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P2P Virtual Currency Exchange Launches

Posted by samzenpus on from the buy-your-money dept.

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."

22 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. playerauctions.com by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:playerauctions.com by jenxdigital · · Score: 2, Funny

      There are at least 30 dirty jokes in that one sentence. And I don't think I've posted often enough to get away with any of them.

      --
      I'm true neutral. I go both ways.
  2. woohoo by Romwell · · Score: 3, Funny

    Common sense vs. stupid laws - 1:0

    1. Re:woohoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh no, stupid laws haven't lost by a long shot. From what I've seen about tax law, the next step is to tax all item drops. When there is a functional selling space to trade items, then you can figure out a real-world fair market price for any random item in game. If the items can have an actual fair market value pinned to them, then the IRS has all the more power to tax them. They may go for taxing the items not when they are sold for real $, but when they are first "earned" in game. Above that, since the games are mostly dedicated to "grinding" to get those items, should Social Security and Medicare tax be paid on them as well?
      If you want to read more, look into the crazy rules for Statutory, Non-Statutory, and Initial Stock Options. From those you can draw a pretty straight line to the endgame I've described.

  3. When did we stop playing these games? by GundamFan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:When did we stop playing these games? by Sparr0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The game has two distinct parts. The unfun part, which is artificially long to keep the people with lots of free time occupied long enough to pay another $15 next month, and the fun part. Paying to get to the fun part is only cheating if it gives you some sort of advantage in the context of the competition, which it doesnt. The only way buying gold could be cheating is if you consider the competitive parts of the game to be a measure of how much time people have invested in the game. If you want to know how good someone is at the fun part of the game, how they got there doesn't matter.

      No, you can NOT make the steroids analogy, because steroids give advantages that you cant get through normal exercise, and the context of physical competitions makes the exercise PART of the competition.

    2. Re:When did we stop playing these games? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, if you have 3 hours a week to play but you make $300 an hour, it only makes sense to pay $600 for a character suitable for the "cool" parts of the game.

      Likewise, if camping the sword of uberness would take 59 hours or you can buy it for $177 dollars (1/2 hour of your time), the decision is easy.

      Why spend 200 hours of your life killing rats and weak monsters (oh the incredible fun) when you can just start at 20th level for 100 bucks?

      If those 200 hours were entertaining- maybe. But typically they are insanely mindless grinding with no fun factor at all.

      In fact, most folks power level in some fashion once they get one character up to a decent level even tho it reduces the "fun".

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    3. Re:When did we stop playing these games? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You keep telling yourself that.

      Never "cheated" in my life- 7 years in EQ on one character in a major raiding guild (GM's say probably the oldest in the game).

      I think the games are absolutely rigged to favor people with unlimited play hours. In the old days- I went 2 years without even seeing a lot of mobs since they spawned and were killed between 1pm and 3pm. I "cheated" by spending the money to go to a game convention and bend the designers ears about that and suggest a random spawn interval. When they implemented that it actually resulted in some of the older guilds breaking up since they were no longer guaranteed of targets to pick and choose from (so the game became "unfun" for them).

      Unless they bring out a game where you are limited to 10 hours a week on a server, then anything you want to do to balance out the unfair advantage of unlimited play time (i.e. no job- rich, parents support them, in college (and failing most likely)) is fine by me.

      Likewise, unless they have a way to stop multi-boxing (which is impossible) you are always going to face people who don't struggle like you do because they have 3 characters and always have a group.

      Finally, many of the people in the winning guilds in EQ and WOW have massive cheating programs that interpret the data streams so they know exactly what mobs are up and what visable items they are carrying (as well as even automatically hunt and kill monsters in an area) via macroing.

      So sure... try to play a "fair" game and see what it gets you.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:When did we stop playing these games? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Subject to the same rules.

      LOL

      The designer's personally observe the uber guilds and give them tips on encounters for cripe's sake.

      We are all subject to so many different rules that your use of the term is completely meaningless.

      Saying a person can't use money is completely arbitrary on your part unless you also include multi-boxing, macro programs, data-stream programs, being supported by the state or parents so you can play unlimited hours, and being on the east coast (so you get all the best camps first).

      For the record, I've never done any of that or bought gold and I don't have a problem if anyone does that compared to all the other crappy things people do all the time.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  4. Grind; buying money by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't the point of any game to advance by playing it? In theory, yes. In practice, a lot of games are poorly tuned for casual players, who want to see the high-level content without having to take a pay cut to grind hours a day.

    When you feel you have to cheat (and buying money is cheating) Is buying yen with USD cheating? If not, then why is buying gil with USD cheating?
    1. Re:Grind; buying money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is buying yen with USD cheating? If not, then why is buying gil with USD cheating?

      Generally, it's because a game has rules, and breaking the rules is considered cheating.

      But, of course, the question becomes whether or not buying gold should be against the rules. If your game is so unfun that people are willing to buy their way into the end - maybe the problem is with the game, and not with people.

      In the case of FFXI (since you said gil...) the reason its swarmed with gold sellers is because the game is designed that way, not matter what Square-Enix says. The game easily allows resources to be monopolized, and is set up so that leveling period is essentially impossible without the very best gear. Since the best gear is easily monopolized (no instances) it costs a lot of in-game currency to get. (While FFXI does have the equivilent of WoW's bind-on-pickup, it's rarely used except for quest items.)

      So even though the rules say that players can't buy gil, the game is set up such that the only way to play is to amass large amounts of gil. Since the only way to do that according to the rules involves wasting massive amounts of time competing directly with other players for the same rare resources (remember, no instances), this means lots of time spent grinding solely to get ready to grind.

      It becomes cheaper to simply buy gil than to waste time working at the game in order to be allowed to play it.

      So the problem FFXI has is that the only way to play is to get lots of gil, but the game makes it so that the only way to get lots of gil is to play almost non-stop. Ultimately this means that the only people who can effectively get gil are people playing the game as a job who intend to sell it. It's set up to encourage currency selling - but then the company makes it against the rules.

      The only reason gold selling exists in the first place is because the game is designed to make it profitable. If there was no value to the gold in the first place, people wouldn't be willing to buy it. Because the games are designed in such a way that makes the in-game currency worth enough that people are willing to buy it, they create the market.

      If the MMORPG producers really want to stop currency selling, they'd design their games in such a way that the ingame currency wouldn't be so valuable. It's the game design that makes the game currency market. They should either enter the market they created themselves, or remove the market entirely. It's their game.

    2. Re:Grind; buying money by KingKiki217 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just to play the devil's advocate: What intrinsic value does money have except that of the paper it's printed on? Money represents skill-time in the real world, just like it does in an online game.

    3. Re:Grind; buying money by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Money has an intrinsic value in the real world. Namely, that other people will give you goods and services in exchange for it.
      That's self contradictory. Intrinsic value has nothing to do with the value as a medium of exchange. A sandwich has intrinsic value, as it is directly useful in filling a need. Money doesn't since it's only use is as a means of obtaining the sandwich.
      --
      Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
    4. Re:Grind; buying money by grimwell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Money has an intrinsic value in the real world. Namely, that other people will give you goods and services in exchange for it.


      Money in a virtual world works the same. Or to look at it from a different angle... what if the good&services you are interested in purchasing are only available in a virtual world?

      Exchanging US Dollars for WoW gold is similar to exchanging US Dollars for Euros. The difference is government backing of the currency.

      except that usually there is not a fixed amount of game money.


      Vs the real world, which has a fixed money supply?

      See, in the real world, money is the medium of exchange for goods and services. But in the game world, realistically, goods (items) are the same as money.


      People still barter in the real world. Easy examples would include collectibles like comic books&baseball cards. Or how about trading in your old car when buying a new one?

      Virtual currency is a curious thing when it can be exchanged for government backed currency.

      --
      If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
    5. Re:Grind; buying money by Frumply · · Score: 2, Interesting

      FFXI is actually VERY non-item reliant from an equipment POV, in the leveling phase anyway. The level system of the player works so that an extra status boost from a 'rare' item adds little to nothing of value. That's not to say that powerful gears don't exist, but the vast majority of those are raid drops that bind on pickup, and they don't come into play until you approach level75, FFXI's level cap. Hell, for most players the level 50~60 'artifact' armor will last them for the rest of the game. If anything, the problem may be pressure from other players in a leveling party to get better gear -- which is also a non-issue, as the player population in the mid-levels is next to nonexistent.

      As of late, Square's also been relatively good at slightly lower-quality replacements to some of the more powerful gear, drops of which ARE being monopolized by the gold farmers. In many servers, the only way to get a riddill (same attack power as most weapons, except you attack two to three times per turn), byakko pants (the only leg-equipment that increases attack speed by 5%) or a speed belt (a 6% boost) would be through a gold farmer. While these items are all but impossible to get w/o some sort of gil trading, most of them have slightly lower-grade cousins that can be obtained via side-quests.

      Consumables are a slightly different matter: accuracy-raising items with a 30minute timer are a virtual necessity to play will cost you ~20K gil a dozen, and if you're playing the ninja job properly it would cost you that much an hour to cast their spells. While equipment can generally be sold off at prices equivalent to the purchasing price, the consumables have no refunds other than in the form of levels for the user -- and not using them will change a player to anywhere between half-as-effective and completely useless. Players grinding for cash can expect to earn ~10K~30K an hour. Mob hunting, fishing and mining are still viable income-earning opportunities, and they're as dry as the rest of the game.

      What Square doesn't have is a half-decent game management structure to control goldfarming. They pulled a silly move by not splitting servers by region, forcing US players to start from scratch in a world where there were maxed-out level Japanese players everywhere, most of whom had already taken up most cash-making opportunities. Rampant begging for items and powerleveling ensued, animosity between Japanese and the 'no-skills' US players (how in the hell should we know how to play when the game just came out over here?!) grew almost immediately, and thousands of players decided they needed a shortcut to catch up.

      Goldfarmers followed and quickly started filling up game servers to service these new customers; for some reason most farmers were not banned for upwards of a year despite constant report-ins by both the US and JP community, which may have sent further messages to players that purchasing gils is OK. They have just recently come up with a 'Special Task Team' to combat goldfarming, but as far as I've seen the landscape hasn't changed much.

    6. Re:Grind; buying money by pslam · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It is exactly people like you who are the bane of WoW. You are coming out with exactly the same template nonsense that every gold buyer comes out with:

      • "I don't have time to grind XYZ"
      • "I earn too much money in my job to get dirty with grinding" (there's a word for someone like you)
      • "I want to skip the un-fun parts"
      • "I can make faulty analogies to support my immoral and cheating behavior all day"

      You haven't made a single point that doesn't have faulty logic. You can't compare this to "not wanting to role play". You are cheating. The rules of the game say so.

      You cannot make the excuse that you like to PvP and therefore you want to skip all the "un-fun" parts. You know where people get most of their gear for PvP from? Yes, that's right, they get it from those hours they spent grinding. You are cheating to do better in PvP.

      There are many players just like you who are lacking any kind of moral compass and make all kinds of crap arguments to make themselves feel better about it. It all reads like some school essay on "Virtual gold vs Real world money", and it's also all as vacuous as most school essays.

      Buying Virtual Gold Is Cheating. The Rule Say So.

      Which part of that do you not understand? All of it. There's no way you can justify anything you are doing.

      Do you understand why how much you earn in real life should have NOTHING to do with your in-game character? Do you not understand how it's supposed to be a virtual world where everyone is basically created equal? You are screwing with that.

  5. ebay hasn't delisted all virtual property by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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..)

    http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=b s&sbrftog=1&from=R10&satitle=kingdom+of+loathing

    guess it's just a matter of time before they find everything out.. too bad ebay execs are a bunch of anal fucks.

    1. Re:ebay hasn't delisted all virtual property by rm999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "too bad ebay execs are a bunch of anal fucks."

      If I owned stock in ebay, I would sell it. I seriously don't trust them with any sort of common-sense, monetary decisions. Why does every great company start out so cool, and then end up succumbing to business school morons who drive the company into the ground with their lack of intelligence and overconfidence?

  6. Cutting out the Chinese by Duncan3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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/
    1. Re:Cutting out the Chinese by pslam · · Score: 2, Insightful
      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.


      I see this horse crap churned out every time there's a discussion about the virtual gold blackmarket. It's not true. It's boring seeing everyone cut and paste this response as if cynics of the world have all somehow come to agreement that it's reality.


      Show us some damn evidence rather than just stupid slander.

  7. Tried this in Monopoly? by svunt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:other sites by rpgSE · · Score: 2, Informative

    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 http://www.mmoexchange.com/ while others just track all the prices http://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.