Time for MMO companies to collaborate against RMT/gold-selling (for Anet!)

Hi,

I was happy to see this brilliant piece of news from Blizzard for our WoW friends:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/.../antigold.html
Purchased gold comes at every player's expense

Similarly, EQ2 moves to the safer Verified by Visa scheme (love it):
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/n...local e=en_US

Isn't it time that all the MMO companies join in the right against RMT (Real-Money Trade)? Not only it'd make their job a little bit easier (customers would be much more aware, they'd share information on RMT companies) but it'd ensure the security (in the largest sense) of their business. I don't think that there are numbers about RMT but it's constantly growing, finding new customers, while loosing accounts after bans. There's no way it's going to stop by tackling the problem locally within each MMO.

Do you think a "No RMT in my MMO" initiative accross the whole range of MMO companies would be: 1) possible?; 2) profitable to MMO companies; 3) and customers?

I hope someone from Anet or even NC Soft joins in this thread!

As long as there are people wanting to buy the game gold for real money (because they can afford that, not wanting to spend several hours/days on farming) - there will be poeple offering this kind of service. You can do nothing about that. It's called ECONOMY (demand-supply)

As long as there is people who will buy the gold then there is going to be people there to sell the gold.

It's not really a solvable problem, same with drugs in the real world. No matter what the punishment is, somebody somewhere will think its worth the risk.

QFT.

I sometimes wonder if legalization would be the solution. Many people would not like it, but I would say better ANet is selling the gold and cashing in than others...

It is not criminal companies selling gold, it is the players buying it. The market would not exist without them.

The problem for Blizzard is also not primarily the "cheating" of gold buyers, but the aggressive marketing spam.

@Fril, regarding Sony/Everquest
SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) has already their "Station", selling gold and items to players. They will not follow Blizzards example. What did you want to say with this verified VISA article???


If there is one good thing about gold sellers, it is that I can always accuse rich people of being their customers... (Guru is in dire need of a sarcastic smiley)

Players are able to eBay their WoW characters for hundreds of dollars so there's a serious market for such things, gold sellers are only a part of the problem and quite frankly, given the fact that you can find bot scripts for WoW anywhere on the Internet and the ease with which bots can be used in WoW they're the last ones that should be making noises like this.

I'm not sure I've been clear, or even that people read my OP. I'm not saying that there's a panacea to this plague, because there's not. I'm asking whether the industry as a whole should step up like Blizard did by sending this big message to their community (they don't do this things without careful consideration). The RMT industry exists because: 1) their cost to produce virtual money is very low (due to low wages in Asia); 2) there are wealthy people ready to break the EULA by buying gold; and 3) the overall cost-benefit for them is very positive (i.e., "price of virtual gold - cost of employees - cost or programmers - cost of buying new accounts" is significant).

If there's been an attempt (last year I think) to tax virtual economies, it shouldn't be difficult to outlaw RMT, as a parasitic business. But this means that the whole industry needs to loby for this. Anyway, I digress. The point is to make the "cost of programmers" as high as possible by finding the best technical tricks to increase this cost, for example sharing the techniques that the RMT bots use, or blacklist the url of the RMT website (like it's done for spamming companies and email).

The argument that "it'll always exist" is moot here. It's not because there'll always be crime that there shouldn't be a police. Same for drugs and campaigns against it. Et caetera.

Very wrong: It is not criminal to sell drugs, it's the fault of consumers? Same problems with guns (and I must say that USA's stance on this is wrong, as can be shown on the terrible university killings).

That it should become a standard.

You don't get it. It gives you absolutely nothing - even if you manage somehow to make the "costs" as high as possbile for the RMT sites - there will be always players selling the gold and buying it on ebay or on their personal sites (it takes 1 day to make one ready for RMT).


Either legalize RMT (taxes, gold available in ingame store) - or loose. It's quite funny to observe the hypocrisy of AN selling ingame products like the skills and insisting on stopping the sale of ingame products like the gold.

The problem with RMTs is that the farmers put more gold into the economy. This leads to inflation, leading to higher prices, leading to more people buying gold, leading to more farmers, leading to more inflation. This screws over the players that can't afford to buy gold in the first place.

If you can figure out a way to break this cycle while allowing RMT's, then RMT's should become legit since they aren't hurting anyone.

I have seen one such method in Eve Online, which allows people to buy GTCs (a code that gives you an extra time on your subscription subscription). These GTCs can then be traded to other players for the in-game currency allowing people to buy the currency, and for CCP to still profit off people who are unable to pay a monthly subscription. However the more people you have buying currency with this method, the less currency they get per dollar, meaning that the RMT groups can still be profitable.

But something like that can't work with Guild Wars because we don't pay a subscription fee. The only other way I can think of to prevent inflation from RMTs is to give Guild Wars a post scarcity economy* so that inflation means nothing**, so ANET can just ignore the RMT groups because the game economy will make them unprofitable.

*The simplest method to visualise is to have NPC's which will produce unlimited amounts of any in-game item for free.
**If ANET just implemented the post scarcity part without changing the rate gold drops I'd expect huge inflation because gold has become meaningless.

If you don't like the idea of a post scarcity economy, how do you propose to prevent RMT farmers causing inflation ?

I think it's rather you who didn't understand my point. Re-read the bit about "panacea".

RMT shall be fought in MMOs like a criminal offense, both on the buyer and seller side.

LOL. The game gold is still the same product like the game skills (which you can buy via ingame store). It shall be available for all those who can afford that. The gold doesnt make you a better player in GW, but the skills - surely do. You will never stop RMT, there will be always demand - and supply. It shall be legalized.

I do not want to follow the drugs/guns example too much, as it would lead away from RMT/gold selling.

Of course you are right, drug sellers are criminals and immoral. As are gold selling companies, they are breaking the EULA and most players consider gold selling immoral. I personally think who buys drugs became the victim of personal flaws. The same applies to gold buyers. They cannot resist.

Interestingly, Asian online game communities do not have this aversion against money selling that westerners have.


I personally want a total separation, you should not buy any ingame item for real money. But take a look at minipets, GOTY weapons and so on. The line gets more and more blurry. Then ANET also sells Skill unlock packs, this is a bit hypocrisy!

Wait for GW2, and see what totally optional stuff will be offered for sale in the store. *cough*
The BMP was only the beginning.


Again, verified VISA stuff - a good thing, but you put it in context of Sony's Station, a company that sells ingame gold and items (!).


The idea behind legalizing RMT is that you cannot stop it. Illegal and immoral or not, supply and demand exist. And nobody so far found THE way to stop people from gold selling/buying. Not even draconic measures.

Totally agree. You're not a better player when having 1,000 platinums in your storage then the others having 1k, unlike WoW players. The gold gives you nothing - just the possibility to "look better". AND today you can already buy "ingame products" totally legal, like minipets in magazines or skill unlocks. You shall then have the possibility to buy other "ingame products" like gold. Otherwise it is HYPOCRISY.

There will always be people killing each other, so it should be legalised? Same for drugs? Stealing?

Please stop the non-sense. Oh well, this thread has gone completely off-track anyway, so do what you like.

Oh and about the legalisation of RMT (mainly Longasc's comments): it would inevitably lead to unfairness and people quitting MMOs, GW in particular, because rich people would have a huge headstart (yes, it does not mean being better at the game of course, but well you don't have to spend 500h to unlock all skills). I don't the BMP as the same beast, because it's such a small thing, on the other hand there are repercussions on the economy (and it's not all clear), but we're moving away from RMT here because the BMP is perfectly legal.

First, very interesting posting, bilateralrope. EVE is a very good example, it is a very elegant solution. Unfortunately not viable for GW.

The problem is that the price for 100k Gold would have to be so low that people would not consider it worth the risk to buy from illegal and cheaper gold traders than ANet's "gold store".

And you are right, there is a risk of inflation.

But it works in Everquest, without having destroyed the economy. The influence cannot really be measured, but it has not shown to be significant, the market did not react at all. One could say because gold selling was already there before, legal or not.

My suggestions:

1.) Bind on Pickup (to account, stolen from WoW)
Rare items should not be able to be traded. They would have to be won by yourself. It would also be some badge of honor, it shows you were there, in a victorious group. Plus you were lucky.

2.) Token system (again, stolen from WoW - and I do not like that game... funny)
As luck of the draw is annoying at times, people can get tokens from chests or major bosses that allow them to exchange a certain amount of them for special items. Tokens could also not be traded.

3.) no more money-sink/consumption titles
Drunkard, Party Animal or Sweet Tooth should not count to anything or be removed completely. They are primitive money grind, and are basically gold buyer or hardcore farmer titles.


My first ideas. More might come later. Enough to start a discussion, I think.

Hey guys ... I proposed to talk about the MMO industry joining forces to combat RMT, not another thread on fighting RMT in GW ... (but some contributions were good, even if away from the topic )

If you cannot see the difference between a murder and buying a virtual gold - you shall have your brain examined.

-.- My 10-year-old nephew used to say that...

Interesting. You can already buy full skills unlock and AN still is proud of the game sales results, reaching 5 mlns copies. Either you're wrong or AN lies

But we ARE talking about the MMO industry battles over RMT - which is pointless, since the industry already started to sell ingame products for real life cash, that means the industry already SUPPORTS RMT.

If you want to argue about drugs in this context, two major drugs are being sold quite openly: Tobaco and Alcohol.

Tobaco is drug of 'major' grade: Seriously addictive and making quite huge changes on personality of user. 'Hit' is very cheap so it does not ruin addicts life, its easy (and safe) to get it, and risk of overdosage is nonexistent. It also produces little criminal activity which is minor one (someone pocketing pack of smokes in quickstop).

They are legal because western civilization culture background enables that and because they are deeply rooted in our society (plus they are businesses with lobby.). Should someone impartial look at this matter he would be quite confused why there are some addictive substances excepted from rules. And why are there laws against some addictive stuff while huge percentage of population uses other addictive stuff anyway.

So, gold selling/buying acceptance is just matter of cultural background.

---

Anyway, you could allow goldselling oficially: With penalty for goldbuyers (i.e: Sure, you buy 100k gold, but your droprate would suffer to compensate gold you just put to economy.)

Think about it frontloading effort: you pay reall money to get that 100k much sooner than you would get it normally, but it really wont be new gold entering game since you would get 100k less in drops than you should have gotten over next weeks/months of gameplay.

One could buy 1mil, but probably wont have nonwhite drop for year.

Case of gold entering economy solved, as well as case of bypassing effort.

Such "goverment regulation" of gold buying would make you think twice.

/yes, i am aware of fact that one person could have that gold bought on trowaway acc, i am sure one could deal with it by watching for signs of muling that amount of gold away./

You know what zwei2stein? I thought of that when typing my replies, but did not want to go this route for not putting this thread more off-track than it is. But believe me, I share this opinion 100%, both for personal reasons and to be consistent with my beliefs.

It is and it is not: MMO/alcohol/cigarette addication seems to cross the cultural boundaries. Many countries allo the hypocrisy of selling stuff that kills (isn't it the sumnum of hypocrisy to have it written on packs of cigarettes now??).

An interestng take on the topic, but I don't think it would help really, as people would buy more and use the virtual money to compensate for low drop rates. It would make MMOs money sinks, but with real money (like mobile phone services are). I've read this very long article on the biggest Chinese MMO where the game is actually designed with layers which are only accessible through money spending (you become king by paying lots of money). I think this would remove the fun factor from MMOs as it would create tensions between players. I'm in favor of pushing forward Anet's take on a zero-tolerance policy (of course Anet can't impement it in their business model).

Actually, I've thought for a long time that RMT should be brought in house, to the in-game store. If every item in the game and gold was available at the ingame store, it would kill the goldseller's dead and generate extra revenue for Anet.

"Oh, but that's unfair to those who don't have money". Well, that's true. And your point is? The whole damn world is unfair to the poor. Besides, most poor people don't play videogames, they tend to be the preserve of mid and upper income people. The money they'd loose by having less customers would be made up many times over by "stupid" rich people spending money on virtual items. The really poor also have the additional time to farm items manually, since having no job or going to school leaves you with much more free time than those who work.


On the other hand, I can earn £30 in an hour, no problem. I can only farm 3-4 ectos in the same time. Assuming I could be working when I am playing, I'd be willing to pay £10 for 5 ectos, since it makes economic sense for me to do so. In fact, Anet could even help the RL poor by instituting the ability to sell items to the traders or via trade to "stupid" rich people like me for RL cash or IG gold which can be sold back to Anet. This would also make the system RL economically fair and Anet could be skimming 5% of all trades in commission.

It won't happen in GW but it's a system/idea which could be of benefit to the MMO companies at some point.

Buying from goldsellers is stupid, as it harms the game economy and worse, gives money to people who don't deserve it (ie thieving goldsellers) instead of Anet (who could use the cash to improve many of the things we complain about)