MMOG Economies Examined

Overanalyzed.com has an interesting (short) piece up on the Economy of World of Warcraft, discussing the way that goods and money flow into and out of player's hands. Commentary is available at Terra Nova. From the article: "Let me preface this by saying that I personally approach MMOs in a different way than most people. While most play for personal enjoyment, I come to them looking to make money. Obviously, while I do still enjoy the time I spend playing the games, I'm much more interested in crossing the boundary and selling my expertise and services in game for real life money."

Comments

So basically...

[Cyclone66]

...he's admitting to violating the WoW terms of service by selling items/gold for money?

Re:So basically...

[Moby-One GNUbie]

Yeah that's what it sounds like. I posted a "burn in hell" comment that is likely to be deleted, but it doesn't matter.

This guy is a professional capitalist; out to make a buck apparently regardless of ethics or consideration for others. I hope I meet him on a PvP server some day.

Basically his statements on the economy in his responding comments essentially lead me to this conclusion:

Isolated economies in games are bound to be destroyed because people have excess wealth outside the game and means of transferring that wealth in game.

Yeah, I can see that. What I don't understand is why people don't understand that this is a game and should be treated as such. This is an opportunity for people without excess loot in the real world to compete based on their merits. That is what it is designed to do. If you don't like that, go to Second Life or another game which permits trading.

Don't invade the realms where the rules say you can't do that. We're happy with those rules and cheer Blizzard and other companies who back us up and enforce them.

Boo Hoo

[jxa00]

So after having failed as a day trader this guy wants to make a living on selling items / trading currency guy on the latest MMPORG. He is pissed because Blizzard are aggressively shutting down the Ebay auctions.

Ignoring the IP/Ownership issues, I have little sympathy for him. First and foremost it is meant to be a game, not a method for you to make a living. Why doesn't he go grind Lineage II or FF where this seems to be tolerated by the devs? (Though I understand FF has been cracking down on this a bit lately - maybe due to the arrival of WoW?)

I think you can go ahead and argue the legalities of who owns what and whether they have the right to sell it all you want but if I was paying to play this game, the last thing I would want in it is a legion of professional grinders/sellers spamming the chat channels.

Lastly, there have been a number of informative posts in games.slashdot over the last month or two describing what what effect the "gil sellers" in FF have had - camping items 24/7 basically monopolising level advancement to a certain point in the game. Fuck that.

Re:Boo Hoo

[medeii]

Dude, you didn't even READ the article. The author talks more about economic theory than anything else, and his discussions on the topic are both cogent and coherent. It's not players that make economies inflate -- it's the developers not balancing the game correctly.

Taking FFXI into account, as you mention: there are crafting recipes that generate more G when the finished product is sold to an NPC, than requires to make them. With an ever-increasing money supply like that, inflation is INEVITABLE. That's the article's point, and it's NOT whining about his eBay auctions.

No... Wrong..

[BrookHarty]

I am an attorney.

The EULA is a contract. Contracts are binding. If you agree not to trade currency to play the game, that commitment is enforceable. Therefore, companies have the right to block trading of their currency because it violates a legally enforceable agreement.

Contracts are flexible, and can change due to current legal conditions. Saying Contracts are like cement and never change is incorrect, they can be changed due to outside factors, missing conditions, or even if the contract was forced without consent.

Also, EULA's have not been proven to be a binding contacts, since its one side saying you agree without your consent. A contract is mulitple parties agreeing, an EULA is forced consent.

And before you say "Well you can walk away", No, you bought a product, then the contract comes into existence after the sale. There are lots of ways to get out of EULA's and forced contracts using this pay first, agree later contract. Paying for the product means you already had a binding agreement.

The whole IP copyright fiasco and copyright limits is a bundle of crap that is hurting everyone.

I clearly did read the article!

[@madeus]

If you had taken the time to RTFA you would have seen that it is a rather insightful analysis of MMO economies with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of WoW's.

If you'd read my post (and the article more clearly) you would clearly see that I have and understood it and that it has a nod towards some elements of merit. How on earth do you imagine I managed to pull quotes and make references to it if I hadn't read it?

It's not purely some act of innocent reseach he's doing here. Anyone who thinks that has not really read and understood the article.

He makes it quite clear he has made money selling items from EVE as well and has done this to earn a living, and has even tried to make a living at day trading. He is NOT merely commenting or researching this topic, he's someone actively exploiting the system for his own benifit, but who also happens to be posting his experiences of doing so (and note his disgruntled tone at having his ebay auctions torn down).

I've also pointed out that you don't need to actually sell items to see what they are worth (because exchange rates are posted in numerous places and can be garned from ebay too, which shows how much people are actually paying for items).

I reject the 'Winnower Rider' defence ("I'm not not shoplifing, I'm just researching for a part"), he has has freedly admitted to doing this in order to make personally profit, and he's made it very clear that is a direct goal of his - and that he is doing this material reasons, not the lofty goals of academic research into on line economies.

I suggest you re-read the article and judge it's tone more clearly.

Re:Here comes a flamebait mod, but still...

[blahplusplus]

Buying items saves time for people to do other things. Think about it, if I'm rich do I really want to spend hours grinding in a game to get the best weapons, or do I spend my excessive wealth on ways to skip the boring parts of the game to experience the best parts with the best stuff?

There are always people who have the means and will pay for it. There are over a million rich people and I'm sure there are plenty of middle class people who work regular hours who dont have time to sink into MMO's and are willing to pay for in game items, they probably make more in a week or month then it would cost them to spend real world hours playing the game anyway. Think about it.

I dont think people buying in game items is moronic. It's just another way of buying time for yourself to do other things then sit in front of a screen for hours on end where the designers of the game have drawn out the tasks and jobs in the game to try to keep players hooked for months.