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Price Comparison Shopping in MMORPG
Mike writes "Whether you love it, hate it or are unaware of it the MMORPG secondary market, which deals with the trade of in-game commodities for real world cash, is here and growing. Some researchers suggest that this secondary market is likely to exceed the primary market (which is created by off-the-shelf game purchases and subscriptions)in years to come. But with so many vendors how do you know who to buy from, or even who your options are? Eye On MOGS is a search-engine come comparison/availability tool for the MMORPG secondary market. It was created by gamers, for gamers and as such we are very sensitive to the needs of those players who use the secondary market and the concerns of those who oppose it. " Not meant to be an advertisement - but I think it's a very telling sign when even the secondary market for games can have its own price compare engine.
Why not a MMORPG interface to real auctions? Some of these MMORPGs have much better interfaces than eBay. I'd love to put pics of my saleable item in my MMORPG store, with all the eBay-style auction features automating most of the auction, but with the 3D realtime interface for answering questions, last-minute haggling... A 3D model of my item could answer many questions about size; people could "borrow" a copy to put into their own model of wherever they're going to put the thing when they buy it. And the virtual world could include a "cancel button" that yanked back a loaned "floor model" from a potential buyer after their loan expires. MMORPGs already include much better chat interfaces than eBay, even VoIP. And a gallery of my "other auctions" and "sold items", as well as feedback and other auction detail, would be much better presented than in the flat, lifeless eBay style.
The best way to get there from here is with an OSS MMORPG. What GPL'ed (or BSD'ed or public domain, whichever OSS license) MMORPG is the most popular right now? One with smooth 3D animations and controls that any normal could use to navigate? A MMORPG network which a developer can join with their own server, which pops up their own domain into the common game map? Which has a simple scripting language to attach properties and behaviors to in-game objects created by players? And which can connect to a RDBMS (like Postgres) for realtime updates to object properties?
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make install -not war
A common theme in MMORPGs is that you have to work for what you want. Many pieces of equipment, abilities, spells, titles, and other objects not only advance your character in-game, but also function as a sort of status symbol. Take EQ2 for example; if you see someone with flashy armor and a weapon that has a unique model and particle effect, that character's probably of a very high level. Same deal with horses, except in that case, a low-level twink (someone with a wealthy, high-level character that puchased equipment for his low-level character) can have one, too.
...and given the 3 markets of player-sellable good (below average, average, and twink), well... the twink market has by far the highest margin of profit, so it's practically oversaturated. The other two? Not so much.
...now, the question as to whether or not this constitutes good game design is a whole different issue. But the point is, sometimes, because of the current MMORPG design paradigm, it just makes economic and entratainment sense to buy it off eBay.
The problem is, you get this sort of 4-tier market developing in-game. At any given point, there's equipment that's below average - which no one wants, average equipment - which is usually bland and a bit on the expensive side, but attainable, and twink equipment - usually slightly better than the average equipment, but ridiculously overpriced. The only people who can afford that equipment are either twinks, or someone who's buying their cash off eBay. The final category is quested equipment, which is usually even better than the twink gear at any given level, but takes much more time and effort to get.
So your problem, as a player, is that if you're new(er) to the game, and you want some flashy or high-end equipment, there's a good chance that it's not accessible, or will require significant time and patience to get via a quest model. Quite frankly, a lot of us don't have the time.
So, in my case, I've purchased money in-game before (in both City of Heroes and WoW, during the brief time I've played it). Sometimes, the developers skew too far towards their "work for it" ideal and forget that it's a game that's supposed to be enjoyable. So if you want equipment X, and the only way to get it is either via outlay of cash you couldn't possibly have at the level that gear is designed for, or to spend hours upon hours doing mostly unenjoyable questing for it, does it make sense to buy it? Depends. How much is it?
I make about $25/hour. Now, if I really want equipment X, and it's on eBay for $50, what makes more sense? Spend 6 hours farming/questing for it, or put another two hours in at the office and call it even?
Now, obviously, you can't do this with everything unless you've got a huge chunk of disposable income. But in some cases? It's a lot more convenient for a player to stick to his real-life profession and use the advantages it affords to help him catch up in game.
I play FFXI quite a bit, and Real Market Transactions have been around for a while. We had almost a year before it became prevalent, but now it's everywhere. Square-Enix seems to make a passing effort to remove RMTers -- there was one big purge where they did a surprise deletion of a bunch of accounts, not giving them time to move their loot elsewhere. So they just restarted under new names and have gotten back to where they were or past it since.
People argue against RMT in many ways, most of which have already been mentioned: People who buy gil are not as good of players, they haven't "earned" their gear. There are two I haven't seen mentioned yet:
1) Buying gil condones the unsportsmanlike behavior of the RMTs. Most RMTs are brutal in their tactics of obtaining their items. There are a handful of notorious monsters that appear only every few hours, or even up to 24 hours, that on my server, the RMT have monopolized. When the time is ready for them to appear, the RMTs are there, and will bully people out, use the other monsters to try and disrupt other players, stand around and make things difficult, and in some cases, use client hacks to make their chances of getting the claim when the monster spawns higher than the average user. All of these actions are against the Terms of Service of FFXI, but even when reported, Square-Enix does nothing most of the time because they did not witness it.
2) Buying gil reduces the value of that gil. This is a big personal pet peeve of mine, and something that isn't easily measured. Lets say you spent a month farming and earning 1,000,000 gil. You then go to the Auction House and try to buy an item that you've been wanting for a while. That item's last price in the history was 800,000. You try bidding 800,000, and you don't get it. So you bid 810,000 and you don't get it. You try 850,000... and you still don't get it. You realize that if you go up to 900,000, that's another hour or so of work farming for that gil, so you hold off, and hope it will come down in price and you'll try again later.
Now, think of someone who just paid $50 for that 1,000,000 gil. They bid 800,000 and nothing happens. They bid 850,000 and don't get it, then 900,000 and get it. That extra 50,000 to them is only $2.50, so why not? So now, they have the item, but damage has been wrought. Now, the last listing in the history is 900,000, so when the next person comes along who wants to sell that item, they will probably sell it for 900,000 not 800,000.
If you extrapolate that to every single item in the game, you get a horrible inflation effect, which is what has been happening. Granted, there are other factors causing it, but in the last two years, items have gone up in value by factors of ten, sometimes doubling withing the course of days. It makes keeping up very diffucult for someone who doesn't buy gil.
My bottom line: Please don't buy gil/gold/influence/whatever. It's bad, mmmkay?