Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating?

Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?

Comments

My opinion? Glad you asked!

[voice_of_all_reason]

This is just one in a multiple list of problems concerning the RL relationships of MMORPG players. If you can withstand them all and still have fun, more power to you. I'd much rather play a single player game where I know where everything stands.

//just catching up with Smash Brothers Melee. Good times...

Depends

[slavemowgli]

Depends on the game. Take Second Life, for example - in there, exchanging real-life money for in-game money is not only possible, it's actually encouraged and can be done through the developing company (Linden) itself. And what's more, the way the game is set up otherwise makes it pretty impossible for you to seriously get into it unless you do it.

I think Linden has pretty much figured out the second step on the road to Profit!!!, but since it's at the expense of pretty much everyone who otherwise might be interested in the game, I also dare say that they won't be able to continue with this forever.

But then, maybe that's not what they want to do, anyway - a few millions right here and now are nice enough already, right?

Real-world tax implications?

[Ritchie70]

I heard a piece on NPR a week or two ago about whether the selling of in-game items for real-world money creates tax consequences for everyone playing the game.

The IRS doesn't distinguish between "income" due to hobby and "income" due to work. If you make quilts for fun, but you sell them because you don't have room for any more quilts in the house, the money you get for the quilts is still considered income.

If you do something, and someone gives you an item with value (for example, a plumber fixes a painter's toilet, and is given a painting) the value of that painting at the time of the exchange is considered income.

If you play a game and get in-game "e-gold", and that e-gold has value outside the game (as it does in this case) then the IRS may well consider the e-gold taxable income in the amount it could be sold for in real world money - whether you actually ever sell it or not.

The NPR correspondent made a number of phone calls to the IRS, and the consensus was that the e-gold was likely taxable income. They suggested he file as if it were, and see what happens. He ended the piece saying that it wasn't going to be him who brought this issue to the IRS's attention in writing, and left it at that.

Re:Real-world tax implications?

[Per Bothner]

If you play a game and get in-game "e-gold", and that e-gold has value outside the game (as it does in this case) then the IRS may well consider the e-gold taxable income in the amount it could be sold for in real world money - whether you actually ever sell it or not.

How is this different from making a quilt and not selling it? Clearly, if you sell game gold, it is taxable income. But game gold (like a quilt) is not taxable until you sell it.

I guess it might be "inventory" - I don't know what the rules are for that.

Now whether it is earned income or capital gains may be trickier, perhaps depending on how you acquired it.

Don't Enforce. Co-Opt! (Work Smarter not Harder)

[StCredZero]

Work smarter, not harder. A friend of mine was telling me about a problem with MUDs (text precursors of MMORPGs) where the corpses of monsters were building up and clogging the system. The solution? Allow players to use the corpses as ingredients to make healing potions. Players then grabbed corpses and dragged them out of the dungoen to sell potions. Problem solved.

A lot of gamers get on their moral soap-boxes about cheating and gaming ethics, and call for the devs to come up with more enforcement. I think that's just like the "War on Drugs" mentality. It's a losing game, because you are opposing market forces. Instead, get the market forces on your side. Heck, as a MMORPG game dev, you control the fabric of reality itself. If you can't think of a trick to co-opt "cheaters" then shame on you!

I play Eve-Online, and it's come up that the "Macro Miners" are ruining things for legitimate miners. Macro-miners are mostly Russian guys who use macros to run Eve automatically and mine-out whole systems so that they can sell in-game money on eBay.

But while it really sucks to be a competitor to these guys in mining, it's *great* for piracy. The unattended miners are full of valuable ore, and mostly unable to defend themselves. (And if they do defend themselves, they do it poorly, and this allows you to destroy them *legally*!)

So don't try and enforce a ban on macro-mining and other MMORPG "cheats." Instead co-opt them. In Eve, you could change the game dynamic so that the Macro-Miners would be even more attractive targets for pirates. Put a time limit on NPC corporation membership, and legit corps could even declare war on them without being pirates. (So if you're a mining corp, you could just declare war on these guys and take their ore!) Furthermore, if you put time constraints on refining, the macro-miners would be forced to sell material to other players to refine their excess, which would further contribute to the economy of Eve-Online.

And we thought of all this in about 15 minutes flat. I'm quite sure that other tricks could be thought of for WoW and other MMORPGs that would have similar effects.

Re:Think of the Economy!

[TrappedByMyself]

making it all but impossible for honest players trying to make a few silver here and there to sell anything.

Oh stop, please.
I'm a casual player who just got back into the game a few weeks ago after a few months off. I started a new character on a new server and am at level 25. I spend most of my time screwing off, and I'm sitting on about 30g and have a full set of 16 slot bags. WoW is surprisingly like real life, where if you put some thought into managing money, you'll have plenty.