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P2P Virtual Currency Exchange Launches
miller60 writes "In the wake of eBay's decision to halt auctions of virtual property, new companies are entering the market to fill the void, including one allowing gamers to trade game currency directly with one another rather than buying from IGE or other exchanges. The company, Sparter, says this eBay-like "peer-to-peer" approach will result in lower prices as sellers compete. It incorporates a reputation system and escrow for gold delivery. Sparter received venture funding from Bessemer Capital, signaling that VCs still see opportunity in the virtual economy, even if eBay doesn't."
Playerauctions.com was born when ebay started banning people for selling stuff, and now it should be even stronger. Nuff said.
God spoke to me.
Common sense vs. stupid laws - 1:0
I would've thought there is less risk in running auctions for virtual goods. I can see eBay wouldn't want to be embroiled in a "This man didnt pay for his Ferrari" dispute, but a (mostly) laughable "This sword was falsely sold with +1 Attack vs RIAA" dispute would be easy to brush aside, and wouldn't likely affect eBay's mainstream reputation.
Being afraid of the content producers, who don't want their stuff being sold is another issue - I would've though up to the players to comply with the TOS, not eBay.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Isn't the point of any game to advance by playing it?
We all clamor that games aren't fun anymore and yet we don't even want to try to play anymore.
When you feel you have to cheat (and buying money is cheating) to play competitively, where is the fun?
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
yet... I went browsing today and found that the kingdom of loathing items were still available (even an auction up near $800 for a virtual outfit in the game..)
b s&sbrftog=1&from=R10&satitle=kingdom+of+loathing
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=
guess it's just a matter of time before they find everything out.. too bad ebay execs are a bunch of anal fucks.
The company, Sparter, says this eBay-like "peer-to-peer" approach will result in lower prices as sellers compete. It incorporates a reputation system and escrow for gold delivery.
I'm interested to see how this "reputation system" will work any better than ebay's feedback system, which is easily foiled by scammers boosting each others' ratings, and phishing schemes that poach pre-existing accounts with positive feedback.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
Umm, how will the govt get it's cut? The moment you try to to exchange this for something physical expect the gubment to want its cut.
That's why taxes should be a flat amount (not percent).
Think of the huge level of cancer like privacy intrusion they will ask for in order to implement a tax on virtual payemnts. Are people ok with it?
I imagine that it isn't about the game itself for at least a good portion of the buyers. Don't underestimate the importance that status has on the way people act. Is it really any different than the more extreme grinders? Are they really playing for fun, or are they playing to have the best/newest stuff in game? In the end, does it make a difference whether people do it by grinding or by buying gold? Either way, they are working to try and gain more in game prestige.
Considering people's attitudes towards digital content and it's "true" value. Maybe it's stupid idea vs sane law.
These have been around for years. Sites like www.OwnYourGame.com have been selling virtual currency and other items for some time.
Game companies are FURIOUS at the farmers, not because they do what they do, but because they can't figure out how to cut them out and just charge for each level or item in the game without losing players. Most companies are probably setting up fake front companies to do it, because there is now far more money in the farming then in hosting the game.
:)
Any game with the X dollars/month pricing model is guaranteed to be tedious, boring, and unsuitable for anyone with a life or a clue. Heck even idiots should see through it. Which is perfect, since that means it keeps the 1/3 of kids that drop out of high school off the streets!
Welcome to virtual reality, please insert your credit card.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
The point, as you say, isn't to create a perfectly fair game. It's to create a world in which some people can be better than others, and where being better also gets you desirable things, like the envy of fellow players.
Whether they're better by means of time invested, or dollars spent, it really makes no difference.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Not cheating? Try whipping out your wallet and buying some $500 Monopoly bills off your cousin to pay your rent - and see whether uncle Frank thinks it's a foreign currency trade, or an asshole cheating.
Tangential relation to topic absent actual linkage to the article.
Overbroad statement sure to atract attention from indignant games
Stupid kids joke
Generic - traditional companies == bad comment.
4 points.. not bad.
-GiH
PlayerAuctions is owned by IGE and it is always broken. They do not want to fix the site it seems. There are tons of other sites out there that allow players to buy and sell, some all trading of in game gold for game cards so you can keep playing (www.MMOExchange.com) while others just track all the prices (www.rpgSE.com) Either way eBay needs to look into changing their policies and paypal needs to help protect their customers from the infinate scammers out there dealing with virtual coin.
...that outside of the known games (and areas thereof) where it is permitted, it is a violation of the agreements made to use such services? This would be better served as a nice large honeypot that bans sellers and buyers while outing the actual farmers as well. It would be better to let the signals go unsuppressed to quit or not than to facilitate agreement violations.
If you wanted to sell Lindens, Entropia cash, and Sony Station currency, fine. However, breaking agreements to expand the horizons is not. I've killed too many bots already and collected too much loot from them to just be idle on this one.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The problem is essentially that they have conflicting goals.
They have to strike a balance between currency and the number of people playing. If the has got too much money, then it's too easy to get the currency and everybody can buy their way to power. If it has too little money, then it's too hard to gain power (requires excessive grinding). Either way is no fun.
To a certain extent, having a real market demand for item pricing would be helpful. Instead of having shops with infinite numbers of items, and having a few items that are known to be the best, you spread it out.
a) There is no one perfect item. All high end items have a few serious weaknesses and some strengths. Only weak items are all strengths. This spreads out demand as people specialize.
b) Some items are limited in number, but these numbers are flexible based on the number of people actively playing. If more items need to be introduced via bosses and such, you do so and don't tell anybody. You also introduce new items from time to time. The number of items should be in the thousands, only weaker ones are infinitely available.
c) Items nobody wants become cheaper. You could thusly increase the money everybody gets from grinding and such.
d) Item marketplaces. People can buy and sell and auction items at prices they set. For realism, let 'em setup shops and rent space for their shop and such. You skim a floating percentage off the top for auctions, you get money from rented spaces for shops. This lets you reduce available money in the realm at a fairly steady but adjustable pace.
This gives you enough ability to balance the realm financially. Basically, everybody should be able to do things as real-world-like as possible, but you must keep an overriding finger on it to avoid rapid inflationary actions. You'd need to know, at all times, how much cash and how much product/services are in the realm, and try to keep them balanced, even with players leaving and joining and such.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
(the following is opinion and not in any way shaped by fact :)
I think ebay stopped because of the legal and up and coming tax issues associated with buying/selling virtual items/money.
For game makers who don't allow that kind of thing, ebay was probably about to become a target if it hadn't been already. I don't remember seeing any grand scale attacks on it yet but I don't doubt they were on their way.
Also, now that the government (at least in the u.s. ) has decided to look into it's own cut of the deal there's going to be even more difficulties.
I have felt and still feel that we need to change this attitude that people who buy and sell for real cash are bad people. They aren't bad. They aren't evil. They are not your enemy. They just see their games in a different way.
The reason this stuff is so rampant on normal servers is because blizzard and now whatever-you-call-it who runs vanguard REFUSE to give this type of playerbase what they want. THEIR OWN SEPERATE SERVERS on which buying and selling is legal. (as in, within the rules of the owners of the game)
People who don't want that, stick to normal servers with normal crackdowns and so on. People who want to buy and sell, play on the ones where they won't get banned for it.
People who complain about people playing on the buy/sell-legal servers are, in my opinion, idiots.
What strikes me as funny is that eq2 allows this, probably makes money from it (they get 10% from every transaction) surely enough to pay for the website and customer service involved and yet other games still refuse.
Why would you refuse to give your customers what they want without effecting other customers AND profit from it???
So this is a company that exists just to let people break the game rules? Ignoring EULAs (which are dubious), this is basically just cheating central for people that don't want to play the game. A central place for all the griefers to ruin the game some more for the rest of us. Sickening.
Perhaps it's a good thing because the MMORPG companies can just spider that website and ban all the people they find!
If those "3 hours" are put aside as leisure time, guess what, you weren't going to work anyway! Why should your
hourly wage come into the equation?
And what with this "I make $X/hr, therefore I am too important to spend Xhr on something like levelling up meme"?
Do you make $X/hr when you are asleep? In the shower? Driving?
You should look up what "billable hours" mean.
Looks like dada21 forgot his password.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
When your "assets" can be arbitrarily erased by the company that is holding them, only the truly foolish will see value in making a business out of trading virtual currency.
,ass hysteria, chaos, depression and
Oh, I know -- the standard smartass retort to the above is:
"But your money in the bank doesn't actually exist either! It's all make-believe!"
To that, all I have to say is that there are many laws and regulations governing real world currency and stocks. There are checks and balances in place to such that my bank can't simply decide to erase my funds.
Of course, there are still cases of fraud and whatnot, but when you compare MMORPGs to the real world:
1. If the USD becomes worthless tomorrow, there will probably be more
iminent war.
2. If WoW gold becomes worthless tomorrow, BFD.
And that, is why virtual currency is bullshit.
Or rather, if you don't have time to play a particular game in order to reach a certain level then play an other game that does fit your schedule.
Nobody is forcing you to play that game.
They'll gladly accept your virtual money (charge card) as payment for their virtual auction services. They'd probably take a check (another form of virtual money) or money order (ditto), too.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Buying yen isn't illegal, the Chinese government is well aware that their money is sold in such ways, and supports such transactions.
Buying gil however, is cheating, the game developers are aware of it, denounce it, and take disciplinary action against such accounts proven to be selling gil.
Its pretty simple to see that buying money is cheating, anyone who thinks otherwise, is just too cowardly to accept the truth.
I know of plenty of online friends who purchased online money in the MMORPG i play, at least they all knew and accepted that they were cheating by doing so.
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
For all of you that do buy in game currency, I am able to offer services outside of the MMO market. You can pay me to come beat Candyland, Stratego, Clue, and Monopoly for you. I also offer competitive rates for beating Super Mario Brothers 1-3 for you.
It's called interest. You see, the amount of money in your account represents the amount that the Bank owes you. If the bank adds $10,000 to your account, that means that the bank owes you more money- but the bank won't miss it until you withdraw it. Money doesn't need to be taken from anywhere else to increase your numbers.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I searched through the thread for "tax and taxes" and didn't come across many posts addressing that topic. The following is just conjecture on my part, but I'm willing to bet that eBay stopped the trade in online goods because they don't want to deal with how to tax them. The government wants to track where the money goes, and they want a part of EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION that takes place. First they tax your paycheck. Then the local governments get you for sales tax, and gas tax, and this tax and that tax. Now that there are people spending money online to buy virtual products they don't know how to tax those transactions yet. I'm sure that there are some law makers working really hard right now to come up with a way to do it though. I mean hell, the IRS doesn't really care if you're a drug dealer, and they won't report you to the DEA you put "Street Pharmacist" as your occupation. They just want you to pay taxes on your income.
(I will use WoW as my example- but I don't play it, so I apologize if I get terms or numbers wrong).
I just thought of a great way to solve the problem of gold selling. You have an in-game auction house where you can sell and buy gold for real money, using the credit card you have on the account. Blizzard would probably take a small cut of the money (say 5-10%). However, it would be set up so that the gold you sell will be taken off next month's bill, with the stipulation that you can reduce your bill to 0, but you can't reduce it past 0. People trying to make a profit would have to use another system.
This would pose a huge problem for dedicated gold sellers.
1. Since you can't earn more money than you are paying Blizzard anyway, you can't turn a profit using this system.
2. People trying to turn a profit will need to establish a secondary 'black market'
3. The black market would be less convinient than the legitimate one- you'd have to set up a meeting outside of the game entirely.
4. The black market is less trustworthy than Blizzard's market- your gold isn't guaranteed the way Blizzard's system would be.
5. Since anyone can sell gold easily, the competition in the legit market would be huge.
6. #3 and #4 means that the black market would have to sell gold at a fraction of the price of the legit market to sell gold at all- and #5 means the base price is low.
7. End result: Gold farming for massive profit is impossible. Gold farming for minor profit is really hard. Gold farming for for free WoW time is possible, but only the hardcore will be able to.
I know some people object to gold buying because they believe that it's cheating. These people could be placed on server(s) that don't have the cashgold auction house. Most people's objections to gold farmers, though, is that profit-seeking groups destroy fun by wrecking economies, camping mobs, hogging quest items, etc. Those groups will cease to exist once they can't run a good profit. Everyone wins- people who object to the trade get their own server where there is no selling, and people who want to trade get servers where gold farming groups don't have a motive to disrupt anyone else. Oh, I guess the gold farmer's don't win, but that's sorta the point.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Where can I auction off my virtual sex slave?