The BBC On RMT

Real Money Transfer (RMT) is a contentious subject among MMOG players, but not something usually addressed by major news organizations. Joystiq has up a post on the BBC's coverage of gold farming in World of Warcraft , with a reporter 'live from Ironforge' addressing the issue. "The BBC has taken a straight look at Chinese gold farmers in the World of Warcraft. We'd fear for our own jobs when MSM begin competently portraying game news — thankfully, gold farming is old news and has already been well documented in the last two years, so we feel relatively safe. The piece takes a look at your typical Chinese gold farming operation, with some nifty use of green-screen by the reporter being magically teleported into the game. At least it wasn't another WoW game addiction piece."

Notice: Video Link

[drinkypoo]

If you don't watch videos while you slashdot, you're not going to get much out of the link.

It's nice when the summary says something about a video, although I've been here too long to expect that out of Zonk.

Personally I'd like to see only videos with transcripts posted on slashdot, but probably that's just me.

Re:Notice: Video Link

[dougmc]

Personally I'd like to see only videos with transcripts posted on slashdot, but probably that's just me.

That would be nice. Though in this case, what set this story apart was not really the story itself (it's nothing we didn't already know) but the green screen work that Zonk mentioned. It's kinda cute seeing the reporter walking around in the WoW world -- clever. I'm surprised I haven't seem more reporters doing that.

On the plus side, at least it's a video type that plays easily under Linux (x86, granted. And only with a 32 bit browser, blech.) The flash video players really have taken the world by storm -- even msnbc.com uses them now, and now I can even see their movies without switching computers.

Re:

[malsdavis]

I think the fact that it was a multiplayer gaming story covered by the most watched daily news program in the U.K. is also what sets the story apart. Can you imagine ABC World News reporting on gold farming?

Its certainly one of the biggest incidences of mainstream press coverage given to a purely on-line gaming story yet. Yet more evidence of societies changing attitudes towards on-line gaming.

Re:

[morari]

Nah, they could just put out Diablo III, or a sequel to Rock 'n' Roll Racing. ;)

Re:

[Tofystedeth]

And D3 would be any better than WoW? Different I suppose, but still a grind/collection game with less to go and do than WoW.

Re:

[morari]

No monthly fee or other people to bring down the atmosphere or experience. Oh, and a story, that way you can feel some sense of accomplishment for advancing. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Re:

[zippthorne]

So.. blizzard should trade millions of people paying over a hundred dollars a year (that's right, with 8 million subscribers, they can gross a billion dollars a year. That's more revenue than some countries.)

Re:

[MontyApollo]

Nah, they could just put out Diablo III, or a sequel to Rock 'n' Roll Racing...

Re:

[morari]

Mmhm. I'm glad we're on the same page with this. Would you care to sign my petition for WoW's end?

Re:

[MontyApollo]

>>Would you care to sign my petition for WoW's end?

I would be torn...it might mean Starcraft 2 would arrive sooner, but all those WoW people would move to LOTRO and clog up the chat with their whining that LOTRO is not as good as WoW.

Re:

[Rakarra]

(that's right, with 8 million subscribers, they can gross a billion dollars a year.

Except they aren't. You're making the incorrect assumption of 8billion * $15. What you need to do is take the number of American subscribers, subtract from that the number of accounts that are merely free trial accounts (a great number of which are used by the gold sellers to spam), and you get the amount of money brought in in America. Then, for each market, figure out how it's priced (China is a huge market and they pay

Re:Clearly The Solution Is...

[faloi]

To just make sure MMOs are no longer created or supported, that way the gaming industry can get back to genres that matter and all of the losers that waste their time on WoW can commit suicide.

Fess up...you got banned for botting, didn't you?

Ban the buyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't go after the gold farmers. They are a hydra. You can't eliminate them, they create new accounts all the time.

Ban the people who buy from them. They can't create new accounts so easily. They are the source of the money - they are the people who have something to lose. I bet gold farming services wouldn't be so popular if users felt they might lose everything.

Re:

[TheCarp]

Meh I don't see how its such a problem really. In the end, it comes down to why you are playing the game, and that varies from person to person.

The problem is that, the real purists. The people who actually WANT to "role play" or see the game model a real "economy in a vaccuume" (where there isn't some unseen force outside that makes things move around... think about it... real money makes for a "supernatural" force making people move in game goods around for reasons that don't make sense in game)... well..

Re:

[zippthorne]

If PvP is what you're after, why would you buy an RPG anyway? That's like buying a set of pokemon cards because you enjoy paintball.

I do however see a point you've made that Blizzard hadn't addressed, and won't address: Most of the game isn't really very much fun. If it were, people wouldn't be paying good money to avoid it.

Re:

[TheCarp]

Exactly, did I not say that I wont pick up another one? :)

My current dru^H^H^Hgame of choice is BF2142. In theory I really like the idea of MMORPGs, and even the RP aspects could be fun. In practice though, I just like playing against other people and want to game in a casual manner. I really don't want to have to keep up with the joneses, and thats a big aspect of those games. I don't like playing for hours every night, for weeks on end, just to find out no....i still have not powerleveld enough to play.

At

Re:

[C0rinthian]

What if you want pvp in some genre besides FPS? (shocking, I know) MMO's are really your only choice.

Re:

[razorh]

A lot of people like to casually play. I mean some lvl whatever something or other gets on (I've played these games but not WoW itself), does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether he got that way by playing for days and days on his own, or bought a char last week?

To many people who have played these games extensively, yes, it matters quite a bit actually. Someone who puts time in to level a char up from scratch and puts in hundreds of hours of real game play is generally (not always)

Re:

[lessthan]

I play WOW and I don't think there is anything more annoying than a high lvl char asking where Darn (a major city) is. Especially when they have better gear than I do.

Re:

[TheCarp]

I understand your frustration. Though, there is a difference between something causing frustration and something being "wrong". Its like, going back to my own analogies, a casual lover who gets upset when they found out their fuckbuddy is seeing other people.

Its quite understandable. People get attached. That doesn't mean you have some real entitlement to stop them. It doesn't mean they have done anything wrong because they hurt your feelings.

Your annoyed.... why? Cuz they didn't enjoy the early stages of t

Agreed

[pslam]

We don't need people that that kind of mentality in the game at all. They are the problem.

There are people who understand how gold sellers are BAD for the game, and there are those who either use them or don't play the game. It's always like that - supporters are either somebody writing a template essay at school on the matter (and do the usual inconclusive style essay that schools love), or they're active users.

The problem is that people who use gold sellers aren't actually playing the game. Most of t

Both sides of mouth

[Randym]

I was quite amused to see that the *first two ads* (via googlesyndication) at the top of the page were for *gold farming*:

WoW Gold - Quick Delivery

Low Prices on All Servers! Quick & Safe Delivery 24/7

www.XXXXXX.com

Cheapest WoW Gold

Buy Gold Directly from Gamers Prices as Low as $0.69/Units!

XXXXXX.com

(actual sites X'd out by me)

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[Greyfox]

Our discreet karma farming service can deliver a "perfect karma" Slashdot account for the low price of $99.50, payable via PayPal or E-Gold. Act now and we'll throw in 2000 highly rated postings and a user ID no higher than 5 digits free of charge! Now you can win Slashdot without ever having to browse the site!

Re:

[xerxesVII]

Sad thing is, on a certain level I'm intrigued.

National News coverage on the important issue

[malsdavis]

I was really surprised to see this on the national news, especially since BBC news is by far and above the most popular nightly news program in the UK (undoubtedly due to its lack of commercials).

It was kind of amusing, the studio news readers (and probably most the country) didn't really understand the report, although the guy actually presenting the report thankfully obviously knew what he was talking about.

Shame it's a rubbish report

[pslam]

Sadly the report didn't really understand the issues either. This is a typical shitty "fair two sided report" you get from the BBC these days. Someone must have told them a while ago that all reports must be fair and impartial, but these days all the second rate journalists take that to stupid extremes.

This gives far too much credibility to the arguments gold sellers and gold buyers make. They are so, so easy to counter and refute, but did you see how much air time they gave the Blizzard rep? 15 seconds.

Re:

[pslam]

Not to mention that for 3 minutes of the 3:17 clip, they go on about the whole thing as if it's actually something allowed by the game. It isn't. Blizzard invented the game, they invented the rules, and they say it's cheating, so by definition it's cheating.

Again, they only give 15 seconds of the damn report to that. They give no time to mention the hideous pay and conditions the gold farmers have to work under either...

Re:

[malsdavis]

I think the report made it fairly clear that the process is banned and it mentioned how many accounts are frequently deleted because of it.

You have to remember that the report was on national news so a large proportion of the report really had to be spent introducing not just gold farming, but the entire game and its format (i.e. what a MMORPG is) etc. as most people watching probably had no idea what WoW is, let alone gold farming.