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."

Comments

Um, try again?

[nathan s]

From the article:

Let us take for example you invite your friend and myself to your house to play Monopoly . I land on park place and buy it. Your friend then lands on Boardwalk. I offer your friend 5 real life dollars to sell Boardwalk to me, and he does. I now have an in game advantage. Does this behavior undermine the spirit of the game?

PR MOUTHPIECE: I THINK YOU'RE REACHING A BIT WITH THIS ANALOGY. THE SECONDARY MARKET FOR MOG IS A YOUNG PHENOMENON AND ALWAYS EVOLVING, WHICH LEAVES IT OPEN TO A LOT OF DEBATE AND DISCUSSION. HOWEVER, YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT BLATANT CHEATING, WHICH IS NOT WHAT THE SECONDARY MARKET IS ABOUT, IN A GAME THAT IN NO WAY MIRRORS AN MOG. WE COULD GO ROUND AND ROUND ON THIS BUT I THINK STEVE HAS STATED HIS THOUGHTS PRETTY CLEARLY.

Am I the only one who doesn't see a difference between paying $5 for Boardwalk and $5 for that +5 Mega Item of Doom to complete my Doom Set of Items?

I think that it's cheating, and I also think the PR person knows it. The only way this would be fair is if it was allowed only on servers where players would know going in that it was being done.