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Playing an FPS for Money?
IronChef writes "Ran across a web site where someone is attempting to combine online games and cash. The difference here is it looks like it's not some big tournament where everyone gathers and the top 3 out of a field of hundreds get paid, but a small group jumps into a server for a buck or two per head, and the winner cashes out on the spot." And you thought you swear a lot when you lag now!
GlobalRankings has a good safeguard mechanism in place to avoid cheating of stats-dependent games:
http://www.globalrankings.com
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Well, as they mentioned on the site, this counts as a game of skill rather than a game of chance, so it is not a form of gambling. Think of it as a laser-tag tournament - definitely more of a skill than chance game...
as most, IANAL...
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I always wondered why noone has exploited the possibility of selling ad-space in the game... I think it would be about as effective as real world advertising.
Maybe you could even get advertiser sponsored game servers. I don't think I'd mind an occasional coke ad on the wall (or even product placements!!! Just like the movies.. ) in exchange for a nice, fast server to play on.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
How can you ensure that the company itself isn't cheating? couldn't they put their own bot in to kill the winner thus winning themselves the money ?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The question isn't *if* these guys are going to get rich (they might, they might not), but who is going to be the first to do it right.
Forget about "legality". There are ways around that, and to start off with, nobody will notice this shit building in the background. Not until there is a huge splash in the press about some mum who thinks her kid is becoming obsessed (...blah blah blah: you should all know the pattern by now). By the time that there is a move control it through special legislation, it will have become too popular to stop by fiat. Besides, with servers in Antigua, who gives a fsck what the Americans think?
So the issues to be addressed are: what business models to use, what kind of games are most "immersive"/addictive, and can you turn this kind of thing into (virtual) reality TV? I mean, once you have "star" players and teams, will people be interested enough to either lurk and watch the pros at work, or sit back and watch it on cable with some popcorn. The potential for drama and soap-opera appeal should NOT be underestimated here.
Personally, I want the Mechwarrior universe online, with battles on Solaris and House feuds, etc. Any genre is open for exploitation here, with its own audience. Gamblers and cheaters will just add spice. (besides, if you're a smart game service, you HIRE the cheaters to work FOR you).
Give it time. It'll happen. And don't worry about all the naysayers. They don't understand what's happening here.
Q: Why do you require my social security # or social insurance # when I withdraw money from my account?
A: If you live within Canada or the U.S. You are required to submit your winning as income.
Q: Should I be worried about hackers?
A: No, we have many many security features installed to make sure you are safe.
Arg! Since I can earn winnings (Taxable income) from these guys, they want my Name, Address, CCard Number, date of birth and Social Security Number. How do I know this information is safe?
According to the video, everything is secured with a "proprietary security system". What the heck does that mean?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Now I can actually gamble at the same time, combining 2 dangerous habits.
Hey, now you're on to something! If they'd pay my earnings out in heroin, I could combine all 3 of my dangerous habits into one. Man, what a time-saver this will be!
Sign me up!
They also provide services like Domain Registration ($15-25), Web Hosting ($2.50 - 10/month), secure servers ($50-100), etc. Basically, the higher your monthly membership fee, the lower your OTHER fees.
I notice that alot of gaming & clan websitessites have trouble staying with one provider, so perhaps Bloodmoney is trying to bank off of that opportunity.
Other then the gaming membership, I don't really see anything unique about their web services. I notice that they do NOT provide any dialup or DSL/cable access, which is pretty smart. The Access business is pretty darn volitile.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Check out this following illegal link to ebay, for example.
$1500 for a game character?!! Holy shit, my roommate should just quit his job and start developing these characters. Question is, how long does it take to create something that someone will shell out this kind of money for?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
As if I already didn't have a bad enough social life between Counterstrike and Diablo sessions. Now I can actually gamble at the same time, combining 2 dangerous habits.
This sounds like fun actually, using micropayments or something to have a little more stake in the game. But yes I can see the emotions/reactions getting stronger during playing if there's real money involved. The incentive to cheat using scripts or other hacks would be much greater..
Brett
__ No registration required to read this message. They did it in the Matrix.
How does this tie with gambling laws, any /.-lawyers know?
Also, this concept of gaming-for-something is similar to what is generally perceived as "The Next Big Thing" in the gaming industry - free forms of economic reward/punishment among multiplayer gamers. A lot of online RPG's followed this formula - it makes sense that FPS's are following suit (FPS's generally take RPG concepts, and 3d-ize them... the former follows the latter)
Trade, if you will, for a newly formed society. The "Everquest" effect...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Okay, they give your 10$ worth of 'credits' to start playing. One would assume that you actually have to wager this to start getting money. Where do the prizes come from? Who funds this? Ads? Gamblers?
Jezus, this is a bankruptcy waiting to happen.
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What's to prevent me and three friends from creating 6 player games all the time and coordinate ourselves over a party line (or on a LAN in the same room) to gang up on two players and rape them of their money, and let the next two victims come in.
If a ganger runs low on cash, he kills his teamie for money, so the team is always with a few bucks, and can continue to take everyone else for granted.
I've used these tactics with TFC, Infiltration, etc before... nothing to prevent me to apply it this way and make a few bucks every night. Curious as to what measures are in place to prevent this kind of abuse.
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...that it isn't secure. This is a running theme on comp.risks
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
This gaming model is beautiful, but it's also the optimal model to encourage cheating; small enough for cheaters to be relatively anonymous, but still a real incentive for unscrupulous cheating -- and many players won't even know they were robbed. So, I wonder what safegaurds they'll put in place? Nothing is provably perfect, of course, but if they're careful, smart, and very diligent, it's possible to make it arbitrarily difficult for cheaters (e.g., requiring positive identification at registration, an auto-updating client that incorporates a challenge/response system that changes daily, etc)... I wonder if they'll expend the effort neccessary to do this right?
-spcI can see this starting a new group of people, who think they're good enough to make a living off of this. It wouldn't be a big surprise, seeing the way that people did the same with Magic cards when they were really hot, and try to do the same with other hobbies. However, I think after the initial few months of excitement, we'll end up with the same sort of group... Unemployed folks, who didn't see a trend dying before it was too late...
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
A couple of problems I see:
They're really going to need a good skill-matching service. I mean, if I played UT on some of the highly-trafficed US servers when I was learning, and it was costing me $1.00 per time, I'd be massively in debt now.
What about cheaters? Someone tell me how you can detect or foil an aim-bot? It's bad enough now. When there's monetary incentive for the cheaters, this is going to be a HUGE problem.