Slashdot Mirror
Real Money Inside in MMORPGs?
Cranial writes "Sony Interactive expressly forbids the selling of Everqest or Everquest II ingame items or characters for money, but why? Imagine Massively Multiplayer Games where you can actually cash out your loot in the real world.
What if that jewel in the dragon hoard was actually a digital title for the Hope Diamond or a real ancient artifact?
This article on Programmers Heaven proposes a new economic model for MM games allowing free exchange of game money and items in the real world. Essentially it is a hybridization between online gaming (casino) and MM roleplaying games. Fascinating concept."
Ah ha! I can trade in all my equipment for a used coffee cup!
So this is like the Hacker Court at Black Hat last Wednesday?
Hell, they can even require that they get 1%. Maybe Sony can profit too!
Has any MMORGP gone totally without duping problems? Not to my knowledge. Star Wars has only been out a month, and already had some (small) dupe bugs.
When that happens....maybe.
A modern day witchhunt.
There.com has a somewhat similar concept. While not strictly an MMORPG, they do allow for the conversion of Dollars into ThereBucks.
Or at least they used to when I played the beta months ago before they started spamming my inbox.
But when Blizzard first came out with Diablo 2 Expansion, I was one of those ppl that exploited an easy level-up opportunity..
which allowed me to get to level 95 in 4 days.. after that, I went all-item hunting, and just picking up tons of stuff, muling and all...
and.. sold most of it immediately on ebay.. since it was the only way to do it before cheating/duping and all those things happen, while items were actually worth money, I made about 500$, more than my money back!
ya.. supply and demand is cool, too bad Sony's soo against it..
I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
And then, people would loose all they have. I think Everquest players already payed enough of their social life, no need to take their money on top of it.
relation real monkey directly to game money is currently done in project entropia, www.projectentropia.org
you can put money in the system to get game money, or take game money out of the system as real money. Its been around for a while. think it was mentioned in a story some time ago.
Because this is what roleplaying is all about. Loot.
There (www.there.com) is already kinda doing this. You can use your credit card to buy ThereBucks at like $1.00 == ~$T1030.00. In addition to this you can create products - clothing, cars ect that you can sell and make more ThereBucks.
With ThereBucks you can buy transportation things (buggys, hoverboards) and all sorts of clothing - Some of which is created by There and a lot is created by There users. Theres even an auction system.
Its pretty sweet.
/* Lobster Stick To Magnet!*/
Although this seems like a "new-economy" idea, I can't say I'm a big fan. Firstly, gambling is 21+ and restricted to certain zones. Secondly, this promotes very anti-social behavior--people crouching away at their computers, beating wombat after wombat to get the extra gold and items. It takes the *fun* out of the game, as well as the *realism*. RPG stand for role-playing-game, and if all you're doing is leaching off of this world to try and make the most bucks you can as your primary form of employment, you may be compromising the fun of the game for other casual gamers.
I think slashdot cowered this in a story a while back.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
Must...keep...reality..and fantasy....seperate.
The unofficial
stops becomming a game, and become employment. And all that implies.
You will also lose in revenue from people who want to play for fun. because they will never get an opportunity to get 'valauable items'
what happens when you spen 20 hourse getting a real valuable item, then the company decided to put 1000 od them in the game the next day? How valauble is something that can be created infinite times?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A dupe bug would bring the economics of such a system crashing down.
The advantage to a system where in-game objects don't have (recognized) real value is that bugs aren't lethal to the parent company, and the game can be revised and the game database directly edited with impunity.
Make money in the game real, and suddenly the parent company has to be a lot more careful, and is a lot more liable if things go wrong (as actual damage has provably occurred to the players).
So how is this different from the tons of people who sell items and gold and houses and accounts for UO on ebay? It's just that EQ has outright banned it. But plenty of other online games have no prohibitions against it and people pay everything from real money (sometimes hundreds of dollars) to other in-game items. It really is a new economy.
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs."
With the hype(addiction?) over EverQuest and many other MMRPGs its no suprise the users of these games are wanting additional feature.
www.ABCUsenet.com
...would never let me play this one. Then again, who needs a wife when your living digitally...
One of the biggest reasons that SOE forbids these transfers is that they cannot take on the responsibilities of making the transactions secure. What about duping bugs? Or an 'accidental' deletion? Fraud? Fraud is a really major problem in SWG right now.
It just isn't worth the headache for them. Maybe some other games can solve this.
Project Entropia already do this.
More than likely, Sony forbids it because they can't profit. So, why don't they try to profit on this by starting a new store - or something of the like - where users can buy and sell in-game items? Heck, with all the greed going on in this day and age, I'm surprised they didn't think of this.
Or is there some other legal / "moral" (like corporations know what that is these days) problem with this concept?
As is people don't already have enough of an excuse to hack characters and grief other players anyway. Now they want to add additional incentives to do so.
I don't think I'd want to play in a game world that activly encouraged that.
I'll trade you my horse and even throw in the magic carpet for $1mill... What? My paypal info... sure
MoFscker
Yeah, I mean, its not like people have problems playing too much EQ to begin with. Imagine what suggesting that time spent in EQ == real life dollars is going to do to that. Evercrack seems like a better and better term to use .. all that was missing was the exchange of money between said market participants.
"Old man yells at systemd"
At first, I just thought that it was a joke, then I realized it really is an ancient artifact itself! Unless I am mistaken, terrible information web-site designs have been out for what? At least a few thousand "Internet" years?
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
This is a great idea but it brings up a host of new problems. Who owns online items? What legal recourse is there if someone cheats? Who is liable for your money. etc.
People spend so much time and effort on MMORPGs that they should allow people to actually make a little money.
I'm guessing that players would game the system by forming coalitions where, through some of the player's characters doing suboptimal actions (from the individuals POV), the coalition would make money. Could make a mockery of the game.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
I think the problem here is liability. If a software glitch caused objects to vanish, or improvements to the game shifted the balance and (inadvertedly) change the value of items, people would suddenly lose real money, and might sue.
you just get two wives. One online and one not.
I'm not sure whether I like the idea that a game company can create virtual items that are worth real life money. Things like rare baseball cards, etc, are REAL objects, but virtual items in a MMORPG somewhere can be created infinitely. Wouldn't this ruin the economic situation eventually, if it was much much larger?
I wonder how well an MMPORG would work as a tax shelter? Instead of getting money in the real world, you just get it dumped straight into your "Everquest IV: The IRS Has No Power Here" account. And if people would claim loss of game currency on as an itemized deduction.
Of course, sales taxes would be a pain in the ass. "Sorry, I'm not paying CA sales tax when I'm obviously performing this transaction in Midgaard." And if someone beats your character's sorry ass and takes your money, you'd have a hell of a time convincing the cops to track down one Umbrak the Barbarian, 8.7 feet tall, green skin, no hair, weight about 430 pounds, wielding a large spiked club and resistant to cold spells.
This just doesn't sound like a good idea.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
.. or just another sad method to turn gamers into overwieght, do nothings, who live in their mother's home eternal, spending all time on the net
Not only are they going to be addicted to a new game, they'll bankrupt them too.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
for $2. Any takers?
word.
It's nothing noble in making a profit on something that you did not create.
You are one of the same types of people that in a emergency situation would try to profit on the chaos by inflating the prices on goods hard working people need to survive.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
13-18 years old play a lot this games.
Are there so many people 23 years old that play MMORPG?
./ "Essentially it is a hybridization between online gaming (casino) and MM roleplaying games."
Well, it isn't actually when you consider that mmorpg players are mostly teenagers, the only gamers that can afford the massive waste necessary to enjoy yourself with these games.
I'd keep my sons and daughters away to anything related to casino gaming requiring real money. On a side note I'd keep also keep them away from mmorpgs, but maybe that's just me.
Oh, and most online casinos are scams too. Not exactly the business model I want to see incorporated in future games.
Forgive my trolling, but I just had to say this...
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Until someone "creates" items though some hack, just like every other MMORPG, and sells them off for real money.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Sometime in the near future...
"How many SOJs for this Fruitastic Slurpee of Toothrot?"
"15!"
"Lemme dupe."
skye
So buy a shirt! (or at least virtually look at them.)
I can see it now. 25 years into the future. The country is one big communist state. Everyone is poor and machines do all the work. But the state provides high speed internet connections and free Linux-based game machines. People spend 14 hours a day in a huge virtual world. The game is called Matrix. People dont care. Children are weaned on it. People meet each other on it. They practise their religion in the system. They form armies behind their ideologies and fight wars with various virtual technologies. Noone cares what happens outside. ...or do they!
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
seems like i saw a thesis paper from a college student all about the difference in value between male and female charicters in everquest. I think it was somthing like 45 pages. did i see this article on slashdot?
Because it can't be taxed. Seriously. IRS will come after you for violating a bunch of crap.
.. people would have given up using US dollars many decades ago.
You can't set up a system of bartering/trading where the IRS doesnt get its "fair share".
If it were possible
So what happens when I buy the Godly Vorpal Sword of Slaying for $1000 bucks and the creators of the game decide to nerf it to half its strength? Oh well, too bad for me. Wait, this could spawn the industry of nerf insurance!
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I would think that this might have something to do with them not wanting the devices classified/associated with gambling devices. If they are, then they become subject to all sorts of regulation in all sorts of countries.
Let's see, you put in money, play a game, hope to get more money out than you put in... hmmm... sounds kind of familiar....
It's called GAMBLING.
I don't think it's a very good idea.
How is this different than the move in the US ecomomy to/from the gold standard?
If you argue that fantasy money isn't "real", what keeps our money real?
I'm really not baiting. I believe i understand economics at a "macro" level (yes, that's a pun), but when it comes down to explaining it to a child, I can't do it.
Perhaps somebody could explain to me why the US economy moved from the Gold Standard and I'll then explain why or why not move from Fantasy MMPORG Duckets to USD (or Euro, or whatever).
Difference though is that you have to constantly buy items in Entropia and they wear over time. The proposed method through Everquest allows for a total externalization of cashflow from the game where items are bought and sold for real money making the only required cost being the couple bucks each month for an EQ account. This way everything you have could be worth money with an actual chance for investment rather than forced degeneration of value over time by the game.
Mind you I don't like the idea either way, seems like an excuse to get some evercrack: "but I swear, this is how I make my living... yes it's from mom's basement"...
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
This is the same concept that the RIAA and MPAA have been trying to force unto us, except in reverse.
With this system, we take a digital item, aka content and trade it in for a tangiable item.
The HUGE difference with this system is that Digital Items are not based on demand but on whim. There is no difference between 1 ingame Diamond, or 5 million. But in the real world, there kinda is.
(This is the problem the MPAA/RIAA/USPTO/etc. have a hard time coming to terms with)
What happens when a users works hard to get something, then loses it? Who's responsible? What happens when hackers mangle the code and manage to get 5 Billion diamonds? (Duping in Diablo II?)
Basically either the company that uses this system would be forced to either go bankrupt, or alieante they're customer base as they constatnly have to go back on guarentee's etc.
I can see why Sony wouldn't want to suddenly come under the jurisdiction of every government that wants to regulate gambling.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sony would never flat-out authorize something like that. They can forbid it and then look the other way, of course, if it makes gamers happy and brings more players into the fold, but they would never want to make it an authorized practice for the simple reason that they would then have to assume legal responsibility for it.
Everybody's already mentioned dupe bugs. And what about if a server's down? Are you costing a user potential earnings? Are you then responsible? And who dictates prices, and what about when somebody gets ripped off? How does this relate to online gambling?
Nope. Sony's got it much easier saying "This is just a game. If something breaks, or doesn't go your way, it's no real loss to you."
We've all read the Stories of lonely nerds commiting suicide over stolen items/accounts...is bringing real currency into play a good idea?
An interesting idea would be something along the lines of a 'gold standard' for MMORPGs. Let's say ou pay $20*/month for the subscription, then the company says 'Any money you find in the game, we are willing you pay for.' IE you kill a monster and get $.10. You can then go to a merchant in the game and deposit $.10 into a real money account.
The company would have to be very careful how much money spawns/player, but you could get some extremely interesting econmies out of this model if anyone chose to persue it.
*Yes $20 is high, but if you can make real money from the game...
This has a certain 'Vegas' quality to it, doesn't it? Vegas is fun because you can throw a little money into it, but it's only good if you have a good head about you and you can come back to reality when the trip is over. If you start to get addicted, then the alternate reality starts to become reality, which is never a good thing. Despite what you may have seen on ESPN at 4AM, gambling is NOT a good way to make a living, nor should playing video games.
This can be fun for those of us who can control it, but I fear for those gamers who will become the equivalent of the 45 year old grandmother (who looks 80) with an unashed cigarette permanently on her lips throwing her life savings into Mega Bucks.
-n-
Honestly, I can't see spending money on something like this. If I were able to spend money on it, gain something inside the game, and cash out with REAL money, then maybe I would. Think of it as "Active Investing" if you will. Consider this notice for you patent whores out there!
Instead, you should have in-game items which are instantiations of real-life objects. Questing for the items (or just purchasing them, or whatever) lets you change them in and get the real items. It's a good way to distribute promotional items since people will actively work toward the items, thus letting you know who actually wants what.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And who wouldn't want to make some spare change developing characters for sale? How is it different from scouring flea markets looking for antiques?
Everwars seems to be the next big one.
Just what we need, merging the two biggest-bugaboos in gaming today: online casinos and MMGs. Both with the stigma of being addiction-forming and dangerous, thanks to their popularization in mainstream media. Which in turn is responsible for the further driving away of mainstream gamers.
Sheesh, as someone "inside" I hate to think what this means for the future of our already increasingly insular industry.
man, this idea comes up over, and over, and over again..
the problem is it's virtually impossible to design a hackproof system -- nearly all modern mmorpgs have had instances of bugs where people dupe items or otherwise illegally generate money. eventually word gets out about them because everyone wants that advantage, but it's really different when $ is involved; if someone on one of these games found an exploit like that then they could embezzle practically unlimited amounts of $. and even worse, if an exploit became widespread then the whole economy could be totally screwed up, and people would be losing *real money*.
so the problem always ends up that no developer could reasonably shoulder that much liability -- it's bad enough with people bitching about losing imaginary items but if someone gets cleaned out of actual assets and $ then (ianal, but i believe) they can sue and the developer could actually be found liable.
my 2c
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
project entropia has been mentioned here many times in the past, but as a quick refresher: the game itself is free, but all items in the game cost real money, and game money can be transferred back into real money. while this is certainly a good way to get people to play your game, it is just another way to avoid the problem that all massive multiplayer games have: making them actually fun to play.
A system that uses real money better be designed well. For one, if a bug makes you lose some game money, it's not a big deal. If you lose real money - and the word spreads, which I assume would happen very fast - you as the game designer and publisher have some hard times ahead.
Second, there should be a maximum limit for the amount that can be brought into the game. Otherwise the next mortgage on your house is just around the corner (but not to worry, I just got an email offering me a staggering deal here).
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
People like me would kill it.
When I game I go in to amass as much money as possible in almost any game I play.
Most players see money as just a way to buy things. I don't. I never spend money if I can avoid it. Each purchase is weighed as to how it could save me money in game. Armor and weapons reduce the amount of healing potions I need so they are a priority. I never heal if the potion would put me over my max HP unless the healing is free.
Unless they had a ridiculously low conversion rate I would make tons.
And I know there are other power gamers out there that would do the same
I think the wife might get pissed if she sees a few thousand dollar charges on the card just to fuel my gaming addiction.
I can already see me trying to explain, "But honey look at my character he kicks ass now".
"Its too hot out for a Penguin to be just walking around. - Billy Madison"
*Sits here and rereads that there post twice and decides that There should change their name, cause it's neither here nor there*
this has already been going on for years, I know people who have made well over $500 selling stuff from ultima online.
Get with the program, this is old news.
The idea of linking Real World(tm) money to MMORPG ingame money is exactly what Project Entropia is all about. You start out with the bare minimum of clothes, tools and skills and are only able to upgrade and buy stuff with in game money, which you don't have yet. To get money in the game you have two options:
1) Exchange real money for ingame money
2) Make money in the game by performing services, selling items, doing stuff, trading, gambling...
The most novel aspect of the game is that it allows you to exchange ingame money back into real money too.
Some things to note about this game is that stuff deteriorates, so over time without updating your items they would lose their monetary value.
What I liked about the idea is that for a certain amount of real money you can buy yourself the skills and tools to keep you busy for a certain amount of time. Then when you want to continue playing you have to either put in an enormous effort to make money in the game, or simply add some more real money. You are paying for playing. Not sure if it is very well balanced in Project Entropia, but the idea is interesting.
This seems like an okay idea in theory, but I feel the sad reality of it is that the players will ruin everything.
People in MMORPGs are greedy enough as-is with 100% fake items that have little to no real life value. This would only be 100 times worse if there was real money at stake.
Project Entropia seems to do most of this already. I only played during the economic model beta - interesting concept. Free client, free to play if you want. You put real money in for game money, get real money out from the same game money. So, theoretically, if you spent enough time farming then you could make some money, though I doubt very much.
Typically "start up" funds are about 10 bucks or so - at least when I played.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Less well off geeks who spend lots of time building characters up will sell to a high bidder who has money in real life and therefore the new owner of the character/item will not know how to use it as well as the geek who spent months getting it.
The game will end up with a bunch of more wealthy less experienced people running the lives of the geeks who spent all their time aquiring the items. The FUN of these games is that ANYONE regardless of status in the REAL world can become someone great. If money from the real world gets involved, that destroys the fantasy because not everyone will be on an equal footing when they start out.
That is one of the big reasons I think these games are so much fun.
Imagine Massively Multiplayer Games where you can actually cash out your loot in the real world.
God, people would never quit whining. Every bug or server rollback would be accompanied by loads and loads of people whining about losing money.
At the same time, they'd need a new way of giving stuff out. If someone picked up more than thier fair share of the treasure drops, everyone would throw a big hissy fit. And every time a group achieved a goal, they couldn't give out a big bit of treasure; it'd have to be a pile of small bits.
There also wouldn't be as much good treasure, unless people who didn't play much would be subsidising people who throw away hours a day on it.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
I perfected this online business plan back in the DOS days, when most games required you to make a stop at the "casino" to earn "money".
LastCash = Cash
Do While Cash < DesiredCash
{
Play_casino_game()
If Cash > LastCash
{
SaveGame()
LastCash = Cash
}
If Cash < FrustrationLevel
{
Reboot/Power off
End
}
}
Hey, it worked while playing Pokemon on my Game Boy! I mean, my kids' Game Boy, yeah, that's the ticket...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
if I want to sell some mana in real life?
nt
Now before I venture any further into the realm of dirty-hippie-liberal, let me say that I am completely behind the idea of economic discrimination (that is, allowing economics to determine the outcome of social order, etc.). But I relish the opportunity to have a "Fresh Start" in a game, not being hindered or helped by my real-world life.
If the gamers want this, then I say let them have it (I'm sure the game COs can levy a nice 5% tax on sales and make a killing). But I would plead with the COs to create servers that disallow such activities so those of us who relish the escapism and real-world separation of the MMORPG can continue to carve out our own paths in game, regardless of any social positions we might have gotten ourselves into.
of the time that I showed everquest to a friend of mine who is not into playing video games. His first question was: 'If you do well at the game does your monthly fee go down?'
I thought that was a brilliant idea. Sort of like pumping quarters into an arcade machine. every time you play, you pay. sounds like a great new addiction.
So, if someone was to steal someone else's character or "loot", would that provide for a real assessment of damages? Would stealing the dragon's diamond be a felony? I'd have to say yes...interesting repercussions for the company running the MMOG and the players as well.
BUY a game, PAY a monthly fee to play it, just so you can PURCHASE upgraded items? Isn't there already enough money involved in MMORPGs? How about some STORY? How about some ACTION? How about some FUN?
Remember when games used to be about good, old fashioned FUN?
Also, if a gang of virtual folk robbed you of virtual wealth, could you have them arrested in the real world?
Anyone ever had the misfortune to actually run any sort of online gaming environment?
Ever had to deal with the piles of complaints from 12 year olds upset that they lost something of no real-life value?
And you want now give them things WITH real life value they can complain about losing?
Gee, I wonder why the gaming companies aren't signing up for that.
paintball
Oh, how grand. Great way to get rid of the bounty retrieved from the burning museums in Iraq.
I can see it now! Get the first human writings in in the Cave of Doom! But, you have to be at level 6 to get them. Whoooooo!
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
Personally, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to buy and sell virtual goods. It's not like this doesn't happen all the time in other areas; you're certainly not getting a real live performance when you download music from iTunes. What you are buying in both cases is entertainment, and though the electronic form blurs the distinction between goods and services, it's not really anything novel. (Not that it would surprise me if some USPTO drone sees matters otherwise.) There's even a fairly nifty graphical chat service for teens in the UK, Habbo Hotel, whose entire business model is based on selling virtual furniture for users' private chat rooms.
The idea that gaming-for-profit would somehow ruin the purity of online games is just silly. It's not like the game companies are doing this as a labor of love, after all. Considering all the other challenges their developers have faced, including active cheating, I'm sure they can find a way to maintain game balance for both "professional" gamers and amateurs.
I suspect that the main motivation the game companies have for prohibiting the sale of game items is their own legal liability. (There's probably also a great deal of internal debate on how they can get a cut of that action, too.)
I think it would be to their benefit to allow and encourage virtual trading via their own eBay-like percentage-taking interfaces rather than let it happen clandestinely in the wild. It might attract more paying users as well. I've never played anything like Everquest, but I might give it a spin if I could make a profit, or at least get the habit to pay for itself.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
There is a worryingly large amount of people who do not reach the bare minimum of 30 hrs per week. Vote vote vote!
I think the subject says it all but just in case: Sure some people are getting kicks out of the idea of getting money from playing a game, others are talking about technical issues (ie duping) and still others are asking legal questions. But what about game balance? It used to be the dangerous palyer was the one who was more obsessed with the game, who invested the most time into it, and casual gamers have had issues with those players since the days of the MUD. But now you make reall world money directly affect in game resources. All of sudden the powergamers aren't necessarily the obsessed ones (who it can be argued, deserve their status since they got it purely via the game anyway) but the guy who has the most cash to throw around. A game where real money = game power will have 0 casual gamers. The rich powergamer won't even have to invest as much time as the powergamer of yore, merely throwing cash at the game. Part of the appeal of these games is that they are a fantasy, even if you aren't rich in real life you can still own an in game castle. Now all of a sudden that benefit is gone. I gurantee you if you allow un-controlled influx of real money into a game world inflation will make it impossible for someone to "just play". Why sell something for a price that is attainble in game when someone else is willing to buy it for a higher price and can bring in extra-game resources to pay for it. I don't know about you, but paying the monthly fee is pain in the ass enough, I'm not gonna spend additional monies just remain competitve in-game when I should be able to remain competitve by playing the game.
Why not fork?
Allowing this sort of thing would lead to the creation of entire worlds, with all of the ugly economics and politics included!! Alliances will be formed which, in turn, will effectively become digital armies. Once you have a 'digital army' in place that is actually fighting to earn (and take) items that are worth real $$, you might as well have created a 'real' country.....ugliness ensues
This, of course, is a highly simplified description. But, I think you get the point!
The FUN of these games is that ANYONE regardless of status in the REAL world can become someone great
The FUN of living life in the REAL WORLD (well, America, at least) is that ANYONE regardless of status at birth can become someone great.
The theorem used here is trying to create an entire society, not just a profitable MMORPG.
If you even begin to attempt to do something of this magnitude, the first lawsuit will be the end of it.
Or the first death. Don't think someone won't track another user and kill his punk ass because he stole his deed to some ruby in Nebraska.
Put simply, we don't have the computing capacity, or bandwidth, or security to support this system. These are the kinds of games that movies are based on, and parody. Someone could potentially spend years of their life in a game like this, doing whatever they please. Running a farm, running a shop, whatever.
This is just not possible at the moment. The graphics aren't good enough, the bandwidth isn't there (think of a New York sized metropolitan area--and the massive lag associated with it).
Of course it's a good idea. A virtual society with real money and real consequences, hell, before you know it you'll have mini-governments out there, plus the added intrigue of bounty hunters who go find the bastard that killed your cousin's character and stole all his loot.
You'll vote on the president of a virtual world or continent or server or however you want to specify it. Of course, for this truly to work, it would be game-wide, and that kind of operation would require millions of people to use it to create a revenue stream good enough to make it viable.
Yes, that gold site isn't a "currency" but you damn well better believe the first time a 10 year old earns $10k off of something there would be law quicker than you can say Cease and Decist.
There are too many variables, too much shit that goes along with this kind of idea to make it never get beyond what it already is: a child's perfect dream world, with no corruption or inflation, with no abuse or discourse.
Keep hope alive, but don't even imagine this coming into existence in the next 10 years.
It reminds me of Molyneux's new game, The Movies. He pontificates on the viability of creating all of the "main parts" of your favorite movies with the game. Including Star Wars or Terminator or Fried Green Tomatoes. And you just know it's going to be a lame console game with a PC version that is probably above average. He dreams big, but he hasn't hit the mark in a long time. Black and White's UI-less UI was limp, but he tried.
And its ideas like this that are required for a true cyberspace to come into being.
Good luck.
First, paying for an in-game advantage is about the same as sitting down to play Monopoly and handing over $10 in real currency to buy Boardwalk from somebody. The people that would do this do it because they get more enjoyment out of winning than playing, however it shows nothing of how well they play the game. If they win, it wasn't from good money management or strategy, but from forking out some real cash for something with only fantasy value.
The fantasy value thing is important. If I get upset and throw the board over, mess up everybody's money and property cards, and make the game unfinishable, you cannot take me to small claims court to regain your $10. It was a game and had no real world value except the enjoyment you get from winning. But this fantasy (and quite perverse) value you get has no connection to reality. However, when the game goes digital and geeks get involved, and somebody does the digital equivalent of throwing the board over (read: hacking the system), they think they should get money for in-game items. What? The logical step doesn't make sense. Why can I not get my $10 back from a Monopoly game, yet you can from your MMORPG?
However, now people want to tie real-world money and property to in-game objects. This is just waiting for disaster.
If a fantasy game item was tied to a real-world item or fantasy game money was tied to real-world money, then the person that runs the game and servers becomes a bank in a classical sense: they hold receipts that people expect to be able to claim on (ie: whenever the player logs onto the game, he claim the items, and whever the player logs off, he deposits them for later reclaiming).
They also become responsible under gaming laws since the MMORPG has turned into a sort of casino where people bet they can collect more in-game resources than others. It's just advanced video poker. Picture having a similar video machine in a casino linked to other casinos where geographically seperated players put chips in to play and cash chips out when they are done.
Sure, go ahead and turn MMORPGs into casinos and banks, but they should be regulated as such too. That would make it clear that it is not just a game and a hacker would face much more serious changes. Until MMORPGs are held to those standards though, it is just a game and should be treated as such.
Yipes, Just imagining Judge Wapner trying to get to the bottom of this virtual world thingee.
Wapner: Now you bought what, from whom?
Plantiff: The ad clearly said a +3 shoe for $100 dollars
Wapner: So defendant, what happened. Did you not deliver the shoe?
Defendant: Yes, your honor I did deliver said shoe.
Wapner: So Plantiff, what is your beef?
Plantiff: Well what he sent me was a size three shoe stuffed inside a game box!
I suppose that money laundering would be a huge problem. The company running the game would be required to log all transactions between players and to verify their identity. Plus, what happens when the database server with the financial information gets hacked?
where's all that Karma?
1) Taxation on profits. If people were making a living in this virtual world, the tax collectors would want their take. Just like casinos, the game companies would end up with some responsibility for collecting witholding for states, federal, and maybe even foreign countries. And just like casinos, they would probably need to somehow allow players to track losses as well for tax purposes. This is complicated by the fact that most of what is going on can easily be disguised with "gifts", "barter" transactions, with cash being exchanged on the side.
2) If a bug "poofs" a valuable item, and they support the idea that the item can have a real cash value, then they just became liable for the loss. Same with dupe bugs as has already been mentioned. The same idea would apply to "fraudulent" trades made by players, making the game company potentially liable for the players' loss.
3) Suspending or banning a player could potentially lead to a lawsuit based on loss of income, and the game company might have to prove to a court that the suspension/banning was justified, almost like an employment related lawsuit.
4) Can you say money laundering? Think a game company wants their name on that?
5) Any change to the game that affected the economy (which would probably be most of them) could end up screwing certain players. If you thought of the items and virtual money as stocks and real cash, the game company basically has the power to screw prices however they want. If they're officially supporting these cash equivalents, they would most likely be accused of corruption on a daily basis.
The list could go on, I think you get the idea. I'm sure companies will continue to try this idea, but as someone already mentioned, the other effect is that if a significant number of people are in it for the money, it will basically suck most of the fun out of the game for the people who are "just playing", and the whole model would likely collapse because no one would play so the economy would never get off the ground (basically you'd have a big lack of consumers).
By *not* supporting it officially and at least discouraging the idea if not strictly policing it, I think it actually can "work" better, because the company shifts all the liability to the players, and minimizes the effect of it on the game so that players don't feel like they're surrounded by ripoff artists.
Each month, I get e-mail about platinum and other phat lewtz for sale, and also the fact that these people will also buy platinum and phat lewtz(tm).
These people has been operating for years. This group of people are damned well known - and an *actual* business. Transfers of purchases/sales are of course done in game. Thus, these people naturally have accounts with Sony for EQ.
The conspiracy theory? Sony officially disallows the sale of in-game items, while not actually doing about it.
Win-win. Players who dislike the idea cheer, players who line up to buy stuff snicker and continue.
Hell - I'd wager that there's people from Verant that sell crap on E-Bay.
Ever wanted to make a living playing video games? Play a MMOG - the source never dries up as long as you're willing to invest $100 every few months (Estimation of monthly fees + expansions)...
Hell, you don't need to do much in game even, other than broker deals.
i can't find the link for it but I played a game like this where you start out with 'play money' dependent on how much you cashed in.. you can make or lose money and cash out.
Where does the "real" money come from? Or, who buys the real-life artifacts to begin with? Unless a game company is willing to invest millions of dollars in its game's "economy", this just isn't going to happen. The closest they could come is giving out prizes (probably software prizes or merchandise from surplus) in exchange for people turning in their in-game money.
Remember: just because you've got a good idea, doesn't mean it's a legal idea. Consult your local attorney for more details, &c., &c.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
stocks, bonds, futures, options, ...
John Kerry is a Joke!
As usual for a /. poster, IANAL, but I thought the US had laws stating the federal government is the sole issuer of legal tender within its borders. Naturally, people can barter whatever they want (which is really all currency is a proxy for), but whoever is running the exchange could run into some legal issues. For example, would the company running the MMORPG be considered a bank under US law and have to follow all the accompanying restrictions? Basically, by insisting that nothing in the game has any equivalent to real property, game operators avoid a massive list of potential legal issues. This proposal would seem to wade -- hell, belly-flop -- into those issues headfirst.
had a plan to make money playing Everquest, but because the market got saturated with people selling Everquest characters/money, he couldn't make enough. He often lives on a bread/water diet and has money making schemes. I'm not lying, this guy's for real. His other schemes include playing Texas Hold 'Em for a living, killing deer w/ a crossbow and using the entire animal like the Native Americans did, and now he wants to go fishing in Yosemite to sustain himself for a year. He's been fishing once, I think.
It's called eBay.
Thank you, try the veal.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I think it comes down to this: slot machines can pay out real money because they can statistically reassure their owners that they'll pay somewhere between 80% and 100% of what they take in. Banks can operate because they can almost always take your money and make more from it than they pay you in interest.
But most games have no such reassurances. Games of skill can be mastered and "gamed" in such a way that the owner of the MMOG will ultimately lose money. It's a no-win proposition in the long run and it just begs for government regulation in something that's supposed to done for fun.
Many on-line games have concepts of in-world currency and even track the "exchange rate" to dollars. They let you buy more virtual dollars. But to pay out real dollars is not in the company's interest. Better that they give something they can afford, like free access, free virtual items, or even real items that bear their free advertising. Remember the older arcades that awarded tickets for cheapo items instead of cash? Same idea
Finally, I find it most curious that the author is so bent on gold as a standard, since I thought the whole point of gold was to avoid virtualized currencies like paper money! What's more virtual than MMOG dollars? Or does he simply gain from having virtual economies backed by gold?
One of the big issues may be that it brings real-world problems to the game-world. Money brings conflict, how about if Sony gets sued by a player who lost his supposed "valued at $150" item because of a game glitch. How about the players that are on for profiteering that go after somebody in real-life, because his game character kicked their asses and took their weapons (or knocked 'em down a few levels, whatever).
I think that at this time it's best to keep the games as games, and leave the e-commerce to the e-commerce sites. Money brings in a whole lot of its own problems.
it was a text-only mud my freshman year of college: ..
you are in room with a dirt floor. you see:
life
> get life
Connection closed by foreign host.
%
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
I say, bring it on. I'd rather get money out of a game of skill (besides poker) than with a game of luck (fuck blackjack.)
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
A thosuand of us who play games have thought of this shit before. It's not fascinating, new, original, or cool. It's another way for sad, undersexed, pathetic fat-ass social fuckup gamers to justify their pale flesh and lack of any personality.
This is not a new idea.
It has already been implemented in the MMORPG Project Entropia.
It allows players to insert and withdraw real money that is converted to the in-game currency. Project Entropia is not a very good game in my opinion, but the concept is interesting.
Years ago, I read a story in Dragon Magazine called Catacomb, that was quite good, and predicts this sort of game. The story was about a mmrpg where you could turn you loot into real money, and real money, of course, would buy time. Good read if you can get it.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Okay, so I've seen tons of stories about people who sell EQ, SWG, or Diablo II items online ...
...
I even know someone who has sold SWG money on e-bay and made quite a profit
Which leads to the obvious question:
Who the heck is buying all this stuff?
Can we get some posts from people who actually buy virtual items? Why do you do it? What do you do with the items you buy? How do you decide how much a virtual sword is worth?
If you run into trouble with micropayments, you can try several systems, including PECUNIX.
If you need to use money in a game, you could consider PECUNIX.
If you run afoul of gambling laws, you can evade the letter of the law with PECUNIX.
Plus, if you need to secure your system, you could read the informational material from PECUNIX.
Is is possible that this is less of an article about game economics than a sales pitch for PECUNIX?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Sorry kids, but we're having bagels for dinner. Daddy's barbarian has a BIG day tomorrow...
Deja Vu. Back in the May 1985 issue of Dragon Magazine, I published a story Catacomb where the main character was trying to raise cash by playing a mulit-user dungeon crawling game. I often wondered why on-line gambling went with casino games instead of following the D&D model.
i haven't rtfa or ptfg (played the games), but to encourage this sort of thing seems bad. as stated above, it would be a gaping loophole in tax laws (money laundering) and potentially unstable given the nature of what programmers might do to the game environment (making a rare item common). the legal liabilities that arise from staking real value on an MMORPG certainly won't be waived, as every greed-minded person who decides to make gainful employment off of an MMORPG decides to sue (class action, no doubt) the gaming company for changing availability of items or other sorts of variables or not protecting the servers from the spilled bottle of soda and the downtime thereof.
anyway, i don't know if this can happen, but what if someone created a superpowerful character that went around PKing a few rich characters every once in a while? and making money off of it? person who died would sure lose out (hope s/he wasn't playing seriously), and person who PKed would be richer however much more s/he could sell the stuff for on ebay.
such introduction of the real world into MMORPGs would signal the death of any such MMORPG as a everyone's game and resurrect it as a game for the rich or obssessed. when it comes down to it, that's the whole point of games, isn't it? they don't matter in the real world.
This was somewhat foreseen long ago.
Catacomb, by Henry Melton
Excellent story. I still have and treasure a copy of this issue, not the least of which because of Robyn Wood's incredible cover art.
I was so influenced by this story that I transcribed it for a friend's local BBS, and later he and I ended up writing our own ORPG (single-line BBSes kinda prevented the MM part) inspired by it.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
The game companies could set up their own real world auction system, allowing players to trade cash for online items/players. The game companies could take a percentage of the rl money paid, or charge a flat fee. Anyone trading on other auction sites would then face a penatly (in game). Work out a deal with Ebay and then they wouldn't have to build a auction engine.
-- Viva FreeBSD --
See topic
This is fairly OT, but I've been wondering about this for a LONG time:
Circa 1981-82, someone published an RPG called Arkenstone that had a cash prize of $10000 (iirc) for completing/solving it. I remember holding it in my hand and lusting over it at the Computerland I begged to hang out in while mom was in the supermarket down the strip mall.
Am I the only person who remembers this game? Google finds nada concerning it. Did anyone ever collect the prize? What was the game actually like?
Been wondering about this for YEARS now.
To bring this somewhat on topic: Based on my above experience, I'd have to say that having real money involved in an RPG is either a definite plus or minus depending on how you look at it. The plus is that I still remember and wonder about the game twenty years later, so it was/is a _great_ marketing bonus and could really help provide the continuous revenue required for the kind of ongoing content production that current MMOG's so desperately need. The minus would be that maybe they made the game so hard and or crappy that nobody actually stood a chance of winning, which was quickly discovered by those who played it and thus the game fell out of favor immediately and the developer is now lurking under a rock somewhere after having been censured and/or sued!
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Therefore, when designing a game world, there are two concerns that must always be at the forefront: excitement for the player, and profitability for the publisher.
There is another concern that must be balanced against these: security and liability concerns.
The reason Sony doesn't permit this is that it eliminates a whole category of fraud, where people ebay items they don't really own, and reduce the incentive for greedy folk who play (or admin) the game to hack the game for profit.
When someone gets screwed out of real cash over a fake item, game glitch, or deliberate hack, then Sony can simply say "that's not allowed" and duck any legal implications.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=73952&ci d=6639772
http://www.project-entropia.com/main.jsp
IIRC, it was called gemstone because you could actually find certain gems in the game that they would change out and mail/secure deliver the real thing to you. kinda like, ' w00t, mail me my topaz! '
If you expressly allowed for conversion of in-game property for real world property then there are I beleive eleven states where the game would be illegal.
For example - the Magic the Gathering:Online service had a method by which if you got a complete set of cards in the game, you could basically cash those virtual cards out for the real world cards. Because of this the EULA basically says that people in a list of states (Arizona - where I live being one of them) are not allowed to sign up for accounts.
-Nick
My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. You killed my master. Prepare to die.
Such a game has existed for a long time now:
www.project-entropia.com
11*43+456^2
Twas good shit.
But an obvious reason is that if Sony, Blizzard, or whoever does a server reset, than all those real-life value eq has now disappeared. Imagine you just got everything you wanted for $60 and the server is reset due to some sort of level cheat. I think if people want to risk wasting money, that is fine, but the game companies should not support it. If they did, people would sue Sony for any problems (dupes, resets, cheats, hacks).
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
You can't charge for game items because SCO has patented the business model of charging for fictional things.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that if /.ers could transfer their mod points, some would be for sale on eBay.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
I don't think the two examples you give (banks, online casinos) have parity to a MMOG economic system. In your two examples, the transaction is strictly between the user and the company.
The way I envision a MMOG system, is a transaction between two users with the company as a third party broker that takes a cut of the transaction (like E-Bay, PayPal etc). Obviously, the funding for the transaction would have to have it's root in real world currency (the user's CC or bank account).
This business model has proven to be very successful.
You'll want to check out their thoughts on tax shelters in MMORPGs and the risks involved.
Even with duping most online economies are very stable (although I haven't seen many duping problems in EQ).
The real problem is the law. If The EQ pp is given a dollar value, then "real-world" legal issues come into play. I could definitly imagine a case where an expensive item drops (EQ fungi tunic sells for about $195) and there is a law suit because someone unfairly looted the item.
There is also gambling in EQ. If I can go buy pp, gamble, and cash in my winnings (presuming I win), then EQ becomes a casino.
These are all legal issues that sony can avoid by making sales of items illegal.
. If money from the real world gets involved, that destroys the fantasy
I agree, games are a fantasy, an escape from the day to day pressures of reality. If I wanted to see people lie to get money, cheat to get money, choose profit over human compassion etc. then all I need to do is....um, go out the front door.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
If this idea catches on, open source developers everywhere could band together and create the final open source game, OpenWallet, after which we would all promptly go bankrupt.
I really disagree with that.
Paying money for "game items" which are only stored on a company owned database which you will never have access to is prown to HUGE abuses.
Think of the implications
Summary: A few legal issues there to resolve first. I rather see game company's fix bugs, and add game content as their first priority than cash in on items (which should be banned).
Check out www.there.com. It's not so much a game but a place to 'meet' people online and chat, play little games, buy things, etc. But they have a real economic system going on inside.
I was going to join their beta (there beta?) but I decided I didn't have the time or inclination.
...and not even funny
plz chg it
tx...
if I steal something of real value from someone in the game, then have I committed real world theft? If I harass somebody in the game have I committed a tresspass or conversion? Probably.
Companies can issue promissory notes. That is, a certificate good for an item. Then you can swap them if you want.
But it does entail a lot of legal issues. No, you don't have to be a bank.
Why would we bring this upon ourselves?
The hope in the ideal of the MUD or MMORPG is that who or what we may be in the "real world" does not in any way limit who or what we can be in this alternate reality.
If I enter this "alternate reality" only to find I am condemned to be politically and economically subservient to Ben Afleck's or Larry Ellison's incarnation, then I have not left my own reality; I have not found a place where I am free from the political and economic chains that bind me.
Such a system, like the any other rule or establishment that the powerful among us seek to put in place or have put in place to elevate themselves above their peers, is nothing but a grant and promise of power to those who already have it.
Without the real, actualizable opportunity -- freedom -- to unseat those who oppress us -- those who through their established political and economic power structure enslave and bind us -- it is better not to live at all than to live a life condemned to serve their wretched ends as they worship their filthy money at the temple of their own power.
Death to tyrants! Death to institutionalized oppression!
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
A dupe bug would bring the economics of such a system crashing down.
Interestingly, the article's authors came up with a solution to the problem of software bugs, though I don't think it was their intention:
- Farms/Forestry: Farms produce perishable food, wood, or textile items in predictable quantities that may vary with the weather. Farms may be damaged or destroyed by war, mismanagement or natural disasters.
Just imagine a "software bug" in the context of the original "bug": an insect that causes big trouble (think Biblically, as in plagues of locusts).
Someone hacks into the system and steals $5,000 of real-world l00t? Bad news for local farmers, a cloud of hungry grasshoppers devoured your fields yesterday. Estimated damages are g$1 million ($5,000 real-world).
Game designer conference... in Barbados? News flash: last night's thunderstorms spawned an F5 tornado that tore through the center of Avatarville. No PKs, but damage is estimated in the g$Millions.
[FBI | SEC | DEA] investigation? We're sorry, but a record-shattering earthquake destroyed all your possessions, the bank where your money was kept, and by the way, You Are Dead.
As for myself, if I wanted that level of uncontrollable risk, I'd play Real Life.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
That said, it's still a good idea.
Although, it would be funny to hear Alan Greenspan talk about the effects of nerfing the Druid farm class on the US GDP.
Phemur
Yeah, I want to get my ass kicked by an 14 year old because his daddy's a doctor who gives him whtever he wants.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
I have never played a MMORPG, but I thought the point of them was to exist in a world that has limited resources and that you fight and barter to make an existence in those games. I read somewhere before SW Galaxies was released that you could smuggle goods for someone or be a bounty hunter and track down people who have skipped out on payments to crime lords. Or, if you didn't want the high stakes life, you could exist as a bar keep or hair dresser. Even if there was no real money at stake, I think having people compete for limited resources is the reason why people play MMORPG's. If there is no micro-economy in these games do people just walk around killing small furry animals all day long? Where's the fun in that?
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
You're a MADMAN!
Everyone's cool with gambling as long as it only involves insurance then? What are you doing with insurance except putting money in with the hope that one day you might recoup your investment or maybe that "Giant Meteor Hits My House" clause comes in handy?
an easy way to transition to such a model might be to have some sort of prizes in a standard MMORPG, foir instance: every six months, the 3 most powerful characters receieve $1000 (or whatever the prize might be). It would be trivial to add such a "feature" into any current MMORPG.
-dbc
First, it's obviously a form of online gambling, which is already controversial because it opens up all sorts of jurisdictional questions.
Now, with classic forms of gambling (blackjack, roulette, female mud wrestling), it's very clear exactly what the rules are. It's easy to calculate the odds of winning or losing in any particular situation. To a limited extent, it's even possible to document if the game is rigged. But with this new game, what are the odds of having a critter drop Real Gem X? Only the people running the server actually know.
A couple of their points are very obviously wrong. For example:This makes about as much sense as saying that we can't regulate Vegas because the participants first exchange their money for poker chips. If you spend $10 to buy 1000 Pecuni-bucks, and lose it all, you've really gambled away $10. If you double it and convert it back into cash, then it's the same as gambling the cash. I doubt the Feds will see a distinction.
Having said all that, I think this should be explored further. It seems like an idea like this would be better exploited by the gambling industry than by current MMORPG companies. They already know the ins and outs of both the financial and legal aspects of such a venture.
It also seems like this would be a perfect testbed for various digital cash systems. Or a game like this could be the basis of a black market economy. But whatever the system was used for, security would have to be absolutely rock solid.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
- Direct Sale of Virtual Objects - To start playing Magic Online, you have to buy the digital booster packs from the manufacturer. The price is the same as the paper version.
- Conversion to the Real World - If you collect a full set of cards online, then you can redeem them for the paper version. Paper Magic cards commonly sell for $2 to $20 at stores or on eBay. There is a corresponding market for buying and selling the cards online.
- Profiting from Economic Exchange Inside the Game - There is a system for trading cards between players. Unfortunately, it's rather awkward and inefficient. The manufacturer shows no interest in setting up an automated auction system -- they probably profit by making it easier to just buy more cards than to distribute the existing pool of cards more efficiently.
- Populating the World - Because of differences in card rarities, it's impossible to redeem all of one's online cards into paper cards. Thus the manufacturer is guaranteed that more money goes into the game than can come out. Plus, many players find the online cards to be more fun and useful than the paper ones -- they never get worn, they are easy to sort, and there are always opponents ready for a game.
- Legal Issues - There are tournaments running constantly online that pay out cards as prizes. So a player can acquire new cards just through skill and an entry fee. Eligibility is restricted in certain states, but this form of winning goods by playing cards seems to be viewed differently than poker or blackjack.
- Security - Each player's account is password protected. The biggest source of fraud seems to be social engineering -- tricking someone into giving away their cards or password. There have been no reports of server break-ins, but if there were cases they would probably be handled more like bank robberies than hacking on a Diablo server.
AlpineRThe reason the casino can entice people into playing an always losing game is that they offer games with slightly negative expectations (say 48c on the dollar returns), but huge variances/std. deviations
in most mmorpgs, games do have some variance built in, but it's hardly as random as a casino. If you're level 8 and the wombat is level 9, you're going to win 90% of the time with small variance.
In the economic model proposed here, the implication is that you would expend say 100 micrograms of gold worth of energy killing the wombat, in order to loot 99 from its corpse. If it always costs 100 ug to kill the wombat and you always get 99ug, that's not an interesting game, it's just "pay to play", and people already pay a monthly fee and probably aren't keen to pay more than current games' rates.
One alternative would be to make the outcomes more variable, which is inconsistent with what most people consider "fun" (at equal levels say making killing the wombat a coin toss would result in very frustrated players -- especially if death has meaningful consequences).
Another alternative would be to make the loot more variable (you expend 100ug of energy to kill a wombat that is worth 99ug with a stdev of say 20ug... a long term losing proposition but an interesting short run one). This would look so much like gambling that it would run off non-gamblers, and would do a poor job of competing against establishments that offer gamblers wagers that can be quickly resolved without all the distraction of wombats and +10 bandyclefs -- and they're called casinos.
Perhaps there's a middle ground, but to me the answer is just to allow free exchange of the digital goods for real money, and have the game provider take a small transaction fee for in-game transfers. Their advantage over eBay would be convenience, the ability to provide a highly liquid market (they have all the information regarding what items are wanted/for sale) and they could bolster reliability by running the whole transaction atomically (transferring the money and promised items simultaneously).
My analysis completely ignores the myriad possible technical glitches that would plague the proposed system (duping, hacking, whatever), and it also ignores the economic implications of them pegging their in-game currency to a real commodity (be it dollars, gold, or whatever). These companies should be running fun games, not central banks, and the author should study the history of fixed exchange rates and the gold standard to see how that can all go terribly wrong and bankrupt anyone underwriting an online game using the proposed mechanisms.
While all the technology in the world is well-understood and available to make this feasible in some regards, the state of the art of role-playing game design is hopelessly behind, and not capable of delivering a product that would be worth the effort to play once constrained by real world scarcity.
The long and short of it is this: no modern role-playing game is sufficiently well-balanced in its economic or story-telling game to make that workable in the large. Particularly in the larger context of a MMPORG, we are just beginning to understand how to present a game in a manner that keeps its story-telling, societal, economic and technological simulations working well enough.
Often, and this is the point, it is necessary to manipulate the economy, society, or in-game technologies to repair flaws in balance or to keep things working -- indeed, to keep things from falling apart. In other words, real world game designers "cheat" after a style - we use god-like powers to "change" things or make things different to make your experiences (or at least those of the greater whole among players) more enjoyable. Because we have flexibility to make changes, the game evolves and becomes more FUN. This is why we get the big bucks, to entertain you -- Yes, we operate sometimes like the Federal Reserve, but not because we want the economy to be perfectly smooth and running (or not) -- because having the economy running smoothly (or not) makes the game more playable and fun. And sometimes, we need to do things that a Federal Reserve Commissioner could not or would not do if his only responisbility was to the economy as a whole.
If games were in fact constrained by being closely tied to real-world models, and thus game-designers were unable to modify economic or property elements of the game without incurring real-world issues -- it is likely that these games would soon collapse of their own weight, either as good games, or because the companies who tried to maintain the quality and balance of the games were sued out of existence.
There is a greater issue than merely liability, economically.
Countries (especially the more economically aware ones) exert a lot of time and energy into controlling their economy, which is something that Central Banks are established to do. If any one individual were able to create or erase currency or wealth so easily, it could topple a fragile economy (such as America's might be these days, and certainly as Japan's currently is).
Supply and demand works with money just as it does with everything else. If people are allowed to create more and more "money" (via these characters and items) they could exploit it to counteract the Central Bank's decisions to their own benefit. Japan raises interest rates (to cut the money supply) and Sony creates a certain new item, or makes it easier to obtain, to increase a certain wealth in the game.
It's strange and somewhat telling how these digital worlds have become offshore lives and offshore bank accounts for certain groups of people, where a conversion rate can calculate how many dollars a gold piece (or whatever) is worth.
Sony, or the Everquest powers that be, shouldn't be a Central Bank.
What short memories we have... This concept was created many years ago in the form of Project Entropia. I played it for a time but it took way too long to figure out the game. Without transferring a lot of real money into their credits you really couldn't get off the ground in the game. It may have gotten better since I last played a year or so ago but I doubt it.
plz nibl my sak
tx...
This could provide some well paying jobs for people who rarely leave their computers, it could also spawn a MMORPG which relies on selling the ingame items to the public.
----- Friends, l33tists, l4m3z0rs! Lend me thy keyboards.
First off, you should see Avalon. Very well done Mamoru Oshii movie which is essentially what this discussion is about: the merger of life and video game.
But to all the D&D players out there, an important point is missed with video games, especially when it merges with real life. Life is larger than any game. Imagination is larger than its shadow as represented in video games. I don't pretend to want to eliminate MMORPGs, but its critical to emphasize why human contact is important. This is lost on most who engage in games so seriously. When we mix games and reality by allowing money to be made we highten the fun of the game by upping its stakes. But we also give a reason to remove oneself even more from reality.
We can't stop the merger of reality (in the form of real treasure) and video games, but we should oppose it even still. If its not you that needs to pull his head out of the screen, it will be your children. I include myself on that list, so I'm not preaching.
This has been the concept behind Project Entropia which has been in development for some time. I suggest you check it out, as it is a very interesting idea.
Years ago a dragon magazine article had a fictional story about a massively multiplayer MUD based on Dnd.. where gold counted for real coin. In fact you could drop a quarter into a standup video game and connect to your character online.... hope no one tries to patent the idea. Prior Art all the way baby.
meh
A reoccuring idea for MMORPG's is that a players online food consumption and physical activity should have an effect on their avatar's physical appearance. Even though this was not the case in Everquest, it used to be a joke that some people would go to great efforts to get exotic foods and healthy vegetables for their online personas while subsisting on ramen noodles and kraft dinner themselves!
From the above article:
"In fact, by selling in-game perishables such as food and water to the players, the monthly subscription fee can be eliminated."
Just imagine what would happen if virtual food and real food came into direct resource competition!! I can just imagine a player carefully planning his avatar's dietary intake for optimum health using high quality virtual foods he was able to afford by eating only frozen bean burrito's himself!
If the company converts your real dollars into virtual ones for some delayed return to cash, it is acting like a bank or casino, especially if the value out is not a fixed percentage of the value in.
With transactions and brokering, the idea is that the middle-man doesn't hold your money for any longer than is necessary to complete the transaction and the money is protected in the interim. In other words, the money goes straight from dollar account A (in some bank) to dollar account B (in some bank). And the middle-man extracts a fee for that service. If you hold the money, then you are in essense a bank and new rules apply.
If the value out is a random (but statistically known over many transactions) function of the value in, you are most likely a casino. Both of these statements seem to apply to the economic model implied in the article. If you buy virtual dollars and get real dollars back later, then these models apply.
And even in pure transactional systems, the currency flow can be gamed and value can be "extracted" from the economy, thereby diminishing the "fun" for those left holding a smaller bag of virtual cash. It's done all the time with currency markets, except there, no single company owns or can keep secret the key information that makes those markets work.
I'm all for virtual economies with cash in, or even using ebay or similar to trade items, but let's keep the concepts separate.
MMOGs always seem to evolve into credit hunting fests anyways. Why make it worse
Unfortunately, this will never be the case in virtual worlds.
Not only would it be radically unfair to Sony to sue them because they "nerfed your uber wizard", it also would not be fair to sue them because they did it between the time you offered your uber-wizard for sale on Ebay, and the time your customer got it. Now your customer says you didn't deliver what you promised, but you feel like you did. That is why none of the companies that run these games can *afford* to let you transact in their goods. If they nerf wizards and two hundred people see their ebay value go from $2000 to $20, it's not fair to ask Sony to stand up against the potential property-damage-or-depravation lawsuits.
But even if they *could* write a bullet-proof non-indemnity agreement, (something you can't do in America, or most "civilized" societies) then consider the flip side...
Sony will always have human people working there (coders, dbas) who could cheat, or man-in-the-middle you to death. Or maybe just grant their friend permission to eavesdrop on all your conversations, or just give them every magic item in the game.
Catch 22.
As a side note, imagine the disaster if the game did become a standard place-of-commerce. Then people would have a "right" to participate, and could sue to be let in the game. No more tossing the Griefers, since that would be discrimination. And the ACLU would be right there to make sure that the blind and deaf had access as well, since "It's not just a game anymore". Ick.
Example:
- Players pay, say, $8 per month.
- The monthly fee gives players the right to "control" items in the game.
- Players have the right to use and transfer items they control, including selling control of the item to other players for real-world cash.
- Right of Ownership of all game items is retained by the game provider.
- Since players never actually "own" things the provider is not liable to replace them.
- Any time a transfer of control is made, the receiving player is reminded that he only has control of the item, not ownership.
Habbo Hotel is a goofy online community with pixelized characters that walk around and don't really do anything. But you can buy credits to furnish your online hotel room and send imaginary stuff to imaginary people.
I myself would find it difficult to justify my possession of an imaginary pixel credenza when there's so much poverty, homelessness, and I should probably get a real credenza first.
Sorry, but as soon as important stuff starts happening, and chaos threatens, vigilantes teams are bound to form up. (Player killers of players killers). People seem to enjoy teaming to beat bullies, or simply to become more "righteous" than in RL.
Been there. Done that.
no text
can you say unlimited money laundering?
Wired magazine did a whole article about this a few months ago. But I don't recall what month. A google search turned up this article, but it's not quite what I remember.
The gist of it was, even though the Everquest license argreement prohibits selling virtual goods for real dollars, people do it anyway. And you can figure out what the exchange rates are. Turns out that the total "economy" of the Everquest world exceeds that of some third-world economies. You even get weird situations where people are clicking their people around very boring jobs, "because their clan needs the money."
Where is the line between game and work?
MultiUser RolePlay Entertainment (MURPE) is currently in the development of games like this. Although our games will be text-based at first, we are already working with several fiction-fantasy authors bringing their books to the virtual reality life. For more information on what we are doing, feel free to visit our website www.murpe.com.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Is the political and economic power of the elite of this world not overbearing enough, that we would seek to extend their reach into another?
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
Slay the Mighty Red Dragon Arragon, son of Lothar to acquire The Chalice of Death and you get... A 2 liter of Mountain Dew Extreme!!!
Dude! The only ones that are retarded are the ones that dont know that!
Ewwww! Stop hitting on that female elf! She's got man hands!
| - | - |
...Secret service agents announce that they have smashed an inter-dimensional money laundering ring. Said Agent Bubba Peace "This was a particular difficult case to solve. Large amounts of money were disappearing from credit card and bank accounts across the country. We managed to trace the transactions to the registration of new characters in a MMPORG. Even then, it was difficult to trace down the culprits. We sent in elvin rangers to follow the couriers. Unfortunately, in most cases they were either leprechauns or water nymphs. The minute we tried to approach them they'd disappear into thin air. Even with a helm of brilliance and a blindfold it was hard to track them down. Typically they were armed with Wands of Digging and just jumped down the nearest trapdoor when approached. Fortunately, we had a breakthrough when one accidently stepped onto a magic trap and turned into a large cat. With the offer of a several food rations, this individual quickly changed sides and was able to drop us a few clues. We eventually managed to trace the mastermind down to a player nicknamed "Croesus" known to live in a place called Fort Ludios. Initially we assumed this was a location out in the desert and informed the BATF. However, they weren't much help as we soon discovered this guy was actually hiding out in a deep underground complex in the game itself. It took our agents several weeks of intensive training in order to develop the skills to survive in this hostile environment, but the pay-off was well worth it. Eventually, we had a large enough team to make our way down and find the magic portal. We weren't too surprised to find that the area was heavily defended. Fortunately, our agents were heavily armed with +5 black dragon scale mail,+5 shields of reflection and fireproof +4 levitation boots, along with rings of conflict and wands of teleportation. With a well planned strategy, we didn't have a single casualty. The outer defences were soon defeated and we managed to get a map of the area. Much to our surprise, we found out there were large dragons patrolling the area, but they were no match for our armanents. But this guy "Croesus" was much smarter that your average drug dealer/money launderer. Access to the fortress was defended by both a moat, and a concealed entrance. We considered several ways of forcing our way in. Taking into account the dangers of electric eels and the occasional Kraken, we decided to knock the door down with a Wand of Striking. This obviously took the occupants by surprise, and caused mass panic. We also noticed that several bottles of unknown substances were thrown in our direction, but as we had blessed unicorn horns, they had no effect. While separated from the occupants by the moat, we chose to wait until the fighting died down before entering. We didn't have to wait too long however, and entered the main room. It was obvious that Croesus was extremely pissed off, and that he was going to give up peacefully. Several times, he tried to flee the scene by reading several Scrolls of Teleportation, but a mysterious force prevented him from leaving. Before we could even read a Scroll of Identity, he attempted to fire several wands at members of our team. Fortunately, the ray bounced harmlessly off and he only succeeded in injuring himself. Seeing a opportunity to bring this conflict to a quick end, one of our agents managed to fire a wand of sleep. Within seconds, Croesus was motionless and the area was secured. An intensive search of the area revealed a large secret vault containing laundered money. This too was booby-trapped with mines. However, we were able to recover all of the stolen money and return it to the rightful owners. We also managed to trace down the real world Croesus. He is currently serving time in a small room with a magic-proof floor and walls, and with no access to keys,lock-picks, scrolls, wands or rings of teleportation.
Even in the Dungeons of Doom, federal law still applies."
Sony Interactive expressly forbids the selling of Everqest or Everquest II ingame items or characters for money, but why?
Because then they'd be 'creating' money, and they'd be subject to all sorts of interesting laws. At the very least they'd have to register as a financial institution or even bank. Not to mention the IRS.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
RL$$ in MMOGs has already been done, see http://www.projectentropia.com this game combines both ingame and out of game currency. The game its self its pritty flawed, but its the first attempt that has made it beyond vapor-ware.
Instead of Everquest junkies spending all their time gaming they can spend all their time AND money gaming.
:wq
In the real world, rare items are rare because they cannot be made anymore, or are not being made anymore. Item rarity increases if the item tends to deteriorate over time, thus making the collection of "mint" items rarer.
:)
In these MMORPG's or in stuff like Diablo 2, rare items are artificially created. Literally, they are just bytes on a server hard drive that can be edited at any time by the admins. The way I see it, there is absolutely no value in these "rare" items because their rare status can be nullified at any time by hackers, server admins, etc.
Therefore, out of love and concern for our fellow beings, we should try to discourage anyone from paying real money for articifially rare stuff in games.
Magic: The Gathering has the advantage that you can "cash out" in real-world decks. So if you find that the online game goes sucky, you can play in real life with your friends. If you find that Evercrack has gone bad, you can just move on.
But if you have real money invested in a MMORPG, and you feel it goes sour (e.g. parent company start printing "money", rampant duping or other things wrecking the game experience) you don't really have no recourse, nor any way out except trying to really "sell out", which is usually at a considerable loss.
I wouldn't want to invest in virtual property that way, though I have a Magic deck (not online though) whose value is also quite "virtual" since they're really just a bunch of playing cards...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They will still want to make money with the games, and that means that the majority of the players will still have to lose money. And they will have to lose more money than they would otherwise, that's how gambling works. It is already a hard sell to me, to get me to pay monthly for a MMO, when I already have all the multiplayer action I need from Starcraft. And I wouldn't pay to gain items madly, I would pay for fun. Which would not end up being the point of a "gambling" MMO, the point would be the risk, the chance of win. Average Nerd MMO player wouldn't be able to pay $10 a month and go out on a quest every week to get an item worth $100. Unless they also give the MMO's creator a magic diamond tree. I don't think it would work very well.
I get the funny feeling that this blurring of reality and games is what the last Matrix will be.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Now instead of 60 percent of the people killing "The Spiteful Crow" to get his "Hope Diamond" to trade for other virtual items or virtual money...
We'll see 100 percent of the people killing it for real cash. That's right, every barbarian-wizard-druid-thief, ninja, and spoony bard will be fighting over the ultra-rare 1's and 0's popping up so they can trade them for real money.
And the issue of abusive GMs is not addressed. Too many a time I have witnessed GM's showing unfairness to some individuals and outright favor to others. When real money gets involved, things can get ugly (many people have mentioned law suits already).
I see it being tried; I don't see it working.
This could pave the way for franchising within online mmg environments. You could have a 'Seltfords' or 'the pinnacle' casino or whatever casinos are known by these days and actually affiliate as an on-line partner. Actually.........there are so many security issues that a casino is better off just starting thier own mmocg.
Many Thanks,
Luke
Real value comes through scarcity. If such an economy were to exist, some major restraint would need to be exercised by the development team to stave off inflation. Perhaps title transfers could be done through a first-party escrow service, where the software company's costs of developing such a limited production item would be defrayed by knocking off some commission from the sale.
even in fake life you gotta make a living :P
Since they'd have to allow money IN to the system freely but restrict goods moving OUT of the system to rare hard-to-get items that redeem only to cheap real-life stuff, lest they be run out of business in a week, this is little more than a cheap gimmick.
It's a merging of the game with a store, and as many others have mentioned, it reduces the much-sought-after escapism of the game. It makes the game not fun anymore, by reducing the prestige of a player's accomplishments while simultaneously teasing more money out of the player's wallet. Ick.
Guess it's time to start construction of my own MMPORG.
Why bother spending money, time, and effort to "earn" the Super-Nargle-Blade(tm) when I can just login to the admin system and click Duplicate?
Sure it would devalue the virtual currency - but your personal value has increased, so who gives a fsck?
Q.
Insert Signature Here
It isn't always for cash. Some players offer other goods and services for ingame stuff.
Some people were recently complaining about losing their jobs to robots. Then wouldn't this be a great opportunity to gain money out of gaming? Basicaly, "geeks" are selling their time to build powerful characters and/or to gain special artefacts, and other people are ready to pay for that time. I can't see where the problem is. We all know that cocooning is growing with the internet. New "virtual worlds/games" could be created, allowing people to live and work in 100% virtual environments. As long as their is demand, no matter how silly the product is, you can sell it.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
I can just see Joe Gamer defeating the evil dragon and winning a real life precious stone. Just as he's going to cash it in, a freak asteroid strike reduces him to a streak on the ground.
"Ooops, how did that happen? Oh well, I guess the gem goes back into the company pool."
After all, will kids be using paper money to make these transactions? Duh.
And once all the paper is gone, you will be under total control. The state will be able to turn on or off your money 'privileges'.
Better figure out an alternative way to stay viable, or get used to the idea of being a good little drone. (Hm. Which doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it? You have video games, after all, right. . ? Why worry. Big Brother will take care of you.)
The great sleep is falling. Shake yourself or be lost.
-FL
This sounds suspicioulsy like skee ball and other "redemption" based games...
If I get 20,000 tickets I may finally get that 19.99 toaster I always wanted =(
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I think it would be cool if you could get real world items (like a large pizza from Papa John's) within an mmporg setting. Or perhaps premiums for the game itself.
One problem is that you might start seeing ads for sponsors ingame. Food vendors inside space stations, intergalactic billboards, or company tatoos on mobs you're fighting.
If you ask me I could see this working in a way like this: a) You shell out a entry fee. b) You win prizes (treasures). A system like this wouldn't be unlike something like a QUAKE competition or something similar. The company of course would keep some of the entry fee to keep the system running. Sound retarded? Well we have athletes who enter competitions and get rewarded lotsa money? I imagine this wouldn't be much different.
Can't alll the liability issues be solved in the contract that lets you play the game?
People already try to cheat and crack the game systems as it is now. Imagine the craziness that will go on if items can legitimately be bought and sold for money. You'd have every game cracked in a week.
Also, this could open up game publishers to liability issues for lost or stolen items... sure you could exclude everything under the sun in a EULA, but not everything in a EULA is guaranteed to stand up in court. After the sex.com case, domain names are now "property" aren't they?
+ / - a few spots, my memory grows dim after reading the article in Wired? earlier this year. Some economist did the calculations based on the going rate for a mansion and contents, etc. If I wasn't so lazy I would try to hunt down the article and get my "facts" straight. Personally I don't see any problem with farming a MMORPG for fun & profit. Rich people don't have the time to waste to get to high level so what's wrong with paying someone else to do it for you?
Things to keep in mind are:
- these games REQUIRE servers and thus are not standalone
- each account is usually "keyed" to the software CD
- How can a company restrict your selling of the end product legally, anyway?
Ok, that last one was not a point... but I guess what irks a lot of people is that after plunking down 40-50 USD for the initial software they must then pay monthly fees to play (SW:Galaxies is not charging yet... I think). If they do not like it or just tire of it and have gotten all out of it they are going to, then why can they not like with any other software simply turn around and sell it to someone else? It could be sold cheaper and would thus discourage new sales, that is why? Additionally this would provide a very convenient way for people to opt out without just loosing everything. I'm not even talking about selling for a profit, that uber character with the Loin Cloth of Ages and the Mystical Space Dragon's Best Friend's Beer Stein. Now factor in the countless statements by players on the order of, "I don't want to just quit and lose the work I put in, but I can't sell this either." Do the math...that this is already being done... plus I personally think that it is foolish and takes away from the fantasy and escapism I want from these. But then again, I don't drink myself into a stupor (anymore :) nor do I drive like a "cool dude." As I don't see the point in that stupidity. Yet others do, and they are welcome to it as long as there is no effect on others. (like driving like a selfish SOB)
Because you described the life of the average MMORPG'er here :
g ger-wombat.
After 2 years of being in 2 MMORPG I can guarantee
that the roleplaying part is an extrem minority of
the time you do in the games.
Quote "Secondly, this promotes very anti-social behavior--people crouching away at their computers, beating wombat after wombat to get the extra gold and items. It takes the *fun* out of the game, as well as the *realism*. RPG stand for role-playing-game"
Let us be honest here. RPG stand for roleplaying game but MMORPG stand for Let-us-beat-wombat-after-wombat-before-beating-bi
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Doing it is equivalent to online gaming (casino).
Sony aren't in the casino game, they don't want to be in the casino game, and they don't want the legal hassles of the casino game.
That's why.
Look at pi-mania on the ZX Spectrum (Mel Croucher, 1982), for an example of real-money in a geo-caching kind of way.
yeah, and my friend and i would be rich if we were the only one's that thought of it... that's the thing, everyone has thought about it and frankly i think it's because of negative feedback sony gave the selling of the items on ebay and all that jazz... people look at the idea as "not profitable" or not catchy enough because of this. cool concept but i think it would be a while before it caught on...
fact: microsoft > linux
I think almost none of the comments here are looking at the big picture. There _IS_ a very large new concept here, and that is that an MMORPG can have an economy, and a currency, with a GDP, and with a real exchange rate.
This is sorta the case for Project Entropia.
To a degree this exists whether the company endorses it as in Entropia, or forbids it as in Everquest. Obviously, this calls for monetary tracking, for employing professional finance personel, treating game money with the same severity and same law enforcement as real money in real banks is treated, a "Central Bank" to set an interest rate, etc.
But the real issue nobody mentioned is this:
THIS IS STILL A CLOSED ECONOMY.
For every dollar someone makes, another player loses it. Loses more than that dollar actually, because the company operating the MMORPG also needs to draw revenue.
The BIG question, and if anyone of you slashdotters can answer it he might just be the bizillionaire of tomorrow, is how to convert this into an open economy. In English, how to make your cyberspace export. Or rather, not how, but WHAT.
If you can make foreign money flow in, export some service people are willing to pay hard coin for, theoretically, everyone down to the last player and operating company can actually profit financially from participating in the world.
And since I came to it, and I don't intend to become said zillionaire, I'll give a shot at being a visionary:
Here's when this will really kick in: When we will have, I'm guessing, a couple of decades down the road, Neural linking tech.
When you'll get trashed in a car accident, and find yourself a paraplegic, or missing 4 limbs, or having all but your brain dead. Then you'd be offered to live in a jar, but to experience life in something similar to an MMORPG. Probbably closer to the SIMS than to UO. And since you won't have the option of living outside, you'd be able to create as much intelectual property as you like inside this world. And THAT is when these worlds will be able to export their product (the IP) and.. become real economies.
-- Leshotim Nitna Hanevua (ancient hebrew proverb)
-
project entropia already does this
not to mention magic: online, where you build your online deck with real money, and can trade cards to other players for real money (which did have a duping bug)
also richard garriot has strongly hinted that this will be a feature in 'tabula rasa', his pseudo-announced next massmog.
this is not a new concept.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Once the monetary link is established then there can also be civil or legal actions taken for damage of "Personal" property. I can only imagine how long it will be until a lawsuit is introduced that someone through maliciousness or negligence destroys someones Property (i.e. character or a characters stuff)
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
You all seem to be missing the point. I keep seeing over and over how you say that the rich people would have teh l33t characters. Only problem is nobody would buy the stuff these people are selling because nobody would be there to play the game, they would all just be tryin to make some money. If you suddenly made it legal and even encouraged players to sell in-game items suddenly everybody would be selling and there would be nobody to buy. Then again what do I know?
Trust Your Technolust
www.projectentropia.com They already use this model, they take 5% exchange rate each way, and they decay all of their weapons. Now if their gameplay didn't suck so bad (tons of lag etc.) it would be really fun, as it is, well..
Within the arms of tragedy, there is little comfort in being right.
Is there an economically viable idea here? Yes - see Magic the Gathering Online - people are willing to shell out real money for unreal versions of the same items sold on real cardboard.
.com MMRPG for a living.
Will MMRPG maintanance turn into suit-and-tie work with as many lawyers and and accountants protecting as technical staff? Yes - this will be like anything else in the world - where concerns over ownership and liability rise to overshadow the actual work being sold.
But would I ever want to play in such a world? No. RPGs I enjoy are a blank slate where everyone starts equal no matter what their real world background. For me, they are a frontier fantasy more than a hack-and-slash fantasy. Once the frontier is settled and the normal inequalities of the real world take over, the whole enjoyment for me in being there is gone.
I'd rather make my money in the real world doing real work. Well, except that my real work is spent on a network doing virtual grunt work for people I'll never meet. I play the
Guys, this is economics 101. The game is a market. It has supply and demand. It just makes sense. If you don't see how this works, I suggest you make a trip to your local book store and pick up a book that describes basic economics.
And, for those of you who think that "time" is the great equalizer. Think again! Last time I checked, many people value time and money equally. To break it down simply, there are really four segments of the time/money equation. Below are each of those segments, with a description of how MMOG business models "should" value them;
1. Those with More Time Than Money
Clearly this is how the majority of MMOG's are designed, with the exception of Project Entropia, which did a very poor job bringing the concept of the Time/Money equation to market, and is a crappy game to boot. This segment is most likely the largest segment, so not such a bad idea to focus on this segment. Although, it's still just a piece of the a much larger market.
2. Those with More Money Than Time
I believe there are many more folks in this segment than most game developers want to accept. According to the "Take-Two" (that's a public game publisher) proxy statement, the average gammer age is 28, which includes the casual and hardcore gamers. It's safe to assume that the average gammer age for MMOG's is a few years more, as these games are played by the more sophisticated and non-casual gammer. These are the people who grew up in the Atari/Commodore personal computer era, and are considered to be a more sophisticated gammer. Additional, people in their late 20's early 30's are more likely to have a job, and more likely to have more disposable income. But, most of them are struggling with time. The folks earning more money, obviously work for it, and work takes time. And generally, the more time you spend working, the more money you make. Hence the logic for why they value time the same as money. And ultimately, these people are willing to part with money to keep up with those gamers defined in segment 1 above. (Marvin, your conjecture of the gammer with money not understanding how to use items that they purchase, is not even remotely accurate. Remember, these people value time the same as money, so they won't frivolously make purchases, just like someone with time won't frivolously spend time.)
3. Those with Time & Money
Couldn't we all be this lucky! There are very few people in this segment. And for some reason, every time this subject is discussed, time advocates lump everyone with disposable income in this category. Since this is small group, we don't have to concern ourselves too much about this segment. It's safe to assume that they will be right along side those who play the games 24/7 (God bless them). So, there will be a nice balance between the very wealthy, and the very addicted.
4. Those without Time or Money
These folks can't pay subscription fees. So, unfortunately there isn't much we can do about them.
In conclusion, it is pretty clear that the merger of a virtual and real-world economies will increase the MMOG gaming population by creating a much more level playing field for all those interested. This will result in greater player competition (which I see as very positive), and more real-world revenue that will benefit the MMOG developers/publishers and possibly even the player. There is much more to be said about player income, but it's rather complicated, and I am running out of time. =) And just to make sure I have the arguments covered here, just because it makes sense that MMOG's incorporate real-world economics, doesn't mean the game will not be fun to play. While game design and playability may relate slightly, it is mostly an autonomous concept. So, lets try hard not to be confused by this.
-Drew
"What I have written, I have written." - Pontius Pilate
This is a terrible idea. When real money is involved and traded back & forth between players, they then have to keep better track of the users & as soon as someone gets cheated or thinks they get ripped off (or act like they get ripped off, or hacked) there will be a lawsuit of some kind.
Leave the Fantasy in the Fantasy world, leave the real money in the real world.
Any one else paly/remember "Gemstone III"?
It was a text-based java applet mmorpg I briefly played six or seven years ago. They seeded special 'gemstones' into the treasure drop that could be exchanged for real gemstones.
Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. ~A. Perlis
I had remembered seeing this on /. before, and *knew* that somebody had already implemented the ideas outlined in this article, but couldn't think of the name for the life of me. Odd that it took this long for somebody to post it!
In some form this has just happened. Europe's VAT just went into effect on the subscriptions of the European players of "The Sims Online".
-antimuon
This is just a blindingly cool idea.
Sell modpoints! That's the stuff that matters. =)