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Blizzard Cracks Down on World of Warcraft Ebaying
Last Friday Blizzard put up a message on the World of Warcraft site stating that Ebaying of in-game items would not be tolerated. This is the first time a MMOG developer has come out of the gate with so strong a policy, and combined with their tough policy on hacking is a heartening sign that community infractions will be taken seriously. TerraNova has commentary on the development as well. From the article: "If they do [succeed], we might have to start thinking of World of Warcraft as the first of a new generation of virtual worlds. It may not seem all that different in terms of some design aspects, but if its war against eBayers succeeds, it will end up being very different in terms of atmosphere."
Answer: 80/20 rule. Stop the 20% sellers that sell 80% of the stuff and the problem becomes marginal and can probably be ignored. How can we live in society with murder and rape? We try to catch as many wrong-doers as we can and convince others that they have more to lose from breaking the rules than from obeying them. We can't eradicate crime, but we can try to control it.
I have maybe an hour to play each day at most. And Blizzard has specifically designed this game to be played by people who don't have that much time to devote to it. For example, the more time your character spends logged out and resting at an inn, the longer the amount of time that character will receive 200% of the normal XP given by quests, discoveries, and monsters. So I'm going to have to disagree with your argument.
Because of how they've balanced the game, I've managed to get to my 24th level already with as little as I've been playing. Sure, there are people that are already at level 40, but it's not a grind, and it's fun.
Besides, I feel my opinion is just as legitimate as yours given that i'm no "kid" either at my age.
And before you use the old fart argument, my guild leader is 55 years old. I'm only level 24, and he's level 41 even though we've both been playing since day one.
ebay, IGE, etc have trashed other MMORPG economies. There isn't any way to get it all. Most (I'm speaking from my experience with FFXI) won't do anything or very little to stop it because they don't want to lose a paying customer.
All Blizzard needs to do(and I hope they do):
-Sue a couple people ebaying money/items/characters.
-Kick about 200 or so accounts for trying to buy/sell to IGE.
-Threaten IGE with legal action and ask for a list of their customers/dealers (ban those accounts too).
This will put enough fear in your average player to being things to an acceptable level.
Oh, before anyone tries to say this is what the RIAA is doing - it's not. It might be if RIAA suing people for downloading an MP3, selling it to a web company, then sold to someone else marked up by 80%.
It might cost Blizzard some lawyer money and less in monthly reviews in the short term. In the long term they won't need to worry about players waiting for a new MMORPG with a fresh economy, and lack of high level ebay fuck-tards.
The problem is that the items that folks buy off of ebay have to come from somewhere. ...That means that when I (a casual player) enter the Tomb of Dread in search of the (Ultra Valuable) Short Sword of Uberness, there is already some clown standing ther waiting for it to drop. And when it does drop he'll log that character out and log in another character to wait for it to drop again.
and that spoils my gaming experience.
Hence I don't play MMOGS that support ebaying.
The problem is it sends them down a dark legal road where they admit items in game = real money.
Server goes down and characters are reset - somebody then sues Blizzard because they lost their possessions worth $4000; they also become responsible for losses due to scams, bugs, nerfs (hey my $2000 ubersword got nerfed and is now only worth $5), etc. It also changes the dynamic of the game from entertainment to profit.
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What's so bad about this?
Other than "It's not fair"
What's bad about this basically stems from what it means to be a "game" and not an extension of the real life economic market, and how the uncontrolled influence of real-world money into the picture destroys this separation.
For those of you who can't seem to follow the logical link from "it's not fair" to "it's wrong," think about the reasons why purchasing services from game players using real-world money leads inevitably to corruption and is not tolerated and strictly regulated in any game.
I strongly support Blizzard's attempt to keep World of Warcraft a place where people can continue to play and have fun without competing with sweatshop workers trying to make a living.