Asheron's Call Bans eBay Housing, Account Sales

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an official Asheron's Call forum post mentioning that "Turbine has notified eBay to remove auction listings for the sale of Asheron's Call accounts/characters and in-game housing." This move, similar to Sony's ban on EverQuest item selling on eBay which debuted back in 2001, comes after Turbine's purchasing of Asheron's Call back from Microsoft, and it's explained: "Many housing auctions are run by brokers who deprive players from being able to acquire housing through legitimate in-game means; many account sales end up being recalled by the original player, causing grief to the buyer and creating a difficult situation for customer service."

Comments

Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I find it stupid to pay real money for items in an MMORPG (or even full retail price for a disc that's useless without a monthly fee, but that's another rant), I don't see this stopping item auctions at all, just driving them to multiple lesser-known eBay knockoffs.

Bad move - makes the market less transparent

[MBraynard]

Houses and accounts will still be sold, they just won't be done in an open, accessible way. The economics of the market will be tremendously less efficient and more open to fraud (as Ebay at least makes it a little less likely with seller ratings, etc.)

Though maybe it won't be that bad. There are other venues (playerauctions, etc.) that will be publicly available.

GREAT Move - makes the market less transparent

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

And if the transaction takes on a more caveat emptor flavor, LESS sales will be going on. Yes it will still happen, but there will be less of it. More of the people who are ruining housing for legitimate players will suffer, and less of the legitimate players will.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

Re:GREAT Move - makes the market less transparent

[MBraynard]

No. If you have a house or an account and you want to sell it, you still can. So you wind up selling it to your friend or someone you trust already in your allegiance or something, and the person who does not have these kinds of connections is left out. At least with Ebay they could compete.

Re:GREAT Move - makes the market less transparent

[MojoMonkey]

the person who does not have these kinds of connections is left out.

These games are getting more and more realistic every day.

Re:GREAT Move - makes the market less transparent

[sweetooth]

Here's the problem. When accounts are sold on Ebay they can later be "recalled" by the original owner. This has happened quite a few times. Basically even though the account information is given to the new owner and the new owner updates the subscription/billing information, the new owner can get the account back at any time. They simply call up MS/Turbine and tell them the cd-key and credit card information the account was originally created with. The password is then reset and the original owner has their account back. The new owner has no rights as far as MS/Turbine are concerned as their purchase of the account was prohibited by the AuP and therefor not valid. This type of thing has been reported repeatedly on the varoius AC forums over the years and if nothing else Turbine is reducing their support costs by actually enforcing the policy and making it known they will be actively enforcing it now.

The other issue is that selling items on ebay is strictly against the code of conduct and acceptable use policies for this game. That makes buying/selling items on ebay no differant from cheating by taking advantage of an exploit (item duping whatever). Taking the trade/sale of in game items outside of the game leaves out people that aren't stupid enough to pay real money for virtual items and that are unwilling to violate those rules. The point of the MMOG is to create a virtual world, in most worlds you would expect to find a thriving barter system. Hopefully this will further reduce the out of game sales to those that are very determined and level the playing field in the game so that to have the best items you don't have to have the most disposable income outside the game world.

In the case of Asheron's Call Turbine is now able to enforce the rules that have been in place since the game was released and Microsoft chose to ignore. This isn't/shouldn't be surprising for anyone that actually bothered to read the AuP or CoC when they signed up for the game.

About time

[cyberlync]

Its about time this happened. A very small minority of players where using bots and various other means to snap up housing before regular players could get to it. They would then sell these houses on ebay. Its gotten to the point that there is no way for a non-bot using player to compete with these 'brokers' . For the last several months at least the only way to get a house was to buy it from these jerks. Needless to say I do not have a house

Re:About time

[Cecil]

Sounds like a problem with the design of the house-buying system, not a problem with eBay sales. This is the kind of misguided band-aid solution that made me give up Asheron's Call in the first place. "Oh no, everyone is trying to get GSA instead of checking out the pointless new greaves we added in this update! There's only one way to fix this: Let's make GSA suck so they don't want it anymore!"

When will we see companies selling virtual items?

[JavaLord]

Sale of MMORPG Items on Ebay is commonplace. The question is, will a company ever embrace the real world value of the items and sell them themselves? Sony could probably make a killing selling Jedi accouts for $1000 a piece to casual gamers who don't have 200 hours to waste on becoming a Jedi. The question is, would it put off gamers who don't have the money for a uber account, or would it attract more casual gamers to the game?

Re:Bogus

[SuperMo0]

However, these privileges are things that you are supposed to work for months to get, and in turn paying the company who made the game multiple months' worth of fees to do so. By paying someone else for the privilege/house/item/whatever, you bypass the monthly fee and the work involved and, by doing so, rob indirectly the game maker of some of their money. This is their rationale behind it, and it's a damn good one. People doing things like this ruin the in-game economy, because instead of "How much gold does that item cost"? It's "How much $$ does it cost?"

I can fly

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

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

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

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

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

Re:When will we see companies selling virtual item

[Gio Angles]

"Ok, am I the only one who sees the problem with this logic? What "casual gamer" would spend $1000 on such a thing? When I think casual gamer, I think of someone who debates whether spending $49 on a new game is worth it."

"Casual gamer" usually refers to someone that has a mild interest in gaming, but it can also refer to someone that doesn't have the time to devote 2-3 hours/day for gaming. It was much easier to find playing time before I worked full-time, and it took another hit after I got married. As much as I'd love to play for six hours straight, it just isn't possible for me anymore.

I'm exactly the type of player that those e-Bay auctions are targeting. Hardcore gamers with good paying jobs (that get even better with overtime!), and never enough time to play. Lucky for me, I got over my MMORPG addiction (Ultima Online), and I haven't allowed myself to get sucked into any of the newer ones.

I have nothing against buying resources, housing, in-game items, or even advanced characters because for the most part, getting these items yourself involves "work". Of course, there's some satisfaction in working towards gaining these skills/items/money for yourself, but for the most part, the game requires you to endlessly repeat a tedious, boring activity until you're sufficiently skilled or rich enough to start having fun.

The truth is, many aspects of skill or resource gathering are less like "gaming" and more like "work". Sometimes it's possible to macro skills and leave it running during non-gaming hours, but in my experience, you need to be at least semi-active in the game.

If I'm getting zero enjoyment out of resource gathering, I'm not going to want to waste my ever precious gaming time on "work", especially since the typical MMORPG requires several hours of it to get anywhere. As to whether I'd consider buying in-game currency on e-Bay, it all boils down to choosing the option that involves the least amount of work for me.

My job is a relatively comfortable one, so working overtime isn't much of an inconvenience, especially since my hourly rate jumps an extra 50%.

Let's say I want to buy something that will greatly increase my enjoyment of the game, and it'll cost me X amount of resources. If it takes me three hours to accumulate X amount of resources in-game, but only 30 minutes worth of RL overtime to cover the cost of buying it on e-Bay, I'd PayPal that money in a heartbeat. It doesn't even have to be overtime, since I budget a certain amount of my income for entertainment anyways, but either way, it's a more effective use of my time than grinding it out in-game.

If I was barely making ends meet working a minimum wage job, then obviously I wouldn't be in a position to spend the rent money on anything gaming-related. Likewise, if I was making 150k a year, I probably wouldn't mind dropping $1,000 for an account that would take me 200 hours to make, assuming it's a game that I'm very interested in playing long-term.

Sounds like we need to coin a new term for hard-core gamers with little time to devote to games. Considering the latest demographic surveys, I can't be the only one like this.

Re:Bogus

[Gio Angles]

However, these privileges are things that you are supposed to work for months to get, and in turn paying the company who made the game multiple months' worth of fees to do so. By paying someone else for the privilege/house/item/whatever, you bypass the monthly fee and the work involved and, by doing so, rob indirectly the game maker of some of their money.

The in-game work involved doesn't get avoided because the seller has to acquire it from the game before he can sell it.

Right now, you can buy 1 million SWG credits for $15-20, depending on the server. In a sense, you're not buying the credits. You're paying for the time it took that person to accumulate those credits, and the convenience they provide in delivering them to you, in-game.

It's more like paying for a service than for an actual good.