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Diablo 2 Items Bringing Home the Bacon
||Plazm|| writes: "I read an update over at Diabloii.net that talks about how some items in the game are producing sizeable income for some people. It points to an article at the San Francisco Chronicle describing some of these money makers. One banker claims he's made $25000 since he started with Diablo 2 and Ultima Online! Who are the people paying real money for this stuff? A few bucks is one thing, but a few hundred? I believe this has been talked about on /. before, but is the 'problem' getting worse? Is it a 'problem' at all?"
I don't see a problem with it. It's just the free market at work, supply and demand. This is the kind of thing we told the russians that they needed.
Buying this stuff is not for me, but I'm not one to stand in the way of capitalism.
the people that are buyign this stuff, at any price, are the same people that play Quake in god mode and look up all the cheat codes for a game before they even install it. It's sad but their will alwasy be an aspect of society that will want to cheat or get an advantage no matter what the cost. Look at the proliferation of scripts, pinging other players, etc. That occur in most games. People willing to pay for some advatantage, no matter how much it destroys the play ability of the game, are the script kiddies of the gaming world. 20 years ago they would have been using loaded dice to roll up their D&D characters.
At least this time it is costing them something in real money to get these kind of advantages. I tip my hat to blizzards work that they have locked their game down tight enough that people are going to extremes outside the game to get these kinds of advantages.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
So doesn't it make sense?
As for whether or not this is a "problem": let people do as they please with their money, as long as they don't harm other people.
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And, they want the uber-powerful items so bad, that they will spend their pocket change to get them. They play games for a living right? Its like a golfer getting better clubs. The players now get better items in which to play. Nothing wrong about that.
So people are spending money to get an advantage in a game, buying items that are essentially just bits on a server. A few years ago, people were spending about that much money buying items that were images on cardstock. It's not that different, except that the games of today weren't designed with the collectability and sale value of items in mind.
I used to play EQ where 'farming' items was a problem. Eventually I got sick of it and stopped playing (but not just because of the farming). I think if other people can get ahead by purchasing digital items with real cash on the side, I need to find a different game to play. I know that modern gaming is supposed to support exchanging "things" but I guess I'm too old fashioned. I'd rather play a game where the determining difference is how much skill I have in the game, and when you can swap badges of these skill or (as is often the case now days) SELL them, there's really no way you can tell if someone really has the skill/dedication, or just shelled out some money to look cooler.
Several people have posted complaining that these gamers are trading "real money" for "flipping a few bits inside a machine".
Wake up guys, MONEY IS NO MORE REAL THAN THESE GAME ITEMS.
What is the value of a $20 bill? The paper and ink (and metal threads, and whatever else they throw in these days) aren't worth very much. The value of a $20 bill is *whatever people will give you for it*.
I think the people who are trading hundreds of dollars for these game items are paying far too much, but there is no inherent reason why such transactions are wrong.
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Um, that's perfect topazes, not diamonds. Current reports suggest that a magic find percentage over 200 doesn't do much good, so there's no need to go overboard.
And they 'balanced' telekenesis so that you can only pick up minor items (like potions). This is very annoying in single player mode, where there is no one to steal drops from...
As for the economy aspect, I think it's kinda dumb to spend real money on Diablo II items. However, some people want uber-characters than can walk into any game and kill other players. Or maybe they're not good enough to take on Hell mode without help.
Dunno. Spending money on Diablo II items isn't any worse than spending it on an astrologer or the lottery.
At any rate, the economy associated with Diablo II has been interesting. There's been a lot of shifts in the marketplace in response to bugs allowing duplication of items, and the changes to gambling rules. Some moderately valuable items (like the Stone of Jordan ring or perfect skulls) became the new currency for a while. SoJs have become much more rare these days, and aren't used as currency as much. Pskulls are an interesting currency, because they are constantly being generated, but also constantly being used up.
Interestingly, gold (the currency inside the game) isn't often used for trading, because it isn't valuable enough!
I've also seen people auctioning off fully equipped high-level characters on eBay. However, with the balance changes in Lord of Destruction, some of these characters (which might have sold for hundreds of dollars) are now nearly worthless.
All in all, it's not too easy to base your economy on factors (like rarity) that can be changed at the whim of some programmers.
Ok, so you've got $25,000 eating a hole in your pocket and you want to buy that extra-special Sword of Sudden Doom (and tomato slicing) in Evercrack, DiabloII, .
/is/ the suffering and stress and paranoia of the lower levels. It's the effort and intrigue it takes to survive at those lower levels and work you way up. Once you get up high and don't have to worry any more, the game's over. So throw away your character and start a new one from scratch.
Sure, you can probably find someone to sell it to you. Sure, you can pick it up and start using it in game. Sure, it'll help you survive (probably by a large margin). But then where's the fun?
The game
If you leapfrog that whole phase and jump right into the uber-powered elite, then you've just skipped over all the enjoyment. It's just like when I was playing AD&D all the time and constantly encountering players who didn't want to play mages below 5th level "because it was just too hard". Phtt. Rodents.
Sure, I'll accept that the overwhelming majority of players out there don't appreciate the pleasure of struggling at the low power levels. These guys just hate that low level crap and want to get over to wailing on critters so large that only its ankle appears on their monitors.
Let these guys waste their money robbing themselves of the true pleasure of the game. It doesn't do anything to reduce my pleasure, and it removes these weenies from my immediate surroundings.
They're doing what they want and giving me a reason to call them lamers. I like that. Everyone wins.
-- Nolite audere delere orbiculum rigidum meum.
If you gain an advantage from something you did not work for, could it be said that you have gained an unfair advantage?
I don't play these online roleplaying games, but let me give you a real-life example...
Let us say I am beating the snot out of Mike Tyson (hey this is my example, I can beat up Mike Tyson in my exmples) and I'm up by several points. Don King comes over to my corner, hands me some cash and I take a enough hits to give Mike some more points.
Money for a score, where as this Ebaying is money for an item in a game without scores. Either way you're taking a dive.
How would you feel if you were playing online chess and discovered that the opponent that beat you 10 straight games had done so with a chess program he purchased? I know that I would feel cheated because I was playing against him to test my skill against his. I don't care if he bought the chess program on "the free market."
The idea of a game is to pit players against one another and let the best player win, not to sell the victory to the player with the most disposable income and least scruples.
This is exactly what happened with Magic-The-Gathering cards a few years back.
For those who don't know, Magic cards used to be extremely valuable as collector's items. I spent over $300 dollars at one point on them. Then I sold them for over $1000. Then the bottom dropped out.
My speculator friends and I did fine, as we saw the crash coming (or guessed right), but the kids who were betting the bank on some few "ultra-powerful" early-edition cards were in for a surprise when they came back (Serra Angel, for one) in the 4th (3rd? I forget) edition.
Yep, collecting anything with "dubious" value is just insane. That's why I keep all my money in bars of gold! (posting anonymously to preserve precious karma)
you're missing econimies of scale, or in this case, power.
If you have one or two killer items, it then becomes much, much easier to aquire other killer items.
Otherwise known as "it takes money to make money" (but once you have it, many doors are opened to you)
Many MMORP companies now include a clause in the user license agreement that says something to the effect of:
"we reserver the right to ban your account(s) or revoke item(s) without prior notice if you are caught selling items outside of the game."
This phenomenon has given rise to new terms such as "item farmers" and "rare-drop campers". These groups of unprincipled players make it nearly impossible for a small party or individual to "win" the item(s) through proper gameplay and skill. This has a deleterious effect on the gameplay and reduces the overal value of the game experience for all the other players. What economists call a negative externality, that is to say a negative result for a third party to the original transaction. In this case other players being unable to acquire rare items in the ways that the game designers originally intended because people are greedy and take them to sell offline. If you play these games (Ultima, Everquest, et al) and you participate in the selling of game items outside of the game then I respectfully ask you to consider the harm that you are doing to the game. In the same way that parasistes are not beneficial to the host so you too are not beneficial to the growth and continued enjoyment of the industry or the game. If you get your account baned for selling items outside of the game believe me when I say that nobody will sympathise with your plight in the least. In conclusion, Please do not sell game items outside of the game (eBay, BidBay, whatever). If you are a player who buys from these people then you are just as much a part of the problem. Remember that as long as people demand these kinds of transactions somebody will supply them. If you care about the game and its continued growth then you will not engage in these kinds of purchases. Thank you for reading.