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The BBC On RMT
Real Money Transfer (RMT) is a contentious subject among MMOG players, but not something usually addressed by major news organizations. Joystiq has up a post on the BBC's coverage of gold farming in World of Warcraft , with a reporter 'live from Ironforge' addressing the issue. "The BBC has taken a straight look at Chinese gold farmers in the World of Warcraft. We'd fear for our own jobs when MSM begin competently portraying game news — thankfully, gold farming is old news and has already been well documented in the last two years, so we feel relatively safe. The piece takes a look at your typical Chinese gold farming operation, with some nifty use of green-screen by the reporter being magically teleported into the game. At least it wasn't another WoW game addiction piece."
If you don't watch videos while you slashdot, you're not going to get much out of the link.
It's nice when the summary says something about a video, although I've been here too long to expect that out of Zonk.
Personally I'd like to see only videos with transcripts posted on slashdot, but probably that's just me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nah, they could just put out Diablo III, or a sequel to Rock 'n' Roll Racing. ;)
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
To just make sure MMOs are no longer created or supported, that way the gaming industry can get back to genres that matter and all of the losers that waste their time on WoW can commit suicide.
Fess up...you got banned for botting, didn't you?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
And D3 would be any better than WoW? Different I suppose, but still a grind/collection game with less to go and do than WoW.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
So.. blizzard should trade millions of people paying over a hundred dollars a year (that's right, with 8 million subscribers, they can gross a billion dollars a year. That's more revenue than some countries.)
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DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Meh I don't see how its such a problem really. In the end, it comes down to why you are playing the game, and that varies from person to person.
The problem is that, the real purists. The people who actually WANT to "role play" or see the game model a real "economy in a vaccuume" (where there isn't some unseen force outside that makes things move around... think about it... real money makes for a "supernatural" force making people move in game goods around for reasons that don't make sense in game)... well... guess what... RPers and their ilk are far and few between.
Alot of people like to casually play. I mean some lvl whatever something or other gets on (Ive played these games but not WoW itself), does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether he got that way by playing for days and days on his own, or bought a char last week?
The reason I will never pick up another MMORPG is very simple... I am a casual gamer. I am not looking for a relationship damnit! I want to come in, play the game, and then go do something else. I don't care what happens day to day... I don't care who else plays. I enjoy the time I play, and I make the best of it... and then... I want to do something else.
Hence, I totally understand buying a char. You get to skip all the powerleveleing, skip all of the "job" aspect of the game, and get right into the PvP, which would have been why I bought the god damned game in the first place.
I also see why people hate it... but honestly... who are they going to cater to?
What interests me more is the possibilities for money laundering. Think about it... there is now a total virtual economy. If I wanted to give you a million dollars and obscure where it came from, and was willing to pay the associated "fees" (differences in buying and selling exchange rates basically would be amounting to a fee), I could just transfer you gold and things in game until you had enough to trade for the amount of money I was trying to give you.
Hell if we do it right, it should be damned hard to trace whats really going on, it could be made to either look legit or at least hard to figure out.
Maybe this isn't robust enough for signifigant laundering... but... as these sorts of economies flourish, I do have to wonder.....
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A lot of people like to casually play. I mean some lvl whatever something or other gets on (I've played these games but not WoW itself), does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether he got that way by playing for days and days on his own, or bought a char last week?
To many people who have played these games extensively, yes, it matters quite a bit actually. Someone who puts time in to level a char up from scratch and puts in hundreds of hours of real game play is generally (not always) going to be a much better player and have a much better idea of how their char/class should be played. People who buy or power level their way up without taking the time to really learn what they are doing don't have the understanding, skill, and discipline required to tackle many of the higher level encounters. These games were not meant to be 'casual games' and can't really be lumped into the same class as your typical FPS or 1 player rpg. If you have put in the time to acquire the knowledge needed to play well, yes there are shortcuts. If you've maxed out 2 or 3 char's the hard way... absolutely it's acceptable to take a shortcut here and there. If you are just a 'casual' player, pay for gold/plat, and power level your first char up, you will miss much of what others have learned through hours of play. Fortunately, players like this are generally pretty easy to spot and can be avoided as they tend to make mistakes that regularly cost much time and frustration to more seasoned players.
Except they aren't. You're making the incorrect assumption of 8billion * $15. What you need to do is take the number of American subscribers, subtract from that the number of accounts that are merely free trial accounts (a great number of which are used by the gold sellers to spam), and you get the amount of money brought in in America. Then, for each market, figure out how it's priced (China is a huge market and they pay nowhere close to $15/month). We hear a lot about how many subscribers WoW has, but the actual amount of income is another matter.
This gives far too much credibility to the arguments gold sellers and gold buyers make. They are so, so easy to counter and refute, but did you see how much air time they gave the Blizzard rep? 15 seconds.
Did you see the shitty argument the "Gamer" called "Ryan" made? He has a full time job, and therefore he can't complete. Oh my god, you aren't a gamer, Ryan, you're just a delusional loser with an inadequacy complex. Then the BBC report bought the whole argument and went with it...
The whole "job vs gold" argument is a false dichotomy invented by the people that buy and sell gold. It doesn't exist. You can play the game perfectly well along side a full time job, still have a social life, and still "compete" (as the "gamer" "ryan" puts it). Some people suffer from an inadequacy complex more than others, I guess.