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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."
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.
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.
"Wherever you go, there you are."
Or what if teams started paying money to get better players? Then the team with the most money would win!
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.