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President of MMOG Currency Seller Grilled
Garthilk writes "When I first saw the interviews with IGE's President on Gamespy and OGaming, I was disappointed. Where were the difficult questions? I got to thinking that an average gamer could try to ask the hard questions. I emailed the folks at IGE and to my surprise, they agreed to conduct an email Q&A. Not soon after sending off my questions I received
some replies. Unfortunately, some of the answers
were not to questions I sent, so I sent some follow up questions as well. To my even greater surprise, the follow up questions were answered as well.
Here is my interview, perhaps it's best to leave the journalism to the professionals."
OR when they create a game where the only ingame commodity is ingame skill. PLanetside did a good job of leveraging this against time-spent ingame. It balanced beause even if you had no twitch skill, you could still have a roll, like engineer or medic.
Actually, according to the rules of Monopoly:
Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities (but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction for any amount that the owner can get.
Paying $5 in real money seems legal. Or, if you want to get all pedantic, giving the person $5 and then, in a totally separate transaction, him giving you Park Place for $0 in game money.
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Yeah, ok, so that's not such a great rebuttal. Though yours was a decent one, I find it amusing the analogies people come up with to try to describe this sort of thing as they see it.
My take on all of this is that various publishers/developers should just make an official statement of their stance on this up front. Then the consumer can use that as part of their basis on whether or not they want that game. If you disagree with their policy and you feel strong enough about it, then don't play the game; if you only sort of disagree, then you can just suck it up and play it anyways.
Legally speaking, I'm sure any company can cover themselves by stating that they will not regulate such things, and will not be held responsible for in-game loss. That's why they pay their legal departments, anyways. Include a caveat about how they reserve the right to regulate any behaviour that is/would impede in a substantial manner the enjoyment of the game by others, and you're set. I'm sure I'm missing a point or two, but then again, I'm not a lawyer, just some random gamer.
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If the PR group were smart, they would have had their legal department coach Mr. Salyer against saying certain things that had legal ramifications -- rather than inserting obvious PR crud. Steve could have just said "There's serious legal implications to that, and I think I'm going to have to skip that one." This is a common thing to do. Quite sad when they can't even be professional enough to speak with one company voice.
It's all well and good for IGE to market their "services" as people paying for the time spent in earning the items/money involved, but this isn't exactly creating a "new market".
Sure, you can till your own field and grow your own potatoes, but not many of us have the resources to do that, and so we buy potatoes from the store. Farmers and grocers are providing a service to us.
What IGE does is akin to squatting on your farm and growing potatoes there. If you're already using the land, they'll just take your potatoes. If you aren't, then you weren't missing the land anyway. And then they proceed to sell back your own potatoes to you, under the premise that "you weren't growing them anyway".
For some people, sure, they are providing a service. But all they're really doing is effectively holding the in-game services for ransom, which deprives those whom choose not to pay IGE the opportunity to acquire said riches.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Several reasons why this isn't a good idea: A) if you grant legal property rights to junk in games, then you subject your company, which maintains the servers, to all kinds of legal nonsense. Nerf a weapon? someone files a lawsuit. Add a new weapon? Someone files a lawsuit because their weapon was de facto nerfed. Basically, you resign all control over the game balance, and you lose customers.
B) If you ignore that, companies have the ability to print money and sell it. And if they engage in it directly (a la "there"), nobody's going to be interested. Playing a game that can be "bought" is simply no fun. It might work for certain "religions", but the rest of us just don't like the idea.
So tacit collaboration helps everybody. No need to advertise it, but you cut a deal with a company like IGE, and everybody benefits.
Of course, the real problem would be a game design that rewards tedious menial labour. The game itself should be rewarding, not the prestige gained from doing crap simpler than flipping burgers.
Now, if you're running a virtual currency, and you're looking to keep the power in the hands of producers (and not hoarders), may I suggest a solution from the Federal Prison system?
Establish two currencies: 20 dollar bills and cigarettes are traiditional, but you can use Quatloons and Augustan Denarii if you prefer. At regular intervals, change the exchange rates from 2:1 to 1:2, and back: and make sure that no vendor takes both currencies.
If you want to have some BS magic devices, have their efficacy follow similar cycles.
I wasn't talking about cost of entry (there is a cost to buy a Monopoly board and it is greater than zero) and you know it.
Uh, of course I know it; that's why I brought it up! You weren't offering a parity example, so I helped you out. If you're upset that that you picked a bad example, don't blame me. As for Monopoly costing money, again, a parity relationship is that the game is a "server" that can host 6 (or whatever the recommend max is for Monopoly) "clients". To play on a server, I don't necessarily have to pay money, but if I do (which is the case for every MMORPG I can think of) then that establishes an exchange rate between game currency and other, "real" currency.
I have no problems with everyone paying the same basic fee to play.
Then I don't get your complaint. Everyone is paying the same fee to play. It's just that some people are paying other people for time they've already spent in the game. Instead of maintaining my own garden, I get fruits and vegetables from the store. Am I likewise cheating at real life because I'm paying someone else for farming instead of farming myself?
However, I don't really consider it fair that Joe Rich Kid who doesn't work gets to buy his items and go around being an ass to the newbies who played the game without resorting to a secondary (and usually against the rules of the game) market.
That makes no sense. Why are you concerned with exactly how someone in-game gets an item? As George Carlin said about prostitution: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?" For the parity issue, why do you resent a rich guy paying for something when the game allows him to be given the same thing for free? Why shouldn't the guy you consider a loser be allowed to charge for the time and effort required to get that item?
Again, that whole "everyone is cheating" thing is a nice attempt to distract from the real issue here, but then you don't really have anything useful to add in your post so I'm not particularly surprised that you had to invent something.
If by "invent something" you mean "present a sound argument you are unable to refute", then I understand your "distraction". The basic fact is that money and time are both flowing into the game. That creates an economy just as sure as if you invested that time and money in a business in some other foreign land. It's understandable, if short-sighted, that the "ruler of the land" (i.e., the game company) is trying to lock everyone into an import-only economy, but there is value in trade and it is foolish to export nothing.
That way, Sam Highschool Kid who worked at minimum wage for 10 hours to play the damn game isn't stuck getting raped by the aforementioned Joe Rich Kid who just bought his way to the top.
You seem to mistakenly think that external money is somehow creating something that doesn't exist in the game. For JRK to do any raping, someone would have already had the items to sell! Without the secondary market, SHK would instead be raped by someone good enough to earn those items, so it'd actually be more brutal than what JRK could do. If you stopped to actually think about it you'd see that the secondary market actually helps equalize power in the game.
I'm not even sure why I bothered to explain this. If you don't get it, try reading again.
I assure you I "get it". The problem is that your argument is a poor one, and you refuse to admit your mistake. So, please, do not bother trying to further explain your current misguided viewpoint. Adopt a smarter viewpoint instead.
The Monopoly analogy is spot on, AFAICS. MMORPGs provide enough factors that addicted gamers can come up with arguments to convince themselves that what they're doing isn't like buying Boardwalk.
To me it seems like Magic:The Gathering. I was addicted to that for a long time and spent far too much money on cards (can't have a Blue/Red Direct Damage/Jitsu deck without Jokalhaups, Iceberg and a bunch of other rares). You can avoid the problems, but in an open competition the guy with the most expensive deck wins. I fudged the issue for ages, justifying all the money I spent on booster packs and cards.
In a small group of friends, you can play controlled tournaments, with limits on cards or random cards so money doesn't come into it. But go out into the wider world and you can't do that any more. Eventually I realised that I was only doing it because I was addicted, and gave all my cards away (and yes, I do regret giving away my multiple tournament winning, very expensive main deck for free *now*, but at the time it made sense).
Doesn't it cheapen the game and reduce the impact of skill if any PvP or vaguely competitive aspect of the game can be decided by the fact that one player can afford to buy a sword of death+10?
Don't get me started on the fact that people play games that AFK macros can play for them, and so boring that they'd pay to have someone else play for them.
Intelligent argument, but this doesn't justify the violation of TOS that those people are doing in many games.
If the TOS says that an alternate market is illegal, guess what.
IS CHEATING.
No matter how many economic theories or legal subtleties you throw around.
But why not a secondary market in services? Stop selling stuff because you don't own the stuff anyway (if you believe the publishers). On the other hand, nobody owns your time. There's no reason you, either as an individual or agent of a corporate entity, can't use your time to help out another player for pay. You've paid your subscription, you're following the EULA, no cheating is involved, nothing is being done that couldn't be done for free without breaking any terms of service.
Some examples:
- Corpse Retrieval- lost your soul/corpse/shard/whatever in a skeery dungeon right next to the uberunderlord? We'll dispatch a Level 99 Brawnmeister to escort you safely to it and back to the newbie yard.
- Tour Guide- Want to see all the cool sights in the game? We'll provide you with safe escort.
- Quest help - Last quest item near a mob that's just to uber for you? We'll get you help.
- Group help - Tired of fellow players who jack your groups, can't play their class, act like idiots, get your character killed? Need just one more character to round out your group? We'll send out 2,3, as many characters as needed to get the job done. You get the exp, you get the loot, we fight for you (to the "death," if that's what it takes to get your quest done and keep your character safe)
- Entertainment - Are you lonely? Need someone to "keep you company" in the Owerly Inn? We'll send a member of the race/gender/alignment of your choice to a location where you can "converse" in private.
- Match Making - Need to hook up with someone who has similar likes and dislikes both in-game and RL? Take our Xanthian Compatibility Survey and we'll find the right troll for you!
All the controversy goes away because the secondary market company becomes a broker for services, not items. No more question of who owns in-game geld/items/whatever. It's no different than paying someone to help you mow the lawn.Note: My exposure to MMORPG-ing is limited to EverQuest 2; do your own mental translation to the MOG of your choice.