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Sony Online To Sell Virtual Property
OMG! writes "In an open letter to the community John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment, announced their new service 'the Station Exchange' which will allow players of Everquest II to trade their items for real live money.
Sony Online is the first major player in the MMORPG genre to embrace commercial trading of in-game items." Commentary available from all the usual suspects, including Wired, the Players, Terra Nova, F13, and Grimwell. This would seem to be a total reversal of the policies of certain other MMOGs.
Actually if you think about it, this is even better than software fees. Need money for the yearly employee bonus? Just make some pretend stuff out of thin air and sell as needed! Who said magic isn't real?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The things that go through SOE's collective heads... You know, murder is illegal, and people are still doing it all over. It's clogging up our court systems. How about we just make a state where you can murder whomever you want? We will just charge a special tax so we can make a profit off of it. If it just so happens to be your state that we decide to make murder legal in, it's ok, you can always move. You don't need your friends and family anyways.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
- Preventing people from hacking/gaming the system.
- Making sure it's all skill and not chance.
I'll wager that this is a fiasco. Oops, I mean I suspect it will be. No gambling allowed on Slashdot...Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
Hmm IANAL but if the player owns the items, wouldnt the company who runs Second Life be liable if the items are lost/deleted/whatever from server error?
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
Basically what they are saying is half their time is spent resolving issues from failed transactions so there are support cost savings in putting in an effective forsale/trade system. They won't be selling items themselves, only help facilitate the trade.
Personally I have no trouble with players selling virtual items but I would not support the company doing it. Players should have equal opportunity to get the same items with their monthly fee. But hey, I may be in the minority of people who only want to pay a monthly fee.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Not unexpected. They're already charging for every little possible extra feature they can think of.. may as well try to get a cut from all those ebay sales as well.
Sony's gone cash-nuts. Like a Cookie Monster and a bag of Oreos.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Think twice if you think this only affects the flagged "Exchange Servers." The big time farmers will continue to operate on the non Exchange Servers in violation of the TOS like they always have, possibly with less competition now.
If you were disappointed in EQII, check out this new game in development by the co-creator of EQ. It's shaping up to be everything EQII should have been. The FAQ (http://www.vanguardsoh.com/faq.php) is an interesting read and the forums are always frequented by the dev team, including Aradune! http://www.vanguardsoh.com/
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
I didn't RTFA but I'm guessing Sony gets a percentage cut of all items traded on the Station. And even if they don't, it's generating traffic and thus ad revenue.
I mean, WHOA! RIAA! Look at this! Somebody had customers doing illegal things with their property in violation of their license agreement and found a way to make a profit off it instead of sueing their own customers! What a novel friggen concept.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I wonder how people in the Sudan and Afghanistan would feel about this.... People trading imaginary commodities for enough cash to feed themseves for a more than year. This is very sad and an imbarrasment for the entire species when human life is literally worth less than someone's entertainment . Especailly when that entertainment is derived from a piss poor simulation of realty.
No matter where you go , there you are.
If people want to give real money to buy imaginary items, they should be able to do so. I wouldn't do it, because I don't see what value I would be getting, but if others feel differently, more power to them.
I am surprised that Sony is doing this, though, because they have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot with propriatery standards and a sometimes control-freakish mentality which makes some of their hardware less desireable than it would otherwise be.
It's almost like someone with a different (non-Sony) mindset approved this decision.
There are two issues with Sony actually doing something like this:
1) They are accepting responsibility for the value of in-game items. This might not seem like a big deal, but god forbid a server rollback takes a big-ticket item out of your inventory. Or worse, balance adjustments devalue rare/valuable items. How many lawsuits can you imagine will come from people who want to be reimbursed for their "virtual" property's market value? To be sure, the items in question are really just bits on a computer. But really, how different is that from most banking done today? Would you like to be told by your bank that your last direct deposit doesn't exist anymore because they needed to rollback their database?
2) Officially putting a value to in-game items gives new incentive to all those gold and item harvesting shops to work extra hard, not only to eat up as much of those resources as possible, but to hoard and control market fluxuations. If you think spawn camping is bad now, imagine when you're competing with people who are doing it for a living! Yes, it's already happening now, but this will just take it to levels untold of before.
Will there be an SEC to make sure collusion doesn't take place between harvesters and GMs who spawn an extra rare or two for a few bucks?
Would you say that a small webhosting company is liable for destruction of intellectual property should thier servers melt?
Same question, it's not like it's not been answered before.
There's no difference between trading virtual items and trading any tangible non-essential item. It's a basic economic process: you trade your hours (in the form of money) for someone else's hours (in the form of game goods).
There's a very good reason why realistic online games evolve this kind of trading. Never heard of people selling low-number Slashdot IDs? It's the same thing... people place a value on the virtual goods because they represent an investment in time that they cannot afford.
The obvious rules for virtual goods apply if these are to be traded usefully: a realistic supply (i.e. you can't resell the same item more than once), recourse against fraud, and a semi-official currency that allows abstract exchange.
No difference selling game goods than trading Dollars on forex.
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You'd think they'd run into inflationary pressures if they essentially printed money.
Imagine buying futures on fictional goods in a world where common sense is overridden by fantasy... oh, right, never mind.
Why am I suddenly thinking about tulips? And...er...the late '90s.
Maybe this isn't a new thing.
http://xkcd.com/386/
there was just too much money being left on the table for Sony not to get involved with the virtual sale/resale market at some point. It had to happen.
I'm sure that they've spent countless hours with their legal team trying to figure out all of the liability issues. For example, what if EQII suddenly goes bust and Sony shuts down the servers? Everything you just paid real dollars for is now non-existent.
By allowing (condoning, actually) this sort of activity, Sony is ensuring that this game dies a slow and lingering death. Gone are the days when all you needed to excel at Everquest was a good internet connection and a complete lack of a life...now you need the cash, too. People with money will be better equipped than people with no money...those with no money will quit in disgust, and those with money will lose interest after they run up against enough other players with enough money to equip themselves well. Fortunately, those who don't want to participate in this mercenary practice will have the option to play on non-Station Exchange servers...that is, until a majority of the players on that server want the server to be a Station Exchange server...in which case you'll have to find another server...sorry.
... why does it not make sense to pay more for better service? That's capitalism! I'm going to parody your paragraph, because you seem to be blind to what capitalism is and what it's doing.
l
You're paying for a service (to play the game, right?)
By allowing (condoning, actually) this capitalist activity, we are ensuring that this country dies a slow and lingering death. Gone are the days when all you needed to excel at life was a good strong back and a complete lack of a life...now you need the cash, too. People with money will be better equipped than people with no money...those with no money may quit in disgust[1], and those with money will lose interest after they run up against enough other people with enough money to equip themselves well. Fortunately those who don't want to participate in this mercenary practice will have the option to live in non-capitalist countries...that is, until a majority of the people in the country want the country to be a capitalist country...in which case you'll have to find another country, sorry.
Addendum
[1]: http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.htm
Do the default search for 2002. The #3 cause of death for 15-24 year olds is suicide. The #2 cause of death for 25-34 year olds is suicide. The #1 cause across the board until age 44 according to their statistics is Unintentional Injury. Tangentially, 4 people in the 35-44 age group unintentionally killed themselves via overexertion. Aren't statistics fun?
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
In SL, though, equipment and items don't play the same role they do in level-based fantasy and science fiction MMORPGs. In most MMORPGs, advancement in level and power is important to enjoy the game, and this advancement requires acquiring items, which are often from rare monsters that are highly contested.
Part of the charm of these games is that in the game world, what I can achieve is determined by my character's behavior in that world, rather than by my real-life situation. This is the very essence of a role-playing game. Bringing real-life money into the game can easily destroy this.
My first response to this was, like many, "What the fuck?" Almost every game out there has big glaring clauses in their EULAs that specifically state the buying and selling of in-game items is forbidden. But effectively what they're trying to do here is "legalize" it, probably hoping it will become less and less of a black/grey market.
Will it completely put a stop to selling on eBay? Probably not. But for the casual player who can't powergame to get an awesome piece of loot, maybe spending 10 bucks on the Sony Exchange intead of spending 15 bucks worth of online time trying to get it is a good deal.
I also think that if I could pick a single developer out there to try this, especially if it ends up failing miserably at the cost of developer $$$ and reputation (such as it is), I would rather Sony be the ones to give it a go.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
While this has been modded 'Funny', I'm not sure it shouldn't be labled 'Insightful' or better yet:
Why don't we have a 'Prophetic' mod?
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
I tend to believe that it will cut IGE off. It will legitimize their attempts to cut IGE out of those areas. And, if you noticed the Exchange enabled servers will not be able to return to the no exchange servers.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Don't worry, it will be a failure if they don't make some major adjustments - here's why.
The mmo genre is based on keeping subscribers, the thing that makes people stay around is a slow and steady content feed.
If people can buy their end-game setup at the beginning they'll be cutting their business model off at the knees (unless the segment out what can be purchased and when).
At the same time, people that play the game to get their rewards feel slighted if some other guy can be completely obnoxious with his dragonslaying master armor and sword set because he had an extra hundred dollars to waste.
Games in which performance in the game is based on affluency in real life will always ultimately fail.
Smed says that 40% of their customer service calls are related to fraudulent in-game transactions. Sony could make this disappear instantly by creating an escrow system in-game. You have a sword to sell, you take it to the EQ Escrow storefront and drop it off. The buyer picks up the sword and the credits are automatically deducted from his account. No chance for fraud.
This isn't going to legitimize IGE, this is going to put them out of business, once Sony gets rolling with this.
Think of it this way:
Players pay Sony X amount of real money for the right to play the game. During the course of playing the game, there is a Y% chance of getting a particular item. That item can then be sold back to Sony for Z amount of real money.
How is that different from:
Players pay a casino X amount of real money for some tokens that allow them to play a slot machine. During the course of playing the game, there is a Y% chance of hitting a particular jackpot. That jackpot can then be cashed in at the casino for Z amount of real money.
Sony is treading dangerously close to running a gambling operation by acknowledging that in-game items have real-world value an actually redeeming that value themselves. As long as they're just offering a service for a monthly fee they're okay, but when they start offering the chance to win real money based on random events, that's dangerous territory.
Yup. Why go to a risky place (up until now, Ebay and IGE) when you can get *guaranteed* exchanges through Sony. Ebay and the like were always risky... buy something and either you don't get it or get scammed somehow. Sony will insure your transaction for in-game stuff which is no risk. There'd be no reason to not use Sony's system. Of course, they haven't addressed selling accounts yet, so that will still be Ebay I guess.
Sounds very similar to that thing Microsoft was hinting at for Xbox 2, with mini-transactions or some idea like that. Personally, bad idea. The reason people play video games is so they can pretend they are not in their everyday lives. They are in worlds where you can make it yourself. So this will effect this. A lot. Why bring your monetary class into a game? I mean, a spoiled little 9 year old could buy ubar weapons and stuff, while somebody who has more skill is behind him.
A wise man once said, "wtf h4x."
Hmm... let me rephrase that a bit.
...now you need the time, too. People with free time will be better equipped than people with no time...those with no time will quit in disgust, and those with time will lose interest after they run up against enough other players with enough time to equip themselves well.
So you're prefectly fine with paying for in-game items with time but think paying for them with money is a mortal sin..? Is it by any chance because you have more time than money?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I'd vote for prophetic if given the chance...
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
it is no longer a game - games are ment to be fun!
Between 10 and 20 years ago I was into "pen and dice" role playing games big time. As the pre-cursor to MMORPGs, it was great fun escaping from the real life of mortgages & work to go have a few beers with some friends and pretending to be an elf for a while - I even miss RPGs occasionally today.
They were pleasant hours because of pure escapism and entertainment, nothing more. Yes, it was great going up a level as a character, killing a huge beast or solving a big mystery but part of the fun was also dying occasionally or making some huge mistake that made you and your character look like an idiot.
However, one thing that would have ruined it would have been to have a games master who was open to bribery - e.g. "Here's a ten pound note, make sure I get that +5 Vorpal Blade, okay?" It didn't happen and had it happened, the fun element would have dissipated quickly purely because the real world of money and bribery would have begun to influence that fantasy world in our heads.
One reason I never play MMORPGs is because while I believe most people play them for fun, just like our pen and dice games, a small rogue element in every game takes it far too seriously. These are people who need attention and power before escapism and fun, perhaps mirroring what they are like in real life. Thus real life (again!) creeps into a fantasy universe.
Now, Sony is proposing that yet more of "real life" creeps in because, all of a sudden, how much disposable income you have in real life influences how well you will do in EQ. Suddenly, escapism is not so much of an escape...
The real problem here is that it will ruin the escape for the people who do enjoy the fun of it (again, the majority). It's sad, but those people who have to seek attention and power now have a mechanism to buy that.
In my day, we called it "cheating" and all it does is start to destroy the fun of those players who genuinely play purely for to escape from the real world.
This will destroy Everquest, no question about it, because the people that make that universe fun will feel cheated and robbed and will no doubt find another MMORPG to go and play instead.
But quite frankly, if the cheats can make Sony richer in the short term, what do Sony really care?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I see all these comments about how this is going to cause everyone to quit EQ II and how the rich will have the best equipment and blah, blah, blah... I used to buy and sell EQ gear for real money all the time and if you actually play the game you learn that the best gear in game can not be bought. They make the truly awesome gear that you get from raiding uber mobs NO DROP. This means that it cannot be traded, sold and etc... The key to getting great gear in a game like this is getting into a good guild and taking on the big mobs in the big zones. Of course spending time getting your character up in levels and experience is important too, but I don't think Sony will allow that on their sales site because you wouldn't be selling an item. They will probably disallow the powerleveling services that charge X amount to play your character for you and get levels. In any case unless EQ II has changed their item drops drastically I would have to say that this won't hurt the game at all. (It will hurt the kids who burn their paychecks on some goofy piece of virtual kit though. Sigh there goes that college fund.)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Any online game or experience is ultimately what you, the player, makes of the game. The impact of third parties (other players) upon you is limited by how wide you define your boundaries.
/. predict. As the article mentions, exchange servers will not be the default, but merely an option for those who wish to step over into something new.
If you play the game for your own enjoyment, with your friends or otherwise, and come across a player who is playing the game for some financial motivation, why not just take satisfaction in knowing that you are enjoying yourself, and he is likely forcing himself into his predicament.
However, in the long term, this won't impact the overall experience as much as the doomsayers of
I myself play World of Warcraft, and have been playing online games for a decade in the form of MUD's and MMORPG's but I am excited about a new legitamite dynamic to an already popular game.
Give it a chance before dooming it to mediocrity.
Not that I agree with the grandparent's prophecies of doom and destruction, but I think your analogy suffers from serious flaws.
Everquest isn't just a service like Internet access. If my neighbor is paying more for access, and getting better performance, it doesn't hurt me in any way. But say me and my neighbor enter into a competition against one another (say, three on three basketball). Say we've been competing in this tournament for years, and rather enjoy it.
Then one year, the people running the game make a new rule that says any team can drop $20 and start a game with a five point advantage, with each additional $20 providing an additional 5 point handicap. Given that my neighbor is a multimillionaire and places a high priority on winning, how much fun am I going to have in this year's competition? Why should I even show?
Now imagine that Slashdot started selling special mod points that I could use to mod myself up. In both cases, cash is used as a replacement for talent. But in the latter case, nobody can be sure how my posts keep getting undeservedly high ratings. Hence, it saps trust from the system.
Or imagine that money could buy you more protection under the law, or special legislation that protected your interests... Wait. Nevermind.
The point is, there are some places where you shouldn't be able to pay to tilt the playing field in your favor. I think an RPG like Everquest is probably among them. As a private service, they're entitled to run things that way, but I don't see that offering "various levels of service" would benefit the end users in any way.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
1) People can already buy their end-game setup at the beginning.
Previously, to do so was in violation of most subscription agreements. There were obstacles: there was a moderate risk of fraud, some players would balk on principle, and most importantly of all, many players would not even think to look for AO credits on ebay.
When the game publisher themselves get into the act, that all changes. The sales become totally legitimized, safe, and well-advertised as part of the in-game GUI. Whatever effects item-selling had before, they will be magnified one hundred fold.
I'd argue that those effects were already detrimental to game enjoyment, so EQ will just get worse now.
2) People who are serious about the game are already spending the money.
Talking to members of high-power guilds, this certainly doesn't seem to be true. (Unless prehaps they are lying to me, because they don't want to get their account banned if I report them as violating the subscription agreement)
3) Not everything can be traded. I've never played EQ, but in AO, there are a lot of NODROP items that can't be transfered.
That's somewhat illogical to mention, or at least presumes schizophrenic behavior from SOE. NODROP items (aka "Bind on Acquire") are a game developers' tool to prevent item exchange. As this story reveals, SOE will now be working to encourage item exchange, from their e-commerce servers to players.
Those items might in fact become NODROP once the sale is final, but it makes no difference to the overall effect on the game.
PS. I almost thought the AC to whom you replied was echoing me, but in a summarized form.
Between 10 and 20 years ago I was into "pen and dice" role playing games big time. As the pre-cursor to MMORPGs, it was great fun escaping from the real life of mortgages & work to go have a few beers with some friends and pretending to be an elf for a while - I even miss RPGs occasionally today.
Your analogy immediately starts out flawed. You had small games with a few friends, not massive worlds full of complete strangers. To be parity, you would've had to allow anybody to play, you would've had to have had a cover charge, and you would've had to have played the rules fairly with all participants.
However, one thing that would have ruined it would have been to have a games master who was open to bribery - e.g. "Here's a ten pound note, make sure I get that +5 Vorpal Blade, okay?" It didn't happen and had it happened, the fun element would have dissipated quickly purely because the real world of money and bribery would have begun to influence that fantasy world in our heads.
An economy is not bribery. If there is a fair way to get a VB+5, the fact that there is a market for it in a foreign currency in no way impacts the game. By all accounts this is not Sony devaluing game items by flipping a few critical bits. Instead, the game is generating the same resources it always did, allowing the same trading as it always did, and the only difference is that in addition to all the hundreds of other reasons you have to make a trade, they've introduced another currency that some people value more, but apparently some people value less, than online resources.
This will destroy Everquest, no question about it, because the people that make that universe fun will feel cheated and robbed and will no doubt find another MMORPG to go and play instead.
That makes zero sense, because the game isn't changing. If people are leaving, it just means they game was never any fun, and they should have left a long time ago if that were true. To me, such a move makes the game more interesting because it makes it more complex. If I were a player, I'd look forward to taking items from newbie players with more money than sense, and it's just icing on the cake that I might again be able to sell it back to them, too!
From the article:
To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.
End-quote.
Sony are providing an exchange, exactly like Ebay.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I disagree. Both traditional RPGs and MMORPGs in an ideal world provide complete escapism and entertainment. In theory, an AD&D game could host a huge number of players, it's the rules and mechanics that simply restrict a GM for only "running" a game practically for a handful of people.
It could be argued that a computer performs precisely the same task in an MMORPG that a GM does in an RPG - i.e. define the game universe & ensure the players live within that universe's rules. It's just capable of doing that for a lot more players :-)
To be parity, you would've had to allow anybody to play, you would've had to have had a cover charge, and you would've had to have played the rules fairly with all participants.
Any players - We frequently did allow anyone to play with the realms of a gaming club with over 40 people in it.
Cover charge - just about every player I ever met invested money in one or more rulebooks that at least allowed character generation. This might equate to a cover charge that demonstrates some commitment to wanting to play.
Fair rules - Surely an unfair GM would soon find his/her games less popular if bias was shown towards particular players. Sure, I've seen it happen but as an ex-GM also, bias does detract from your fun as the moderator also.
An economy is not bribery. If there is a fair way to get a VB+5, the fact that there is a market for it in a foreign currency in no way impacts the game.
Of course it impacts! Imagine as a player in a fantasy world I have amassed enough wealth to own, say, a castle because I happen to be an experienced player? It doesn't mean that in real life I might not have a job, a good credit rating or even anywhere permanent to live.
Real-life wealth will allow new players to skip the system of the fantasy world that experienced players have worked hard to live within in order to make their characters successful.
What happens to the players' perception of the game world if, all of a sudden, the rules are changed on them in a way it couldn't possibly happen? The answer is, it shatters the illusion and the game ends.
they've introduced another currency that some people value more, but apparently some people value less, than online resources.
They've introduced a "currency" that makes your abilities as a player in the game universe completely meaningless - if you have more real-life disposable income, you can progress as a character within the game without having any game-playing skills.
If I was an experienced player who invested time and effort in creating a character through good gameplay only to find some upstart with a big bank balance has progressed quicker than me, I would be most angry! In just the same way as when I find out a player in Quake on the Internet is using a game cheat - no difference!
If people are leaving, it just means they game was never any fun, and they should have left a long time ago if that were true.
Rubbish! Many years ago, a friend of mine wrote and ran games within an AD&D world he created. We played in it for over a year, on and off, until we suddenly realised how linear his game and GM-ing had been. In other words, we, as players, had little influence over what was happening in his game world no matter what we did. The whole game died there and then.
Yes, we'd thoroughly enjoyed it for a year until we got to that realisation of linearity - it shattered the game world for us just like this will do to EQ now.
To me, such a move makes the game more interesting because it makes it more complex.
Then you've lost the point - the players and their interractions with each other determine the complexity of the game, not the rules.
No GM or MMORPG designer can create rules and scenarios fo
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"brxref