Does banning bots bring additional revenue to Anet?

Well, I dislike bots etc., and fully support Anet's efforts to stomp on as many as possible. I fully believe Anet does it primarily in the interest of maintaning the community. However, up to today, I also believed this was also a financial benefit to Anet, since a botter would be forced to buy a new box, generating new income.

However, I have today read this today, Gaile's reply to someone claiming the bots make sales. I found the answer most surprising:

Well, that was certainly not expected. So, anyone care to comment, or perhaps even provide more information?

Why is it surprising? It's like in real-life: our police and justice system cost a lot of money to the society at large. It's not different in the virtual world, because there's always the possibility that what Anet and GW GMs thought was a bot is actually a real person (I remember a while ago someone saying that he behaved like a bot, farming repeatedly for long hours, he seemed honest but he could be leading a gold-selling company and defending his parasitic business model). They have to be carefull, gather information, possibly make a case against an independent entity (NC Soft?).

I've also read where Gail stated that most bot accounts are trial key accounts.

A user will create a 55 MOnk on a 10 hour trial key, supply it with what it needs from a main or alt account, run it where it needs to farm and then at 9:45 mins strip it of everything it farmed as well as the equiptment it was given. (ie Runes, -50 cesta, ect) rinse repeat.

Often with several going on at once. Some botters have 4-5 machines running at once. Yes it takes a bit of time to do the set up, but unfortunatly ANet has made it esier for bots, purly by accedent. Skill and equiptment templates as well as Elite Tomes have really cut down on set up time allowing more true farming time during the 10 hours. Imagine the time saved not having to run a bot out to cap SoJ.

You can get trial keys for free or I've seen them for $2 at some game stores.

Not surprising at all - I think it highly likely that banning bots does cost A-Net, rather than making them money.

In any case, why does everyone assume that botters BUY new copies after they are banned? I think it highly unlikely that botters are honest, scrupulous people who play by those "rules". Far more likely that they buy existing accounts from players (maybe using virtual money), hack/steal accounts, and use whatever other exploits are available to gain free access to the game.

This is what I remember Gaile saying as well. It's also hard not to notice those spammers in towns wanting to trade their gold for accounts and trial keys.

Er, aren't the trial accounts supposed to be unable to trade with other players? I think I remember it mentioned as a method used to prevent the botting.

Also, botters don't always buy new copies.......sometimes they hack someone's account and use that.

trial key accounts can't trade...but they can still enter an instance drop gold/loot and let someone else pick it up...or i think they can...

No they can't

^ VERY constructive

Hmm, Also, it costs Anet 80$ too ban a guy? Lol...

Look, levelling up to level 20, equipping the guy, getting him to the farming spots, etc. This alone will consume more than half the trial key...

And even so, 7-8 hours of farming, is that worth it? And on top of that, you can't even trade?! No, I'm pretty sure it is what the guy said, Anet is making money of this. Why would they not? "Because they care about the community?", YEAH! That's why they have a own forum, or that's why they actually listen to the PvP-community, Heck, that's why there is SOO many satisfied support customers...

I'm not a hater, Gaile, but don't lie, please...

P.s. for all the people who think they use "second"(Ebay)/hacked accounts. Lol.... (If you have no common sense/clue what you're talking about, then don't )

Yea I'm not surprised to see that it costs more to ban someone than it would be to make profit off a free game. Especially with prices dropping more and more on all guildwars games. Makes complete sense.

If your argument is it costs them more than 'free' to ban someone then you're right. It doesn't cost them an average of $80 to ban one guy or even $50 to ban one guy unless they are terribly inefficient. It costs even less now that the report system is in place and players help out.

However, I don't think they make decisions regarding bots to make profit. It's probably just an area with limited resources allocated. If you see an obvious bot, use the report system and make it simple for them to find. If you see a guy spamming for gold sales in Ascalon, report that guy with the 'spamming' option of report. Then don't worry about it because you did what you could to help.

They aren't losing money from support doing what support gets paid to do.
If you get paid a salary and say, work at a company's help desk/suport center, whether you get 10 calls one day and 120 the next, your salary remains the same regardless of the number of calls processed.

Unless their support gets paid by the hour or by number of tickets opened/closed that claim is complete bullshit. Perhaps they're using logic like "if we didn't have a support team then we wouldn't have to pay them."

And other than trial keys, there are at least some new bot accounts that come from existing players' accounts. They buy/scam them for in-game gold or get their login info somehow. The unsuspecting player then logs in to find him/herself banned for botting or stripped if they manage to get the account back.

If you don't know what the hell you're talking about, stfu.

Pull logs, review parameters, check chat logs, appraise trade histories... if you're looking somewhere specific due to a /report (which has the time logged) I don't see the sum of these actions taking more then 10 minutes on average. For arguments sake, lets say a low level support guy makes $20 an hour has as one of his tasks... we're looking at $3.33 spent for a ban.

Smarter time spent is getting a programmer to write in stuff which auto flags potential bots based on behavior. However, this is a one time thing... you do this once and it's in effect forever after, and once it's in it's the exact same example as above, a low level support guy verifies and bans or doesn't ban.

I hope Anet makes more then $3.33 per sale of GW.

.... This doesn't look like the Warcraft for-- oh, wait, it's not.

It's the same thing for every game. Some people think the company makes money off bots, allows bots to stay because it's profitable for the company, the conspiracy theorists abound in every MMO.

No one knows but the accountants of the company.

Most bot accounts are purchased online using stolen credit cards so in the end anet loose out on money.

You're basing your math on assumptions that it takes this supposedly low paid support guy only a few minutes when you really have no idea what his job duties entails or what it takes to ban someone.

Having a programmer "write in stuff" is highly technical. I'm sure after they (won't) read this post, they'll get right on that. Because it isn't like a company that wants to make money wouldn't have thought about it when it came to banning bots, which Anet admits, are bad for business.

Accounts: 1-time purchase, the earlier the campaign, the cheaper the discount. $5 says Botters don't buy their accounts from PlayNC or the neighborhood store. I bet it's a place that gives accounts away for pennies on the dollar when they aren't selling.

Staff: Year-long payroll deduction. If you look at the amount of time they have to spend on botters v. the amount of money being made by accounts x. the amount of work Anet is having to do to make sure that bots don't RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up the economy... We're talking taxes, accountants, supervisors, supervisors to supervise the supervisors. Oh, lawyers. Lets add programmers and their bosses too, just because you brought them up.

Yeah. It's math dude. Don't assume. You either play a game where bots cost everyone money and are therefore stigmatized by the community and the company (a good thing) or you play for a bunch of liars who secretly want the bots to keep botting (bad) even though it brings in an unatural amount of in-game gold that makes it harder for the average joe (us) to play so we rage-quit and go play WoW.

I'll assume that bots are stigmatized and avoid WoW, thx.

It does only take a low level support guy to check log files. This is a reasonable assumption. If you disagree, explain why a low level support guy wouldn't be able to handle making a ban.

Here's another thought. Active players have support costs also. If an account gets banned, it no longer has those support costs.

It is more technical but you only have to do it once for the game. You dont have to keep doing over and over again to ban the next guy. It's likely in the game already. The point I'm making is that you dont factor this in to a price per ban, or if you do then you divide the one time cost by all the bans made in the game.

I'll agree with you, if botters buy accounts they likely buy them second hand. However, this makes no difference on what A-net got paid for the account originally.

Case 1 - Bot guy buys a new account for 50 bucks, he gets banned. A-net made say 35 bucks originally off the account (they don't make the full retail price)

Case 2 - Bot guy buys a used account off someone for 10 bucks. A-net still made 35 bucks originally off the account because that's what the original guy paid.

This is overcomplication and makes the assumption that the whole A-net company is working on bans. Break your case down into a cost per ban like I did if you really think this is the case and I'll point out where I think it's unreasonable. Importantly, you shouldn't add in costs that A-net would have anyway without making the same ban.

Also, like mentioned above, every active account also takes money to maintain. You can point at the people above for active players as well. If the account gets banned then this cost is removed.

Straw man argument. Everyone agrees that it costs money to combat bots. Nobody questions this or the fact that it's important to do. The question in this thread is 'Does the action of banning an account cost more then the money A-net made from selling the account?'. Gaile says yes, I say no.

I say: Toss the free trial keys. What I've heard, GW2 is being released in the summer. Why do you need new players for Guild Wars?

Also, I don't think it could cost $80 to ban a bot. Seeing that not too many bots are banned (look inside some outposts, they are loaded with bots), AND also the fact my friend was banned for "botting," when in fact, he was being quiet, not replying to whispers, and constantly farming, it doesn't mean he's a bot. Real players have a BIG difference from bots. An untrained eye can see the difference.
Ways to spot a player:
Don't always run to the exact same spots (bots use signs to find outpost exits, such as Deldridmor Bowl)
Don't run in strait paths, as no bot can use a keyboard (bots use the mouse to move).


Easier way you can update to spot bots:
On character creation, make a certain hairstyle, color, height, and face the Default, as when making a bot, the creator will not customize it.

This one wins a nomination for the 'dumb post of the year award'.

Lets have a little example.

You don't combat bots at all, no support staff time is used on this. Support uses approx 300 man hours a week (a figure pulled from my behind to illustrate a point). Assuming a 37 hour week that's 9 support personnel.

Now you combat bots, lets be really generous and say that takes 80 hours a week extra. Those 9 support personnel just turned into 11.

The difference, two extra salaries, recruiting costs and all the other costs involved with employing people.

No, I don't think Anet profits from combating bots. Yes stolen accounts are used, yes stolen cards are used to purchase accounts (with the inherent problems of chargebacks) and even if a bot herder buys a second hand account, Anet are still not profiting from combating bots. The account was already bought, the money already in bank, the transfer of the account to the bot herder brings no further revenue to Anet.