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Hunting Down Gilfarmers
Milkman, over at 1up, revels in the discovery that gilfarmers are finally starting to fall in the battle with Square-Enix. Final Fantasy XI has always had a problem with these Real Money Trader pests, and the company has recently stepped up its efforts to eliminate the problem. From the article: "Is it difficult, time-consuming, and an absolute time and money sink to farm, camp and craft your way to profit in FFXI? Absolutely. But it's been made even harder due to the unbelievable inflation the game has suffered as of late. In reality, FFXI was in danger of becoming a gilfarmer's domain, practically owned and operated by RMTs until the recent purge, if it is indeed a purge. How else to explain the disappearance of gilfarmers across all servers in the last week? While we're still waiting to hear something official out of Square-Enix HQ, the writing is clearly on the wall for currency resellers worldwide."
As long as there are game economies that allow you to make items, buy/sell items, and store bucketloads of cash, you will see farming done. In fact, of all of the many MMOs I have played (over a dozen, either in beta, live, or both) there have been problems with the economies, with the exception of CoH/V (which doesn't really have one.)
I see one of the biggest problems being that, especially here in the U.S., there is a sense of entitlement. And you have to buy that entitlement.
Players want to have stuff to show off and brag about (the e-penis effect), or simply to be the best at the game in the shortest possible time. So, they are willing to spend real life cash to have these in-game entitlements.
It is no different than their buying cars that they cannot really afford to have. My wife works for a major car manufacturer's credit company. You would laugh at how many people lease luxury cars because they can't afford to buy them, and then default on the car lease because even it is too much for their wallet. Their tales of tagedy all boil down to the fact that they should have never obtained the car they did, because the just have enough income to afford it. The car lease became popular because people wanted to drive what they couldn't afford. It's a sucker's ploy, and look how many suckers you know.
It's also like getting a huge cell phone plan so you can talk to your friend down the street, instead of using a land line. Or getting a lot of "bling bling" for showing off. Or decorating your body with numerous and stupid looking tattoos. Or breast implants/liposuction and other cosmetic surgeries. They are all luxuries you don't need. And most folks are willing to pay through the nose for them.
The farmers know this about MMO players, especially with us Americans. (Hey, I am one of those Americans, and I shake my head at the way kids today think they DESERVE stuff.) They prey on that. They probably run more sweatshops than all the sneaker companies combined.
And it works.