Slashdot Mirror

There's already been a more comprehensive place ( http://www.playerauctions.com/ ) that has been around for 5 or 6 years.

Not as much protection as E-Bay, though.

As a veteran gamer and leader of a large organization in WoW and formerly EQ, AC and UO...

I've got members of my guild that purchase items with RL cash - it is a matter of what your time is worth.

For example, I've purchased gold from http://www.mysupersales.com/ and http://www.playerauctions.com/ myself. The reasoning behind this is that I spend some of my free time doing side work for $50 an hour, that said the time it takes me to earn $50 is far less than it takes me to earn 500 Gold in WoW. Time vs Investment.

A friend of mine spent RL Money on a very nice mace, the mace it's self would have gone for the better part of 2500 gold, the seller was originally asking for gold, but readily gave up his PayPal account information when my friend offered another form of compensation for the virtual item.

Just take a look at this

Posting as AC and stuff, blah.

VeRO program is all good and stuff, but these days these types of auctions don't really go through ebay. Try this if you're really curious.

As for the buying and selling issue. I don't really see the problem with it. If someone wants to spend 40 hours making 100 Super-Expensive-MMO-Currency and then charge $100 for it I'm paying for the time I would have otherwise spent in the grind trying to get said 100 whatever.

It may be annoying to see newbies running around with +10 swords of universal destruction, but I can deal. As for e-bayed characters, well my policy on those is rather simple. If you don't know how to play your class you're not going to be in my guild, and if you happen to turn up in my group you're not gonna be in there for long either. Of course if you happen to find a group that will accept you that's no fault of your own.

Hi, I'm a poor game designer. To cover up the fact that I can't properly adjust game balance, figure out how to fairly set up housing, fix multiple problems since the games birth and a myriad of other problems I'm going to attack the end result of my incompetance instead of the root of the problem.

Watch me ban eBay sales, because everyone knows when I do that, none of it will ever go on again, just look at Everquest, they stomped out eBay sales and look where it's got them (IGE, Playerauctions, etc)! 500K players must be the end result of crushing a single output of a mini-game that some players prefer to play over the normal game (*cough* me).

Me thinks the marketting execs, need a checkup from the neckup, this age old practice is archaic and outdated in comparision with the quite commonplace sub-market that exists now. Work with it or get out.

P.S. I haven't played AC in years, just many other MMOGs.

Since I can't reach the page, I don't know why he only used 616 auctions (or however many he used). But you can use a tool obtained HERE for about $100 or so that will analyze Ebay listings for the past 2 weeks or so. Using this data you can get a MUCH more accurate reading that a measly 616 listings, which aren't even close to being correct since something around at least 80% of the business goes through IGE/Yantis these days. And don't forget Playerauctions which I can't access here at work due to the proxy but they don't get mentioned hardly at all nowadays despite the large amount of traffic going through them. If you want to read through more reliable reports you should instead roll around HERE (terra nova blogs) where doctors, lawyers and all sorts of other people that have been analyzing this stuff before you created your first level 1 female elven monk, lurk around.

Here they sell platinum cheaply. 100,000 units for only a few hundred dollars.

First, I'll talk about why they might be going up against DAoC instead of, say, EQ or UO. Anarchy Online isn't even worth mentioning here. *chuckle*

EQ's official policy on sales of in game paraphanelia for real life money seems to be, "It's bad, and if we catch you, you're gone." Not to flame any software giants, but it's akin to Microsoft's policy of making 'secure' operating systems. IE - if they stumble upon something, great, but if not, they're not going to bother with it.

A quick look at Player Auctions shows quite a few EQ auctions (As well as auctions for other games. This, my friends, is a vast industry with large amounts of capital involved - keep in mind PA isn't the only site coordinating sales.

So why are they going after DAoC? Simple - DAoC is the 'new thing', and the majority of people who *do* have 40+ hours a week to play are switching to it. Those people are the ones who generate the most amount of items/money/characters to sell. Not only that, but as the game is new, items there will sell for higher amounts than those on other games. Items in these games are open-ended - that is, more and more of them enter into the game over time. Logically, if I have spiffy sword +5 on EverQuest, but there's a few thousand of them around, it'll bring in less money than swell sword +3 on DAoC, of which, there's only a few hundred in circulation.

I'm also guessing it's because of the fact that E-Bay went head to head with Verant. Verant said politely, "Please, don't allow auctions for EQ related merchandise." E-Bay laughed - until it noticed the five thousand foot long dragon known as Sony standing behind it. *chuckle* Microsoft's got an array of 800 pound gorillas to beat lawsuits down with, and as for EA, well, they've some muscle themselves. Mythic doesn't really have any phantom legal defenders.

Now, the ideas of legality here. Legally, I don't think they can throw you in jail or anything for doing this. *chuckle* I would hope not, at least, as that'd be pretty.. stupid.. to say the least. However, they can terminate your account if they wish - remember, kids, Terms of Service! Terms of Service! Terms of Service! Click Through Licenses! Shrink Wrap! The stuff everyone throws away and ignores tends to dictate why and how they'll be removing your access to the game if you violate their rules.

I think that it should be acceptable for players to sell goods online. Why? Because - the developers of such games are often driven by greed instead of common sense.

No, this isn't a, "They shouldn't make money" rant. Frankly, they should - the cost of servers, bandwidth, coders, PR, advertisement.. Yeah. They shouldn't exactly be giving out accounts and such for free. But the thing is, they design the games to make players have to keep their accounts as long as possible.

On most MUDs (And the 'era of MUDs' is hardly at an end, for much the same reason the 'era of books' isn't - but that's another story), if you want X equipment, you go slay Y mobile. Nice, simple, and it doesn't require weeks of boredom.

Now take these Massively Multiplayer Online Games (Roleplaying? Hah. That, too, is another story..).. EverQuest, for example. You want X equipment. Ah, but you can't just go slay Y mobile. Often times, Y mobile won't be there, and won't be there for days at a time. And, in the event that Y mobile is there, it'll often have a ridiculously low chance of having X equipment on it when you do take it out.

This in turn makes it so it requires lengthy amounts of playing time (IE, keeping accounts active longer) to get said equipment. Which leads back to powergamers who have 40+ hours a week in which to play. They end up 'owning' the game, they control the 'economy', because they have the time and energy to sit through hours and hours of boredom to get said piece of equipment.

Of course, powergamers are not the bulk of players - average, recreational players are. This leads to some nice 'class struggle', for lack of a better word. Low end recreationists want good equipment, too, but they either can't a) take the time to get it, or b) take the time required to raise the money to buy it.

Which leads us to their solution - buy it, for real life money. They're happy, the seller is happy. About the only people who aren't are the gaming corporations.

I, personally, don't find the idea of purchasing items/etc. for real life money 'strange' or 'done by people with no lives'. Tell me, how much do you spend going to the movies each month? On a case of Bawlz? On other sources of disposable joy/recreation?

In these games, equipment matters - it dictates what you can and can't do, in many cases. While a big part of these games is indeed socialization, socialization always seems to be more fun when you're risking your character's life to take out a large dragon or two. *chuckle*

Indeed, I'd rather take the ($15 minimum per film) money I'd waste seeing crap such as "Battlefield: Earth", "Mission to Mars", et cetera.. And instead, actually have some fun, buy some decent gear, and be able to accompany my fellows on some giant quest to slay a horrible beast.

..Especially when many of the people I play with, I know in real life. Perhaps this is a bad example, but how can people consider people spending money on TSR products (IE, buy this rulebook. Then this. Then these ten.) 'okay', yet consider dropping $20 for a nice sword for EQ/DAoC/etc. 'pathetic'? Both situations don't force you to buy the bells and whistles to enjoy the game - but both options certainly enhance the enjoyment of the game.

Go buy yourself a lvl 60 warrior for $600+.
Or the EQ currency Platinum.
For referance. A level 1 character loots about 2 silver a kill. 10 silver are 1 gold. 10 gold is 1 plat. 10k plat ~ $75-$100. A level 60 can make about 300pp a 'night' ~5 hours just from the money that drops, that does not include actual items that can sell for as much as 150k+ (We're talking VERY rare dragon lvl drops such as cob bp etc)

Player Auctions

eBay removes all EQ auctions due to them being against the EULA. (All EQ items are property of Sony etc..)

Check out PlayerAuctions and see what the shit is selling for. It is awesome profit considering it takes little time to get Platinum and some boneheads never realize it so they just buy it. Of course eBay has been forced to pull all EverQuest auctions and I don't know why PlayerAuctions is still safe. On a serious side, yes, Platinum pieces are worth considerably more than any 3rd world nations currency, which shows how spoiled this country is.