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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.
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.
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.
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.