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Virtual Farming Firsthand
This past weekend we discussed virtual sweatshops, and the legal issues they bring up. Today Terra Nova has a discussion in which Julian Dibbell, noted VW economics researcher, asks do such things really exist? Firsthand experiences would seem to indicate they do, with extensive chat logs (via Broken Toys) and the experiences of players documenting farming behavior.
I saw one guy on two games: AO and DAOC, selling what amounts to 100 player loads of items. But here's the catch, no one was mature(leveled up) enough to get to the level to sell even 1 player load at the time. Also, everyone else was being banned. So somehow one dude is able to evade detection with his 4 pages of gold selling, while everyone else gets banned within 2 hours of their post. This was about 2 years ago, but there is no doubt in my mind the MMORPG companies were teaming with this guy to sell extra gold. I found out the company would be in the position to make $100,000 a month of the endevour. At the time there was also the philosophy prevailing for companies to spoil the ebay markets by flooding them with loot. I sold lots of stuff in the past, and I have tales of awesomeness and pain. 100$/hr is awesome, losing your apartment, fiancee, and flunking school out because Everquest bans you for selling Asheron Call cheats is pain. But theres degrees within.
God spoke to me.
MMO Players have noticed and complained for months because of the game economies being ruined because of the sweat shops and whatnot... Or at least my MMO playing friends have, anyway.
Well in the real economy the goods are real. There are also a lot of other differences between real economies and most virtual ones.
In the virtual economy, usually goods and currency are introduced into the economy through a chance of dropping every time a monster is killed. The supply of items and currency is determined by how many monsters are being killed. Very valuable items are dropped from monsters that may take twelve hours or more to reappear after they are killed. Currency is much easier to obtain since all monsters drop currency or something that can be exchanged for currency and since lower monsters reappear shortly after they are killed the supply of currency is determined by how much time players are willing to put into farming monsters.
With the supply of highly desired items being more or less constant having people farming for currency to sell for real money causes severe inflation. Players with currency they farmed using multiple accounts and such or players who bought currency with real money are willing to pay exorbitant prices for valuable items. Other players are left behind and feel frustrated that they have to work to get things they want while others pay real money for them. If this gets bad enough, you'll see players leaving in droves.
Barring changes to the economic model that these games use, people who farm virtual currency for a living reduce the value of the gameplay for others. Cash farmers tend to drive away more subscriptions than they bring in. I certainly have no intention of playing an MMORPG if the company that runs it is unwilling to do what it can to minimize the number of sales of virtual goods and currency for real currency.
The virtual goods have value attached to them regardless of the game companies recognizing them. The evidence is clear on this: ask players if he prefered to keep the items he has or loose them with no compensation. If only one of them opts to keep, the goods are actually valuable. But this is unecessary since ebay auction not only proove that people attach value to those things but also establish a price. Whenever there is a price there must be value.
The liability issues you mention probably come down to what is in the service contract. If nothing is there, the courts must decide the property status of such 'virtual' valuables.
On a side note: common property law is not a tool to preserve the market exchange rate (price) for ones possesion. Property rights only preserve the physical integrity of your property. In example: while it is valid to sue operators of a plant that opens near by because they pollute your grounds, it is futile to sue them because your estate has become worthless since no one wants to move in next to a factory.
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No power in the 'verse can stop me
what do you think gold economies are? They are, in fact, direct barter economies.
And there is nothing abitrary about gold (unlike paper money). The following properties make gold uniquely suitable as money:
- durability (it doesn't spoil, rust, break or tear, unlike paper )
- low weight (in relation to the other goods on the market, there is relativly few gold to go around, unlike paper)
- divisibility (gold does not have to be treated as a unit (unlike cars ie.), many small pieces are almost exaclty as useful as one larger piece, unlike paper)
- impossible to counterfeit ( as you noted, but I disagree that any paper money is)
- stable supply (very unlike paper)
- gold is a commodity serving real life purposes.
These factors combined increase its utility to a point where it was natural for people across the globe to accept gold as a universal medium of exchange. Paper money works differently: It must and always has been forced onto the populance. So the direction is reversed; universal (forced) acceptance preceded the little utility it has now. And the problems resulting from this are not to be ignored. Whereas drastic inflation of the gold supply only happend once in 5000 years, a lone mad statesman is enough to create inflation rates near infinity wreaking havoc on the economy. Also, don't underestimate the inflation tax. Realize that if you store 100 dollars in cash over 50 years, those 100 dollars won't buy you near the amount of goods you could have bought initially.
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No power in the 'verse can stop me
Some players are morally offended by the idea that their "fun" is being corrupted, and regardless of whether you think they're hypocrites, off balance, or whatever, their $15 a month is as green as everyone else's and they will gladly take it elsewhere. Most developers think that this segment of their playerbase buys more months of service than the "farming community", and they're likely correct.
Yeah but the funny part is this segment of their playerbase is often a part of guilds/clans who screw the economy up and screw solo'ers time up by giving insane amounts of gold/items to their low level guildmates. I've run into people in World of Warcraft who were decked out in equipment and bragged about having 5GP's at level 10. I of course asked how they got it, and I got "My guildmate gave it to me!"
I don't see any way to prevent people from having their "fun" corrupted. The people buying on E-Bay are no different from the ones who get good equipment/gold from their clanmates at low levels.