaires with +25 magic dragon slayer swords.

    Maybe then someone will design a fun MMO game that isn't a ripoff of the 30 year old Dungeons-and-Dragons model of accumulating crap to buy more crap, paying $50 plus $15 a month to pretend to be a blacksmith

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