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MMOG Currency Seller Owns Media Network ?
Ogaming is a hub site much like Warcry, with a sub-site about most of the major Massively Multiplayer Games out there. Some enterprising /whois work by the original author of the WowCensus thread led him to realize that OGaming was registered with the same street address used for IGE's New York Office. OGaming's registration information was updated on the 10th, and now displays the name and address of a proxy registration service. Further damning is the thought that at one point a page on the Ogaming site claimed to own Thottbot.com, a universally respected and utilized tool for World of Warcraft in-game information.
The page that once claimed this (an advertising page) is now blank, with the words "under construction" displayed there. The Internet Archive's last update for ogaming.com is this time last year, so there is no way to check on the authenticity of that claim. If it is true it's disquieting to say the least. Thottbot is a massive database of in-game quest, item, character, and drop frequency information. Thottbot's information was gained through the goodwill and work of World of Warcraft players. The popular UI enhancement, Cosmos, included a plugin that sent information from the user's playing experience back to Thottbot. This included locations of enemies, the types of loot dropped, items the character had, and other specific details. While Thottbot claims to only keep information that is pertinent to other players, with the revelation that they may be owned by the disreputable IGE their trustworthiness is out the window.
This revelation didn't stay quiet for long, with MMOG sites CorpNews, Grimwell.com, and Allakhazam all creating discussions of their own about this weighty topic.
The authenticity of this story is hard to prove or disprove at this point, with the OGaming.com and Thottbot.com domains having a proxy listed under their contact information. But if it's hard to believe that IGE would go to the trouble of owning a media outlet and a popular plugin, think again. Garthilk writes "Cindy Bowens, community manager for Sigil Games online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, outlines their stance on secondary market items, and how they deal with IGE. Most interesting is the fact that IGE approached Sigil, and had offered to cut Sigil in on the revenue that IGE might make in the future."
Update: 02/15 20:07 GMT by Z : Drey pointed out in the comments that, at least for the time being, Google still has a cache of the page listing Thottbot as an Ogaming site.
Huh, I just re-read the interview to be sure, and it seemed to me that IGE was quite reasonable in their responses. Even the "PR mouthpiece" ones.
people with lots of real-world money can achieve in games what normally takes hard-working players a long time to accomplish.
Sad to say, but it sounds just like the real life. Replace "game" by "university" and you get one such example.So basically, people blame IGE for being just one more company servicing the "rich people"? I don't see any difference with what I see everyday in the capitalist world.
I don't see any difference with what I see everyday in the capitalist world.
And that is exactly why so many are opposed to IGE and other such operations. When you start blurring the line between game and reality, you lose a lot of what makes a virtual world so exciting to begin with. I want to play a game, not log into "DnD sponsored by EBay". IGE, farmers, sweatshops, etc. just suck all the fun out of the experience for me. Particularly when you're talking about an RPG, as most MMOs claim to be, introducing such real-world influences just corrupts the feel of the world. I mean, roleplaying doesn't have to mean using "thee" and "thou" all the time, but it seems to me that at a bare minimum, you would "play the role" of a character within a fantasy world. When that character starts making financial transactions with beings from another dimension, and when the finances of the player have more effect than the actions of the character, it just doesn't appeal to me anymore.
I haven't played a MMO since SWG first hit, so I'm just now gettting what Thottbot, IGN, etc is... but here's my question:
If paying real money for in-game items is cheating, then isn't using an out-of-game utlility to locate items in-game also cheating as well?
Both involve doing something out-of-game that affects what's in game... This seems to me like the pot calling the kettle black!
Obviously, since Thottbot is an add-on, not every player has it. So even though it's a free add-on, it still unfairly gives some players an advantage over other players, which is essentially what's being argued.
It is a problem only in part with IGE. From what I can tell, IGE is sort of like an item/money/account broker. Where they make their Real Life money from the transfer of In Game items/money/accounts. While IGE has claimed in the past that they don't employ others to retrieve the in game items, they certainly do facilitate the sale of these items no matter how they were obtained. In truth, it's the griefers who are the most noticable effect of the service that IGE provides.
Selling items outside the game should be OK.
I disagree because the world in game is affected directly by the amount of cash a player has outside the game. I see these types of games as closed systems where advancement comes with skill, and time invested.
It's more like buying all the food within a week's journey, and then selling it to people for outrageous prices. This is very immoral.
You're analogue is flawed, because
Actually, as a matter of fact, people do have the moral obligation of taking into account the consequences of their actions have on other people, and to try and minimize any negative effects. People who do not follow this obligation are called psychopaths (which, according to dictionary.com, means "A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse").
So yes, there is a moral obligation for them to allow you a chance to advance.
Furthermore, don't forget that they aren't just refusing to help you (which would be within their rights to do) - they are actively keeping you from advancing (which you could do just fine without their harassment), unless you pay them a certain amount. This is Mafia tactics.
"Trading items" and "creating an artifical shortage in supply by keeping anyone else from getting to the item just so you can sell it" are a bit different, don't you think ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.