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Ask the MMOG Money Traders
Late yesterday, Sparter Inc. announced the Gamer2Gamer virtual currency trading platform. The goal: to provide a secure currency trading environment for players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Rather than purchasing currency outright, the goal of the project is to cut out the middleman and (implicitly) the gold-farming consortiums that supply larger for-pay sites. We were contacted by a representative from the company before the release went out, looking to speak with the Slashdot community about the service. In his words, the folks at Gamer2Gamer "are devoted gamers themselves and are well aware that not everyone will like the idea -- but we think plenty of folks will like a world where Real Money Transfer is workable and unintrusive." And so, you get the chance today to put the hard questions to them. One question per comment, please, and we'll pass on the best of the lot to be answered as soon as possible. Update: 06/14 17:58 GMT by Z : Howzer points out that there is an extensive FAQ on the service, that you can use as a springboard for questions.
So you say you work out the middle man in this horrible scheme of capitalism. But I'm still concerned that the people who are farming right now at a severely reduced pay rate are doing so because they don't have the money to front for the operation and they have no choice but to remain a pawn. They make very little money and the real profits go to some American guy manipulating them all and paying for their accounts.
Tell me again how your service does not promote this middle man from acting like a player? How am I assured that my gold is not earned by some innocent kid who is doing this as a job to make money? How am I assured this isn't still some cog in a scheme to exploit foreign workers?
Disclaimer for the rest of Slashdot: I'm well aware of the situations where this may be the person's only means of income. I still would rather not support this system.
My work here is dung.
With the recent lawsuit against peons4hire.com, Blizzard appears intent on cracking down against the larger players in the business. How do you intend on avoiding legal issues?
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Will your site will work out converting currencies in one game to currencies in another game--so that if I play Warcraft and Final Fantasy I can spend my gold for gil? If you are doing this, how are you going to keep these markets in check? Will it all just be normalized against the dollar?
Bottom line question is whether or not you'll control dumping of virtual currency or if you'll institute ranges. If you're not instituting limits or regulating in a Federal Reserve type manner, how are you going to protect against a single person running the market (buying all the gold and sitting on it while letting it drip out slowly at an extreme amount of USD)?
Will you post graphs of each MMO's currency so we can watch currencies like SWG's credit against Warcraft's Gold?
My work here is dung.
Inevitably, when Governments hear about money being passed around, their first thought is how to tax it. MMOGs can take the position that their currency isn't real, and therefore shouldn't be taxed. However, being able to transfer virtual currency for real cash weakens that argument.
I personally don't want to play a game where I have to pay sales tax on buying items, or income tax for an in-game business, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Given this, do you see any foreseeable ways to keep taxes out of games?
Not a typewriter
How do you plan to deal with the litigation against you that will inevitably spring up from companies like Blizzard & Sony that state this violates TOS and restrict auctions/selling on eBay and everywhere else?
Will your servers be foreign based to avoid this?
My work here is dung.
Particularly what internet protocols are you using, or equivalently how are you accessing these banks electronically? As an example: are we talking Financial Information eXchange or something different?
Do you currently have a plan in place for when these "Real Money Transfers" become taxable income? Will you be supplying tax documentation for your customers, or will that be their sole responsibility?
If this does fly it could produce a method to invent and earn money by paying attention to the up-and-coming games and investing when they're undervalued or overvalued and additionally, their popularity. Unfortunately this will also prompt an age minimum and consumer taxes, but it would be interesting to see if it would even fly on a global level.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
My work here is dung.
I'm concerned that this platform is devoted to promoting activity that the largest game (WoW) explicitly forbids. How do you plan to handle the fact that the entire premise of your site is one that could get your "customers" banned from the games they play?
A lot of MMO content is less enjoyable because of gold farmers and others looking at playing the game for monetary gain rather than enjoyment. What measures, if any, will be used to make sure that the sellers are legitimately playing the game? If not, how is this service actually helping the gamers for whom gold selling is an inconvenience?
Will you be trading on games that specifically disallow RMT activities in their Terms of Service?
"...we think plenty of folks will like a world where Real Money Transfer is workable and unintrusive"
It's well known that real money for game currency helps contribute to mudflation by providing volumes of game capital to players unable to achieve the same. Such dilution of the value of currency on a game thereby impacts every player of that game as costs go up but gained rewards by playing the game does not.
If you envision a world where Real Money Transfer is "unintrusive", how do you compensate for MUDflation? What steps do you intend to take to truly be unintrusive on other players?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Many MMOs explicitly state in their Terms of Service that buying and selling of in-game goods for real currency is prohibited. While Sparter does not seem to be directly violating the ToS in this regard, Sparter will likely be deriving commercial benefit from use of trademarks owned by the game publishers. Another area of possible legal liability is in enabling and encouraging players to circumvent their contracts with game companies (as with Blizzard and Vivendi's recent countersuit against the creator of WoWglider) -- this would apply to any game where trading in game items or currency using real currency is prohibited.
Can you please comment on how Sparter plans to protect itself from the inevitable lawsuits and C&D notices from game publishers?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Sparter has an extensive FAQ which answers everything from how they make money (commission) to how they "guarantee" you get the "goods" (they stick your money in escrow until you say "got the gold!" from the seller)
So let's ask some questions not in the FAQ, eh?! Here's mine:
For such an incredibly simple service, you seem to have a hugely top-heavy management team, which means big running costs, which explains your exorbitant 10 percent commission. What's to stop me (or anyone) setting up a simpler, leaner service doing exactly the same thing and charging 5 percent?
Or, if that's too hard, try this one:
You claim you use (quoting from your site) "state-of-the-art technology to root out fraud". Since simple fraud -- I say I didn't get something that someone says they gave me in game -- can't be checked by you unless you have the keys to WoW or EQ2 or SWG (or whatever) what "state-of-the-art technology" would you be talking about?
Ebay did not fail to provide a marketplace. They chose not to, stating that they were trying to reduce their users' exposure to risk (assumedly, from both fraud and legal action by the game companies). I'm certain they were also reducing their risk and expenses, both from dealing with fraud (in-game currency transactions have a high rate of fraud) and from legal fees if asked to C&D by game companies.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
How do you determine that the "seller", isn't a farmer just looking for another avenue to move his goods?
(I will use WoW as my example- but I don't play it, so I apologize if I get terms or numbers wrong).
I think this could solve the problems 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 (and since people aren't actually making money with this system, Blizzard can avoid alot of IRS madness).
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, just like gold sellers do now.
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, and those with plenty of time 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 cash-gold 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 turn 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.
Given that nearly everyone in this industry asks you to agree to some kind of EULA to get access to their servers, you must break promises to be in this business at all.
So why should we trust you? If you're willing to lie to them, how do we know you aren't lying to us, too?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Are you going to be clear to your customers that trading virtual money might get them banned from the MMO they are playing?
World of Warcraft's Terms of Service is pretty nasty. It basically reserves the right to ban any account they feel like without providing any reason. Your FAQ says that you realize that some game companies don't want players trading virtual goods while you think it is a gamer's right to be able to trade virtual itmes. I'm pretty sure that statement isn't going to save your customers from getting banned from WoW.
Also, how does your company feel about possibly ruining game experiences for others gamers? Many MMO companies design their game economy around the fact that players can only obtain money through the game mechanics, without any outside effects. If your company destroys the fun factor of a game by ruining the economy, how will you deal with the possible legal action coming from the companies that have a decimated user base?
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Your premise is entirely wrong, therefor it's not really possible to answer your question in a way that will satisfy you.
The only part of your question that's relevent is this: Is everyone freely engaging in these transactions? If so, they must believe that they benefit from it. Can the worker quit and find another way to eek out a living? Can the employer fire him and hire someone else? Are you free to not play the MMOG in question? Are you free to not buy gold from this seller? Is the seller free to not sell gold from you? The alternatives may be less pleasent, but they are still alternatives.
By arbitrarily saying I'm well aware of the situations where this may be the person's only means of income. I still would rather not support this. You're setting up field such that no answer will satisfy you, and any transaction that involves Americans paying foriegners for unskilled labor is evil exploitation.
No one who thinks like you do can possibly be pleased. Why bother?
This is what happens when you take too many classes about 'social justice': Your head gets filled with confused thinking about victims, oppressors, capitilist pigs, poor exploited foreigners and the like.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Gear doesn't matter much when levelling up, true, I never cared except maybe buying a weapon from ah at lvl 10. But once you hit the max level it sure do make a difference. My main is a lvl 70 warrior and I wouldn't be able to play many instances if I had lvl 55-60 equipment unless it was the absolute best lvl 60 stuff (and that of course means putting a lot of work/money into getting it). Otoh I've never felt the need to buy gold, all the items that you can buy for gold is often easily replaced by quest rewards and drops.
For real hardcore gamers the problem is more that of repairs and consumables though rather than gear. I have a friend that used to play in Nihilum and he had to grind for pots and such about all the time he wasn't raiding.
The root of the problem is a bit different though. I personally don't want to keep up with the joneses, I want to keep up with my friends so that I can play with them at all. Since most mmog games (all?) reward effort in some way and also allow trading you easily get a situation where you have to play about the same amount as your friends, give each other stuff or buy it for RL money if you want to play together. This of course only handles the tradable part of the game, but that was what we were discussing, right?
If noone rtfa, then what's the slashdot effect?