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Legitimizing Real Money Trading In Games
MMOGamer interviewed Andy Schneider, co-founder of Live Gamer, a company working with several major game publishers (including Acclaim, Funcom, and SOE) to legitimize the real money trading (RMT) industry in online games. Schneider expects this method of customer service to grow much more popular in the West over the next few years, especially after the success it's had in Asia.
"It started in the very earliest MMOs, if not back in the MUD days in a very grassroots sort of way, but then obviously got into a more opportunistic and nefarious industry. When I talk about legitimate RMT, it's about a publisher supporting the notion that people want to buy and sell virtual items for real money, and they have decided to proactively support that notion and give their player-base a way to do that. ... It takes the manual process out of the equation that most players are engaged in with the black market, and reduces the fraud considerably, which is good for players. ... The reason there are gold farmers out there, the reason why there is nearly a two billion dollar secondary market for virtual items, is because of consumer demand."
The Taxman cometh.
See, this would be good, except that say I start a virtual business that somehow generates millions in real income, having to pay taxes on this would be insane (since it would deal across state and international borders). I'm not seeing that I would be doing anything but working for various governments and since that would mirror real life, I don't feel the need to assist the government in the taking of any more of my time and effort (much less money). On technical side though, this has some interesting possibilities...
Regards,
MBC1977,
That's a rational, logical, well thought out argument. Good luck selling the taxmen on it.
Where there's a buck to be had, don't assume people are going to be rational about it. And never, ever, ever assume that the legislation that introduces a new tax upon something will be well thought out.
Easy solution though. Just limit yourself to games in which gold-selling is not permitted, and you'll be fine.
Hell, I'm of the opinion that any game economy that allows real world money into it is bound to get out of control with inflation in an awful hurry, and probably won't remain worth playing for long. It's only the fact that the MMO companies don't allow such services (and do everything in their power to curb them) that limits this now - open the floodgates, and you'll see the in-game currency massively and rapidly devalued, and a big chunk of the playerbase leaving in disgust as they find themselves unable to compete without emptying their wallets.
Selling in-game resources for real-world money is simple greed, much like billing by the hour would be. If an alternative game exists that doesn't shaft the customers for every dime, they'll move one. Notice that, without exception, the successful MMOs are the ones that don't pull that crap?
Are they trying to dig their own graves? The reason why the gold farmers and item traders are thriving is because it is not legal under the TOS of many MMO games out there. If it suddenly become legal, what made them think that they can profit from it? I'm pretty sure that gold farmers would cease to exist if the gaming company themselves sells gold for real $$$ at a lower rate.
I'm against real money trading for gold and items because it would definitely create a crazy and lazy in-game economy. It would also remove the sense of common-ground in the game. I would hate it if by any chance Bill Gates decided to play an MMO and would have better items and gear than me instantly. (something along those lines)
I can see why losers would want to buy things they couldn't earn. I can see why the companies running the games would want to take the losers money instead of spending resources fighting gold farming. What I fail to understand is why anyone worth a damn would keep playing a game that openly allows buying their way to the top. And a game filled only with pathetic losers isn't likely to stay fun for even the losers for long.
Democrat delenda est
I've been playing this MMO for about 3.5 years (Entropia Universe, shamelessly) which was based on Real Cash trading/economy. There has always been a fixed exchange rate between U.S. Dollars and ingame currency (PED). Therefore everything you own in game has a real dollar value and can be sold in game. Real life funds can be transferred into the game, and withdrawn back to real life funds. This MMO has been around ~7 years with no 3rd party, nothing new here to me. In fact the parent company Mindark has just been granted a Swedish banking license. Yes maybe soon you can pay your real life bills in ingame currency. We aren't talking peanuts here either, we're talking real cash related to everything you do, so the best items in game fetch a pretty penny. The best healing tool in the game today you can fetch about 40,000 U.S. dollars for. You can buy plots of land in game for about the same that you can tax for real cash. Point is there are games that are based on real cash, and those who aren't. Those who arent it doesn't matter which way you go, private sales, E-Bay, Live Gamer, it's still all 'Black Market'. I'll stick with secure, non 3rd party solutions.
It works for Second Life. Almost too well. In 2007, Ginko Financial, an in-game bank, went bust. Then Midas Bank went bust. This drew the attention of The Wall Street Journal. In 2008, Linden Labs introduced bank regulation. Most of the Second Life banks were actually Ponzi schemes, with huge interest rates. It's still possible for a real-world bank to open branches in Second Life, but nobody has bothered.
there must be something out there that can be stretched into precedent for this. what about internal accounting systems, where a company's departments "pay" each other for services, but the government only cares about money which crosses the organization's boundary?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Are they actually suggesting selling stuff created from the aether, or are they suggesting that they set up an internal 'ebay' where players can sell to other players with the game company taking a modest cut? I got the impression of the latter.
Where that the case, someone would still have to go grind out the epics to hock to the bling buyers. That is already happening in most games. The only difference is who gets paid, the gold farmer and the game company, or some of these dubious 'middle men' who run the resale houses.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
>It would be like bribing your DM to let your third level character find a +5 sword. Who would continue to play in a gaming group if such a disgusting thing were to occur?
This happens every week. It is only right to bribe the DM for all his hard work.
Rule #1: The DM need never pay his share of the pizza for he has an infinite number of Tarrasques and magical swords. ^_-
That said though, trust me when I say, "You CAN'T afford a +5 Sword!"
There is "consumer demand" because lazy bum players who "can't be assed" to play the game want to cheat by buying ingame assets and currency with real money.
Once it becomes okay to cheat, only the cheaters will stay around. It's fine to cheat in single player games - all you are really doing is cheating yourself out of the proper experience. Cheating in multiplayer games (especially persistent multiplayer games) you'll just participate in destroying the game you are playing.
The only reason game companies are even looking at this is because enforcing the rules is expensive. Too many lazy bums around that need the banstick. Plus they look at how Asian companies rake in the money from idiots out there who all like to play "whoever has the most disposable income wins"-style game. SOE already tried this with EQ2 and it really didn't work - cheaters kept cheating on the regular servers and the gameplay and community on the "enabled" servers was a cesspit of teenagers trying to convert excess free time into dollars and lazy idiots feeding the teenagers with too much disposable income. Professional farmers stayed on the normal servers as black market prices were always higher and the "consumer demand" was higher on the servers where you could actually buy an advantage.
Cheating with real money is an advantage only when it is cheating. When everyone is doing it, it's just a stupid way to milk more money from all the people who bother to play the "game".
I have to agree, the MMO's i played that were infested with RMT, are having a rapidly devaluated currency, the result being that it becomes impossible to buy items without having to resort to RMT.
And indeed, that's why me and a lot of friends just stopped playing.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law
How 'close' would a game come to being covered under gambling laws, if any and every item you randomly find/get given as a reward in a game, actually has official real-life monetary value?
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
Ha ha ha, riiiight.
In the UK, and I'm sure this is the case in the US, even if you live by barter you're due taxes according to the value of the services or goods you exchange.
If you pay me 250 chickens a month instead of £1000 UKP then I still owe the tax man about £400 despite not having received any money. And sadly I can't pay him in chickens.
The only way to save is by illegally providing a false tax declaration and hoping no one notices you're working for barter rather than money. Ignorance of the need to declare such things is not a defence either.
1) Start virtual brothel
2) Charge punters real money
3) *****
4)Profit!
Smivs on the intertubes!
CCP introduced Game Time cards that can be purchased with real cash and then sold in game. Player rich in game can play from their in-game profits and casual players who would otherwise fund the farmers get cash from them. CCP keep all the money within their system and have virtually eliminated gold-farmers from their universe, it's not worth their time or the consumers risk when compared to the system they've made available themselves. Granted there's no way for a player to get cash out of the system, but once we start doing that there's going to be alot of Treasuries taking an interest in people with tax-free incomes.
there must be something out there that can be stretched into precedent for this.
And this is why the current legal climate is so fucked up. If you want a new law, make a new law. Distorting 200 year old laws to fit the internet does not work. See copyright.
Doesn't matter. The taxman can't do anything until you acquire assets outside the game.
Read your TOS/EULA. Make it work for you for once. Anything inside the game is owned by the people running the game. If the taxman comes knocking I have a binding legal contract, ProCD v Zeidenberg 7th Circuit, that says they need to go talk to Blizzard/Sony/Turbine/Whoever because they are the owners of record. It's their asset not mine.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Which is all well and good, but like most things involving corporate and government abuse, it's just not worth it. 10k gold in WoW goes for something like $75. That's, what, ten bucks extra on your taxes? Are you really going to spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars trying to defend your point against the IRS?
There are lots of things that we shouldn't pay. I shouldn't have paid Bank of America when they screwed me on a credit card late fee by holding my check past the due date. But it was $39. It would have cost me $60 just to file a claim I had no guarantee of winning, so instead I swore at the guy on the phone, paid their theft fee, canceled the account and never dealt with them again.
Fighting on principles is too expensive in America, which is why few people bother to do it.