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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."
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Providing cash incentives to pursue exploits is one reason why this is a bad idea. You'd get much more hacking/cheating in a game if people were not only profiting in game-world but real-world also (and it would be 'legal', well, I doubt anyone would go to jail over it at least, just get their game account banned).
As someone points out down-thread, what little role playing goes on would be further reduced as people focused on the game-as-gateway-to-real-world-(money) as opposed to game-as-gateway-to-fantasy-world.
However. If you had a nearly hack-proof game (impossible?) and if you had some kind of (nearly magic) game balancing that rewards role playing in terms that could come out as cash (some kind of role playing moderation points system?) then, well, how @#%(*&)! exciting would it be if you finally kill that boss mob you've been working on for a week and low and behold, he drops a diamond worth $50 on ebay (presuming it's not so 1337 you just want to keep it for your character). This would add some of the gambling-adrenaline rush and would be really, really fun. PVP that could cost you cash? I mean, if and when video games combine with the fun/(addictive) elements of gambling god save me and my kind.
But mostly it's a bad idea. Imagine, if you will, what would happen to slashdot if karma points could be traded for cash on ebay?
closed minded is as closed minded does
. 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?