Legitimizing Real Money Trading In Games 158
MMOGamer interviewed Andy Schneider, co-founder of Live Gamer, a company working with several major game publishers (including Acclaim, Funcom, and SOE) to legitimize the real money trading (RMT) industry in online games. Schneider expects this method of customer service to grow much more popular in the West over the next few years, especially after the success it's had in Asia.
"It started in the very earliest MMOs, if not back in the MUD days in a very grassroots sort of way, but then obviously got into a more opportunistic and nefarious industry. When I talk about legitimate RMT, it's about a publisher supporting the notion that people want to buy and sell virtual items for real money, and they have decided to proactively support that notion and give their player-base a way to do that. ... It takes the manual process out of the equation that most players are engaged in with the black market, and reduces the fraud considerably, which is good for players. ... The reason there are gold farmers out there, the reason why there is nearly a two billion dollar secondary market for virtual items, is because of consumer demand."
Earning cash for virtual gold will be fine until.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Taxman cometh.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, taxes from every little local guv'ment to the Feds.
And this will only be passed on to the customer. The product price increases, product becomes less attractive, less people buy it.
How is this good, again?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a rational, logical, well thought out argument. Good luck selling the taxmen on it.
Where there's a buck to be had, don't assume people are going to be rational about it. And never, ever, ever assume that the legislation that introduces a new tax upon something will be well thought out.
Easy solution though. Just limit yourself to games in which gold-selling is not permitted, and you'll be fine.
Hell, I'm of the opinion that any game economy that allows real world money into it is bound to get out of
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
there must be something out there that can be stretched into precedent for this. what about internal accounting systems, where a company's departments "pay" each other for services, but the government only cares about money which crosses the organization's boundary?
Okay, that's enaough. You already messed up IRL, keep the fucking economics out of my fucking game.
Was it really a success in Asia, or did they just ruin the game for those who were not addicted enough to pay even more?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
there must be something out there that can be stretched into precedent for this.
And this is why the current legal climate is so fucked up. If you want a new law, make a new law. Distorting 200 year old laws to fit the internet does not work. See copyright.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't matter. The taxman can't do anything until you acquire assets outside the game.
Read your TOS/EULA. Make it work for you for once. Anything inside the game is owned by the people running the game. If the taxman comes knocking I have a binding legal contract, ProCD v Zeidenberg 7th Circuit, that says they need to go talk to Blizzard/Sony/Turbine/Whoever because they are the owners of record. It's their asset not mine.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is all well and good, but like most things involving corporate and government abuse, it's just not worth it. 10k gold in WoW goes for something like $75. That's, what, ten bucks extra on your taxes? Are you really going to spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars trying to defend your point against the IRS?
There are lots of things that we shouldn't pay. I shouldn't have paid Bank of America when they screwed me on a credit card late fee by holding my check past the due date. But it was $39
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand your point.
If you received $75 for 10K you fall under existing tax law. You always have.
My post dealt with taxing assets held in game.
You should have sued in small claims. BoA would have rolled over and settled with you. Too expensive for them to go to court over such a low amount.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have 75k, you can be hit for a property tax on that 75k.
So the situation being presented is this possible future:
Sure, legally it's blizzard's property but the government passed a law that your blizzard bill must include an assessement for in game property.
If you don't pay it, then your blizzard account is shut down.
The tax is $10 this year split into 12 easy payments of 80 cents. It would cost your $2,600 to fight the issue in court and you'd probably lose.
What action you take:
Re: (Score:2)
The government passes a law saying I'm responsible for the tax liability of someone else's property?
That's just nonsensical.
Re: (Score:2)
The government passes a law saying I'm responsible for the tax liability of someone else's property?
That's just nonsensical.
So are all the trillions of US$ being thrown at bankers who gambled and lost. What else is new?
Re: (Score:2)
No. I live in a country that has restrictions on what laws can be put in place. This would never be enacted let alone stand up to challenge.
Making a law that imposes a tax on you for me owning something is nonsensical.
Regardless your cost argument is meaningless. You would not be fighting such a law. Someone with orders of magnitude more resources, and thus orders of magnitude more able to be fucked by such a law, would be fighting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Whether or not he pays property tax on his car is going to depend a lot on what state he lives in. Some do have this.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And indeed, that's why me and a lot of friends just stopped playing.
Re: (Score:2)
I need to clarify here.
In EVE Online you are allowed to buy in-game money from other players. This is regular cash that was created through normal means.
This is _NOT_, I repeat _NOT_, game cash created out of thin air by the publisher.
Thus there is no risk of massive inflation.
Re:Title 26 Section 83 defines Income. (Score:4, Informative)
Ha ha ha, riiiight.
In the UK, and I'm sure this is the case in the US, even if you live by barter you're due taxes according to the value of the services or goods you exchange.
If you pay me 250 chickens a month instead of £1000 UKP then I still owe the tax man about £400 despite not having received any money. And sadly I can't pay him in chickens.
The only way to save is by illegally providing a false tax declaration and hoping no one notices you're working for barter rather than money. Ignorance of the need to declare such things is not a defence either.
Re: (Score:2)
Sweet! The government owes me taxes if I live by barter?
Protip: "You are due taxes" means someone owes taxes to you.
Joking aside, this is true in the US as well, for states that have sales tax. The tax is due regardless of the means of payment.
Be wary... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Be wary... (Score:5, Insightful)
See, this would be good, except that say I start a virtual business that somehow generates millions in real income, having to pay taxes on this would be insane
Why? All companies pay taxes. You're not making a virtual business - you're making a real business that just so happens to deal in virtual goods. You should (and will) pay taxes like any other company. In fact, it would probably be in your best interest to incorporate, just like any other company.
A company is a company. You are selling a good or service in exchange for money. The fact that the good or service exists as data in a computer shouldn't matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? All companies pay taxes.
Not true in the slightest. Set up a company in, say, Panama, and it doesn't have to pay taxes except for profit from business conducted within Panama. Other countries (e.g. UK and I presume US) have tax rules that will take taxes on profits from trading that takes place within those countries, but if the basic work is being carried out in a virtual environment has the trading taken place in those countries? Probably not.
An offshore company dealing in a virtual world will prob
Re: (Score:2)
So if I use a North American bank to execute my futures investments I can run a ponzi^w investment bank in the UK and not pay taxes. Sounds good.
Re: (Score:2)
So if I use a North American bank to execute my futures investments I can run a ponzi^w investment bank in the UK and not pay taxes. Sounds good.
No, because those futures investments are taking place in North America, so you'll have to pay North American tax on them.
The question becomes interesting when the investment is not related to something that has a geographical location, but exists only on the Internet. You'll then get interesting questions arising like "where are the servers based?" ... but consid
Re:Be wary... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, because those futures investments are taking place in North America, so you'll have to pay North American tax on them.
Note that this may not actually be true. There are several tax treaties signed between the UK and USA, and between commonwealth countries (e.g. the UK and Canada) which give some quite complex rules. On royalty income paid by my US publisher, for example, I pay tax in the UK but for other kinds of income from the USA this specific exemption would not apply. Just to make life more fun, the IRS forms require you to state the treaty and clause that is relevant to your specific case, so you need to look this up yourself (or, if you're lucky, find someone else who has already done the research and blogged the answer).
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, in all future posts on gambling on arbitrary fluctuations of intangibles I'll consider running investments from Papua New Guinea.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the geographical location of the future stock price of Google?
The Geographical location of the company, fair enough, it has several. You can locate the transaction, sure, but if it's just about the location of the transaction then a MMORPG transaction is just as much located geographically as a gamble on a stock price fluctuation.
What if the transaction is actuated on a computer on a ship in international waters? Futures to my mind are equally tangible as MMORPG monies.
Re: (Score:2)
That has nothing to do with the original point. The GP claimed dealing in virtual goods rendered them immune to taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
What?
For the "real income" to be real it has to exist in the possession of a real business or real person. Thus it is taxable. The taxman doesn't give a fuck how you earned it.
Re: (Score:2)
See, this would be good, except that say I start a virtual business that somehow generates millions in real income, having to pay taxes on this would be insane
I don't see the problem here. You can pay your taxes in virtual money.
Do they wish their own death? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm against real money trading for gold and items because it would definitely create a crazy and lazy in-game economy. It would also remove the sense of common-ground in the game. I would hate it if by any chance Bill Gates decided to play an MMO and would have better items and gear than me instantly. (something along those lines)
Re:Do they wish their own death? (Score:4, Insightful)
> I'm pretty sure that gold farmers would cease to exist if the gaming company themselves sells gold for real $$$ at a lower rate.
I think that is the point. If you have to grind for weeks to get a Sword of Awesomeness you will insist on selling it for a decent chunk of change. But you won't be able to compete with the company store. Thus farming isn't a viable business model anymore.
Which is all well and good as far as it goes. But that treats symptoms not the real problem. The problem is losers wanting pretend items they couldn't possibly earn in a frickin' game so badly they will pay serious real coin to get them. It would be like bribing your DM to let your third level character find a +5 sword. Who would continue to play in a gaming group if such a disgusting thing were to occur?
Misunderstanding (Score:3, Insightful)
Where that the case, someone would still have to go grind out the epics to hock to the bling buyers. That is already happening in most games. The only difference is who gets paid, the gold farmer and the game company, or some of these dubious 'middle men' who run
Re: (Score:2)
Where that the case, someone would still have to go grind out the epics to hock to the bling buyers. That is already happening in most games. The only difference is who gets paid, the gold farmer and the game company, or some of these dubious 'middle men' who run the resale houses.
Art imitates life. Right now if you want a smooth face someone has to "grind out" razor blades (hey wait, that's literally true) and you have to buy them before you can shave.
On Bribing the DM (Score:4, Funny)
>It would be like bribing your DM to let your third level character find a +5 sword. Who would continue to play in a gaming group if such a disgusting thing were to occur?
This happens every week. It is only right to bribe the DM for all his hard work.
Rule #1: The DM need never pay his share of the pizza for he has an infinite number of Tarrasques and magical swords. ^_-
That said though, trust me when I say, "You CAN'T afford a +5 Sword!"
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
That said though, trust me when I say, "You CAN'T afford a +5 Sword!"
Unless you have boobs.
Re: (Score:2)
And exhibitionist tendencies.
Sword now, payment NOW.
Re: (Score:2)
Who would continue to play in a gaming group if such a disgusting thing were to occur?
People?
Re:losers wanting pretend items (Score:2)
"Which is all well and good as far as it goes. But that treats symptoms not the real problem. The problem is losers wanting pretend items they couldn't possibly earn in a frickin' game so badly they will pay serious real coin to get them. It would be like bribing your DM to let your third level character find a +5 sword. Who would continue to play in a gaming group if such a disgusting thing were to occur?"
And because such ignorant fuckwads continue to exist and play MMOs there will always be a de
Re: (Score:2)
Ya. Fuck those pathetic losers who value their freetime and have a job. Are you seriously blaming the players? The "real problem" you describe isn't a problem at all.
Re:Do they wish their own death? (Score:4, Interesting)
They think they can profit because they have (or at least intend to have) an exclusive contract with the game company to do the legal transactions.
Players would have an incentive to purchase from an official third party rather than a black market source as the likelihood of all sorts of different fraudulent activities would be reduced. What assurance are you given that you will receive the item advertised, or any item at all? Do you think the back alley item salesman would think twice about selling your contact information to spammers? How convinced are you that your financial information will be handled in a secure manner, if not outright sold on the black market?
The big question might be why the game publishers don't get into the action themselves rather than having a third party perform the transaction. There are foreseeable problems with the developer running an in game real money trading economy, primarily in customer perception. Redirecting the ire of irate "purist" gamers to a third party is a win for the developer. Additionally, specialization and economies of scale could possible make combating fraud more reasonable. Same for handling a sale between people who use different currencies. Developing both the game world and the transaction system could be tricky tax-wise and could even present expensive edge cases of legal liability.
In the end, some developers will decide to use a third party to handle player/player transactions. Some game companies will decide that handling financial transactions internally is worthwhile... likely those under the umbrella of a larger publisher that can devote the developer expertise to creating a fairly robust market system (parts of which can the be reused in other games) as well as the legal muscle to not get in too much trouble with it. Other in-game economies will still prohibit all real money sales... and those games will always have a prominent, annoying black market element. The developers can do their best to stamp out the gold-farmers, but any time there is a profit motive roaches will come out of the woodwork to try to get a quick meal. And once they are there, they reproduce quicker than you can stamp them out.
Re: (Score:2)
But you fail to realize, what incentive would game company have to contract such third party? After all, in most games a GM can create what ever item or money they wish. There are no need to waste bandwidth, system load, and time for official items and money. So it would literally spell the death of RMT
Re: (Score:2)
would hate it if by any chance Bill Gates decided to play an MMO and would have better items and gear than me instantly.
"You have been eaten by sir Bills-a-Gate's gold plated grue"
Re: (Score:2)
EVE-Online model:
Alice gives money to CCP for 30 days game time.
Bob gives ingame cash "isk" to Alice.
Alice give 30 days game time to Bob.
CCP provides a secure way for Bob and Alice to trade time for isk. No isk is artificially created by CCP.
It's risk free and inflation free. Basically CCP wants to get the subscription cash from a player rather than a farmer.
Re: (Score:2)
If only that were the case.
Rune of Magic is a free to play MMO which makes all of its money on RMT. There are effectively two currencies in the game, one which is used for common everyday stuff such as repairs and professions, and another which is used for all of the best features like mounts and player housing.
The latter is purchased with real money, and if desired can actually be sold on the auction house for the more "mundane" currency. In theory this should kill the market for gold sellers.
In practice i
Can't see the point of playing a game open RMT (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see why losers would want to buy things they couldn't earn. I can see why the companies running the games would want to take the losers money instead of spending resources fighting gold farming. What I fail to understand is why anyone worth a damn would keep playing a game that openly allows buying their way to the top. And a game filled only with pathetic losers isn't likely to stay fun for even the losers for long.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Well said, man.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Look around you, this kind of stuff happens all over the "real" world.
If I wanted to deal with the real world, why would I spend $12/month to try to wipe the vile Horde and Scourge from the face of Azeroth?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
> Funny... I will just compare this to sports
That is perfectly fine, playing an online game is just playing a game the same as baseball.
> NASCAR wins by having more money to pump into car mods and engineers.
But only up to a point. NASCAR goes to great length to level the playing field. Any serious team should be able to muster the resources to 'play in the big leagues', otherwise they should have stayed on a less prestigious racing circuit. So all of the teams have roughly the same resources (or at
abuse of moderation (Score:2)
"Troll" does not mean "anything with which I disagree". It means that someone has said something they don't believe in order to elicit a specific desired response. The above is clearly not a troll; not only is it true, but I believe it :P
Re:Can't see the point of playing a game open RMT (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I find real games boring for precisely this reason.
Even so, all the sports you mentioned require a certain amount of skill. In a game, to a certain extent, you can buy skill.
A company has a decent plan to try and level the playing field and get farmers out of games
I fail to see how this "levels" anything. In fact, it creates exactly the same problem for "fairness" -- it ruins the in-game economy for attempting to sell things to other players (since other players can simply buy those items outright from the in-game store), and it creates the same problem of newbies buying their way to the top, while a legit player struggles.
In fact, it brings the whole class system in the real world into the game, which just sucks. What makes the game fun in the first place is that it's not the real world.
I have seen this happen, in a few limited ways. I play Nexus TK [nexustk.com], which has only recently begun to follow the Korean business model of giving the game away (or at least, of keeping it at the same $9.95/mo), and selling other things. Most of these other things, I have no problem with, as they're purely decorative. A few are actually useful.
They do try, however, to prevent these from affecting the in-game economy. They cannot be dropped or traded in any way.
Even so, the very existence of that shop has impacted the economy in a few ways. The most obvious are the Equipment Restoration items. Some players can repair items, and they charge an arbitrary fee. This fee halved when people could simply pay a few pennies (of real money) to repair their items -- the demand had simply dried up overnight.
I've greatly simplified the above for the purposes of this comment, but the result is the same.
Here's the problem (Score:2)
Games AREN'T the real world. People don't play them for reality, they play them for fun. That is the #1 factor a game needs is to be entertaining.
Now as this applies to buying your way to the top, for most people that ISN'T fun. The fun of the game is the process, not hitting the top right away. I mean in any offline game I have, I can "beat" the game right away. I can have all the items, be as powerful as possible, or simply skip to the end credits. None of this is hard, I just pop open a debugger and fidd
Re: (Score:2)
There are millions of people who watch NASCAR. There are considerably fewer who participate in the races. I'm not sure NASCAR makes a good example even if your claim that you buy winnings pans out. Likewise, there are far fewer actual players in the NBA/NFL/NHL than there are fans. But what we're talking about here is not a spectator sport. It's one thing to watch people participate in an expensive or difficult activity for the entertainment value. It's another thing when your entertainment is based o
Re: (Score:2)
NASCAR wins by having more money to pump into car mods and engineers... NBA/NFL/NHL all make more money and have better teams if they pump money into someone that another team can't afford. I don't see the difference here.
The difference is that NASCAR teams' sponsored output pays automotive technology dividends, and sports teams' sponsorships produce revenues which make the teams profitable. Those are both commercial ventures. If a sports team doesn't make money, it ceases to exist.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that NASCAR teams' sponsored output pays automotive technology dividends,
OMG, did you type that with a straight face? Tube chassis, carburetors, and slick tires? Yeah. Lots of technology trickle down. NASCAR is budgeted by marketing, not R&D.
It's been decades since even the lame homologation specials were around. Even longer since there was any true crossover.
Geez, at least Formula One gave us variable valve timing.
Re: (Score:2)
OMG, did you type that with a straight face? Tube chassis, carburetors, and slick tires?
Carburetors are not interesting, but if you think that tubular chassis design hasn't trickled back to space frame design, or that tire compounds haven't evolved partially as a result of racing, you need to keep thinking.
Because it's not a spectator sport (Score:2)
NASCAR, the NBA, and the NHL all make their money by selling tickets and TV rights.
MMORPGs make their money through participants. If they expect people to participate, they have to at least give the illusion that participation can lead to success. (Without having to invest huge amounts of level-up money.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and why shouldn't i be able to decide my own time/money balance there?
Because not everybody gets to be an astronaut. Yes, yes, in America, we know that financial might makes right, but Blizzard owns this particular playground.
Re: (Score:2)
and why shouldn't i be able to decide my own time/money balance there?
Because not everybody gets to be an astronaut. Yes, yes, in America, we know that financial might makes right, but Blizzard owns this particular playground.
sorry, i should have been more clear: that wasn't "why won't bliz let me", but "why should it offend other players so much".
Re: (Score:2)
Because, for example, Star Wars Galaxies was a lot more fun before everyone could be a Jedi.
Or, in the case of WoW, if I did do ridiculous amounts of gold-grinding and ended up with a shiny new bike, it would piss me off to no end if every noob with a credit card suddenly had them.
And because, in general, this is an opportunity for financial might to not matter at all.
Re: (Score:2)
The other reply got the jist of it. Having extra money to blow on a game is seen by plenty as an unfair advantage.
Re:Can't see the point of playing a game open RMT (Score:4, Insightful)
it's the silly new bling (bike, mammoth, dalaran ring, pilton bag, etc.) that requires ridiculous amounts of gold-grinding to get
You're confusing cause and effect. The 'silly new bling' doesn't require gold grinding to get. Rather, it exists solely to take money out of the economy, to curb inflation. If they didn't keep adding gold sinks, eventually gold would become virtually worthless, removing any point of having it in the in-game economy. At least the sinks are carefully designed not to give any fundamental advantages in gameplay, so that having lots of gold does't give a huge advantage.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at WoW (Score:2)
You define people as 'losers' because they don't play the game the same way you do. Mighty full of yourself, aren't you? From the way you talk, it sounds like you define yourself as a 'winner' because you spend dozens of hours a week glued to a monitor hoping the random number generator will drop some instant self-esteem for you.
I'll cut off the easy ad-hominim rebuttal for you. Never bought a gold piece, never will. However, you might
Except that that's the real game (Score:2)
Except that they are _supposed_ to be a time sink. That's the whole purpose of gaming: to spend some time in a more fun way than staring at your own walls. That's the actual game.
Wh
MMOs: not actually a game (Score:2)
I completely understand the points you make about playing a game to enjoy it. I'm just pointing out that while you quickly jump to call them losers for buying their way to the top, others would call you a loser for playing computer 'games' in the basement all day.
Personally, I don't care if someone buys their way into a game, it's their choice. Life is full of people who don't share my values. The way people are getting angry over the idea in this thread is
Re: (Score:2)
It's not logical, for several reasons.
Say you want to buy an epic flyer in WoW, but don't want to spend the time grinding gold for it. On my server, it's $70 for the 5k gold that would take.
If WoW were the only game worth playing in the world, then it might be logical to spend this money. Wow is not, however, the only game worth playing. For those $70 there are any endless number of titles for the PC alone that could tickle one's fancy, without requiring the player to spend additional money to get through t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What I fail to understand is why anyone worth a damn would keep playing a game that openly allows buying their way to the top
Because the point of a game is to have fun. It isn't a competitive sport, so why should it matter that another player you're playing with has circumvented the lower levels of the game by buying a powerful weapon that made them easier to complete? Why would you care that another player didn't start with a first level character but bought a reasonably well-developed tenth level charact
Re: (Score:2)
The solution for world of warcraft is a simple one. It's the same solution that would get ride of bots, and everything else you hardcore dice rollers consider "cheating".
All they need to do is create realms where that stuff is allowed. When you start, you already get the option to chose if you are more into PvE, PvP, and if you are into the whole roll playing thing or not.
On one end of the spectrum, you have the gamers that just want to pay more to get more content, or those that get off AI development, a
Re: (Score:2)
I would rather spend £20 and be able to play parts of the game only accessible with certain items than spend three weeks (conservative estimate with, for example, raiding for Tier 5 loot in WoW) being unable to play. Grinding constantly to be able to proceed is mundane, and ultimately what put me off WoW.
Fuck you for deciding who is a loser based upon what hobbies a person decides to spend their money on.
Re: (Score:2)
You, dear sir, are a scumbag. Please find a hobby you have time for. Or try playing honestly for a change.
As for how WoW was when Tier 5 raid items were all the rage - Blizzard already nerfed it all to suit all the "I don't have time" guys. It is true that back when SSC and TK were new, you *had* to farm consumables for 4-5 hours a week to have the necessary items for
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
RMT only works if you sell time.
Buying things that saves you time or makes your life easier is fine. Fluff falls into this category too.
Buying things that make you better than other people by merely having them is broken RMT and possibly a broken game design.
Re: (Score:2)
How is someone who spends weeks of their time to play their way to to top any less of a loser than someone who buys their way?
Re: (Score:2)
What I fail to understand is why anyone worth a damn would keep playing a game that openly allows buying their way to the top.
Like politics?
Re: (Score:2)
What I fail to understand is why anyone worth a damn would keep playing a game that openly allows buying their way to the top.
This sounds a lot like real life. The game company can just advertise the hell out of the added dimension of realism.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the reason it wouldn't be fun anymore is because every single in-game action would be instantly and irrevocably boil down to money. You don't really need a whole lot of trust to deal with people in a non-legitimate-RMT game. Sure, plenty of people don't care about legitimacy, but enough people do that you don't have to chew your fingernails off nightly in worry that your guild leader is going to run off with the guild bank. It might happen, and does happen often enough, but it's not a big deal.
No 3rd party needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, when.
Re: (Score:2)
But even if they somehow
Trading (Score:2)
Legitimizing Real Money Trading In Games...
As a frequent "trader" I was confused there for a second.
It works for Second LIfe (Score:5, Interesting)
It works for Second Life. Almost too well. In 2007, Ginko Financial, an in-game bank, went bust. [wired.com] Then Midas Bank went bust. [virtualworldsvideo.com] This drew the attention of The Wall Street Journal. [wsj.com] In 2008, Linden Labs introduced bank regulation [secondlife.com]. Most of the Second Life banks were actually Ponzi schemes, with huge interest rates. It's still possible for a real-world bank to open branches in Second Life, but nobody has bothered.
Second Life isn't a game... (Score:2)
...or at least, it's a "game" the way The Sims is. Which is to say, it's a simulation.
I have no problem with Second Life operating with real-world dollars. My problem with Second Life is that for what it is, it should not be tied to a single controlling entity (Linden).
But in an actual game, like WoW, well, this is just the next level of gold farming. The result is the same -- status in the game is no longer driven by anything resembling skill, or even time invested, but by how much money you're willing to
Re: (Score:2)
...or at least, it's a "game" the way The Sims is. Which is to say, it's a simulation.
I have no problem with Second Life operating with real-world dollars. My problem with Second Life is that for what it is, it should not be tied to a single controlling entity (Linden).
But in an actual game, like WoW, well, this is just the next level of gold farming. The result is the same -- status in the game is no longer driven by anything resembling skill, or even time invested, but by how much money you're willing to spend on the game.
As a WoW player, I have to disagree. Blizzard heavily limits what items can be purchased with gold, and actually very few end game items (there's just one ring at this time, actually) can be bought with gold. What gold helps with, however, is a lot of the necessary but time consuming tasks like enchanting and gemming your equipment. You can get a decent set of gear to start raiding with gold, but you can't get very far at all without skill.
With the achievement system in place, I can tell very quickly if
Consumers want to cheat (Score:4, Insightful)
There is "consumer demand" because lazy bum players who "can't be assed" to play the game want to cheat by buying ingame assets and currency with real money.
Once it becomes okay to cheat, only the cheaters will stay around. It's fine to cheat in single player games - all you are really doing is cheating yourself out of the proper experience. Cheating in multiplayer games (especially persistent multiplayer games) you'll just participate in destroying the game you are playing.
The only reason game companies are even looking at this is because enforcing the rules is expensive. Too many lazy bums around that need the banstick. Plus they look at how Asian companies rake in the money from idiots out there who all like to play "whoever has the most disposable income wins"-style game. SOE already tried this with EQ2 and it really didn't work - cheaters kept cheating on the regular servers and the gameplay and community on the "enabled" servers was a cesspit of teenagers trying to convert excess free time into dollars and lazy idiots feeding the teenagers with too much disposable income. Professional farmers stayed on the normal servers as black market prices were always higher and the "consumer demand" was higher on the servers where you could actually buy an advantage.
Cheating with real money is an advantage only when it is cheating. When everyone is doing it, it's just a stupid way to milk more money from all the people who bother to play the "game".
Re: (Score:2)
There is "consumer demand" because lazy bum players who "can't be assed" to play the game want to cheat by buying ingame assets and currency with real money.
This seems to be more of a symptom than anything else. Games are supposed to be fun. If people "can't be assed" playing, then what does that say about the quality of the game? To me, it says that they aren't playing the game because they want to play, but because there is some social status attached to playing the game.
The problem seems to be that there aren't enough fun games anymore, and that playing a popular game amounts to having another job, not a source of entertainment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really.
In WoW the gold has been non-issue since.. at least an year ago. The only situation where it matters any more is when you buy BOE epics or extremely rare drops from AH (which have highly inflated prices due to the ease of obtaining gold). And with these, the more you buy gold, the higher these prices inflate to - and they are all luxury items for scrubs that don't have the necessary social skills to raid. All gear that you actually want to wear, assuming you have a choice, is Bind on Pickup anywa
Re: (Score:2)
As a newbie, I disagree. I broke down and started playing about three weeks ago. Shortly after starting, a lv 80 friend of mine handed me 100 gold and told me to "have fun". What I noticed at first, was that I never really tapped in to the gold. The amount I made going through quests and selling crafted items - not burning time grinding or farming, seemed to be "just enough" to buy all my skills, alchemy components, repairs, etc. I wasn't running at a profit. But I wasn't running at a loss, either. A
Common misconception to gold farmers in China (Score:2)
The MMO Gamer: When people hear that phrase, âoereal money trading,â their initial thoughts are probably of a dark basement in China somewhere, with men slaving over keyboards night and day, and some guy who whips them if they donâ(TM)t meet their gold quotas.
Your vision was wrong. Being a gold farm overlord, I can tell ya we whip them for pure pleasure only. Meeting gold quotas is their meaning to life, not a choice whatsoever. When they don't meet their gold quotas, I'll throw bones. If the result was in their favour, I'd only remove legs or eyes from them; otherwise execution is inevitable.
Gambling? (Score:2, Interesting)
How 'close' would a game come to being covered under gambling laws, if any and every item you randomly find/get given as a reward in a game, actually has official real-life monetary value?
Profit (Score:3, Funny)
1) Start virtual brothel
2) Charge punters real money
3) *****
4)Profit!
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't look like step 3 is necessary.
Two reasons not to... (Score:2)
I worked on one of the earliest MMOs, Meridian 59. Yeah, I know it was tiny compared to the "big boys" when Ultima Online came out, but it was still a lot bigger than the eight-player LAN games that were the competition back then.
Anyway, there were two very strong reasons not to get into real-money transactions. Bugs and Gambling. Any bug in the code would be exploited, and of course every MMO has shown this to be true. Unexpected object duplication or money transaction bugs will either rip off the com
Eliminating the Gold farmers (Score:2, Interesting)
What sort of liability is this for game companies? (Score:2)
If a player has an account w/ $1,000 dollars worth of gold and gear and that account is deleted will the company directly reimburse the player?
If a company has a game world w/ 1,000 players, each of whom has $1,000 and the company decides to close the game world down will they have to have $1,000,000 on the books to pay off the players?
There was an interesting fictional treatment on this in _Dragon Magazine_ ages ago though, ``Catacomb'' by Henry Melton I believe it was which shows one potentially expensive
roadblocks (Score:2)
There are three things that come to mind that a "legitimized" money trading feature would have to address - all related to the poor in-game effects of the current model.
1 - It would have to remove or negate the player behavior of farmers. The camping (and subsequent artificially increased rarity of gold/items), the spamming, the foreign language ninja looters, etc. IMO a certain amount of that is human nature, but the only "cure" is to make sure that in game behavior cannot translate into real-life profit.
Re: (Score:2)
EVE is a good example of a virtual economy. It isn't based on RL cash (thankfully!). But it has player created banks, loaning institutions, corporate espionage, politics, and even War to consume goods and enforce politics... or just to kill helpless empire folks : /
But it really does have a complex economy. Typical buy/sell orders on the market. Free form Contracts for anything under the sun (including scams!). Stock/Shares in companies that pay dividends. And a rediculously long supply chain to produc