Selling Virtual Gold for Fun and Profit

Grimrod writes "Dave Long of GamerDad has some musings in his column this week on the virtual world of massively multiplayer online games and the legality of selling virtual goods." Mr. Long is commenting on a story posted last week at Plaguelands detailing a supposed duping bug in EQ2 that allowed a small group of players to make thousands of dollars in U.S. currency. From the GamerDad article: "For me personally, it's impossible to grasp the idea of buying virtual goods to make my in-game character better. A lot of people seem to have a lot more money than sense though and for them that's perfectly reasonable. To further cloud the issue of who really owns virtual goods, in EverQuest II a crafted weapon keeps my name on it as the creator. If I want to sell that to someone for real money, there's no better defense than to say, "I made that!" and look right there online to see my name on the item."

Comments

Paying for virtual items... my 2 cents...

[losman]

I've played Ultima Online for a long time but recently took a break because of my schedule. I have some friends on one particular shard and I wanted to move to it. I was not about to take the time and level up my character from NOOB status to where I was in past. For a fair price (less then creating three advanced characters with EA) I purchased an account.

To me it was worth purchasing so I can quickly get back in to the swing of things. Ultima, being on of the most seasoned MMORPG games out there has a unique economic system that has been battered by different events. In the early days it was tough to make a million gold pieces, now it's not so hard. With a solid character I can easily turn out 25-30k in gold by just visiting some dungeons. If I have some vendors then I can turn out an extras 25-30k just selling the loot I gathered in addition to the gold. Pretty good for about 1 hours worth of playing.

So let's say I can make 50k in one hour. I can make about 1 million in 20 hours. Mind you that is 20 hours as a solo player, not with a massive group hording some area. On ebay you can by 1 million gp for about $8.00. Hmm... $8.00 or 20 hours of my time??? To start off I will take enough gold to get me going then I will make my own money in the game. That's why I'm in the game, to play and make things.

UO suffered a gold duping bug about 3 years ago and it hurt the economy. All of a sudden everyone had lots of money too spend and gold lost its value. Very much like a real world economy. Even the gold that was sold on eBay lost its value. It use to sell for about $25 and now it is only $8.00 on average. So did duping help the sellers? Absolutely not.

So the author states he doesn't understand why people would buy something. Try this out, what is owning stock in a company? It is very intangible and gives you the right to a certain portion of an entity. There isn't a physical thing you can touch, it is very intangible. That is the same premise with an online item. It has value to someone and they would like to have it for a certain price.

Re:Paying for virtual items... my 2 cents...

[interiot]

I've posted these before, but this page and this page are absolute must-reads if you're interested in MMORPG economies. And they happen to deal with UO too, and in some places, with the dup bug in particular:

In the real world, we associate hyperinflation with the almost total devastation of a country and its population. In UO this really did not happen because there was little that players wanted that was purchasable with gold. The one major exception was reagents which were also cloneable! The hyperinflation, while annoying, did not preclude players from having fun and, in the end, this is all that matters. This should perhaps introduce a bit of humility into the over-design of the economy - for all its complications, it is not required to make the game fun.

That's somewhat true in World of Warcraft too. Once they reach level 60, some people create a different player to explore how other classes are played. The most obvious way to speed up the new character is to mail tons of gold (harvested at level 60) to your low-level toon. This helps to some extent (eg. allows you to buy top-notch equipment and buy all possible skills and spells), but isn't such a strong and disruptive effect that Blizzard considered removing this mail-yourself-money feature.

Also, some data shows that inflation tends to always happen in MMORPG's, regardless of whether there's a dug bug. The papers above go a long way towards explaining the theoretical reasons for why that might be.

Re:Paying for virtual items... my 2 cents...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the same boat currently in World of Warcraft.

I decided I wanted an Enchanted Thorium Breastplate, Helm, and Legplates. There are comparable drops (and in case of the Breastplate, arguably better ones), but the helm and legplates are tough to beat and it's difficult to turn down a guarantee rather than hoping for something to drop off a boss.

So, I made my list:

  * 3 Azerothian Diamonds
  * 3 Huge Emeralds
  * 2 Large Opals
  * 2 Blue Sapphire
  * 60 Enchanted Thorium Bars ... 60 Thorium Bars ... 180 Dream Dust ... Services of an enchanter
  * 10 Essence of Water
  * 10 Essence of Earth
  * 24 Arcanite Bars ... 24 Thorium Bars ... 24 Arcane Crystals ... Services of several alchemists

As of today, I have managed to collect everything on that list, with the exception of 13 of the Arcane Crystals, which then require transmutations by alchemists to turn them into Arcanite.

I actually *logged* how much time I spent working on this project, as well as the gold spent. So far it's taken ~95 hours of play time (dedicated solely to this task!) spread over 26 days to acquire the materials. 95 hours... and I'm not done. I still need 13 more crystals which at the current auction house rates on my server, will cost nearly 300 gold. So I either need to get really lucky when I spot a rich thorium vein, or I need to otherwise accrue 300 gold. (and then, as an aside, I want the legs and helms with health added, so I need to get the materials for the arcanum, which can be had at the auction house with good regularity for about 20-25G for each enchantment, and then 30G to pay the NPC for each enchant).

When this is all said and done, how much time will I have spent? I'm putting that figure anywhere between 120 and 150 hours, so I figure I have 2-3 weeks to go.

Now, what might this have cost me if I bought the gold and paid for the materials? I figure the bill rings in somewhere in the 1000-1200 gold range, and looking at these currency sites (MySuperSales, IGE), it would probably cost me $95-$123 to complete the project. That's a worst case of $1/hour.

Would I pay it? No. Will I pay it? No. Do I understand why some people would want to pay it? Absolutely.

Re:Paying for virtual items... my 2 cents...

[Sylver Dragon]

I would think that it's fairly obvious that inflation will always happen in MMORPG's.
Every time a new monster spawns with treasure, there is that much more money in the economy. While there will be some downward pressure from new people joining the world, the number of people joining will always be less than the number of spawned, treasure bearing creatures. If this wasn't so you would have a very dull game. Add to this the ability of characters to sell crafted items to NPC's, which effectivly adds more money to the economy, as the NPC's purses magically refill.
The only real downward preassure you have on the currency is the need to buy stuff from the NPC's. And again, since we are making a game where people want to progress, they will necessarily be able to generate more money doing stuff than the cost in materials from the NPC's.
All in all, MMORPG economies can do nothing but inflate, without intervention. There is just too much money being added to the economy, and nothing to pull it back out.

Rich Players Are Not A New "Problem"

[ec_hack]

The disparity of incomes allowing some gamers access to more resources or opportunities in games is not a new problem. In the play-by-mail games arena, it was a problem from day 1. When I played Starweb (http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/) in the late 70s, I had access to free long distance calls at night (this was before Bell was broken up and long distance was pretty expensive), quite an advantage in doing diplomacy compared to the players that had to rely on letters. The Schubel and Sons game "Tribes of Crane" allowed players to run multiple tribes and pay to submit extra order sheets with each turn. A basic turn was on the order of $10 in constant dollars, and there were players spending $200 per turn. On multiple positions. Submitting orders every 10 to 14 days. Needless to say, they owned your posterior if they took a dislike to you.

Let's talk economics

[vga_init]

I heard inflation mentioned in another post, and I thought it would be a more interesting topic to focus on. What about inflation?

Let's not even begin to get into how real economies work (suffice it to say that the whole thing is a big mess).

Don't MMORPG's suffer from constant inflation? There is usually a limitless supply of money and goods. Shops in these sorts of games typically have limitless supplies. Take into account supply and demand. The supply is infinite (given enough time), and the demand is finite. In theory, this drives down the value of everything in the game to nothing, even special items.

In terms of availability, there is no such thing as scarcity. Our fundamental theories of economics involve the limited supply of goods, but what happens in the face of a never-ending stream? How can economy exist! There's no intrinsically economic reason why EVERYBODY can't have the best items in the game. So why don't they?

The only constraint is time. People need to spend time to accumulate enough of this infinite stock, but it's within the grasp of everyone. Very equalizing, isn't it?

These games have a perfect socialist utopia where supply is a non-issue and prices/wages are fixed and proportional. You get out what you put into it, basically, and people are supposed to get what they deserve.

Enter the evil that is capitalism and human greed. Using real world cash, people are able to abuse the game system and give themselves an unfair advantage. These people now have access to supplies they didn't earn and don't deserve.

Make whatever argument you will about how said people function and make money in the real world, but the game world is not the real world. They don't belong together, and their economies are not supposed to be connected in any way other than the basic game fees one pays as a client.

Don't let capitalism destroy our gaming community! The games are designed by their creators to be fair and balanced. They are not supposed to be subject to class separation, which worms it's way in thanks to "real money." I say we do everything in our power to protect our idealistic little game worlds and give a decent playing experience to everyone rather than a select few who can afford it.

Re:More money than sense? Sounds jealous to me.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I wish I could'a paid someone to see the last Matrix for me. Then I would still have my geek creds, but would have two hours of my life back.