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A Case Study of RMTs In EVE Online
Kheldon writes with an article at MMO Gamer which explores how well real money transactions work in online games, using EVE Online as a test case. Quoting:
"... My next problem came from trying to sell the [Game Time cards] through the 'Time Code Bazaar' on the forums. While I quickly found buyers, none of them actually went through with the deal. This is the inherent problem with developer sanctioned RMT. Unless true, unfettered, player-to-player transactions are allowed without developer 'regulation,' the market will inevitably be operating inefficiently. Consider gold-farmers for a moment. Setting aside the moral or legal aspects of the trade, and considering from a purely economic standpoint, gold-farmers are the RMT equivalent of large corporations. They operate on the concept of 'economies-of-scale,' which basically means that up to a certain point, the larger a company is, the cheaper they can produce that product. Of course, companies that can produce a product more cheaply can undercut the competition while maintaining the same profit margin; meaning they'll make more sales, giving them more overall profit, and supporting the corporate growth, which furthers the economy of scale. This is the market at its most pure."
You're quite correct - generating free cash and injecting it into the economy causes a trickledown and inflates prices across the game. But at the same time, since EVE does have a lot of destruction in it's game, that's not as critical as it sounds - the more expensive fits people fly, the more isk is destroyed when it explodes, and the edge advantage granted by pimp fitting a ship is not particularly extreme - you can maybe take on 2-3 people of your sizeclass, but against any more you're still going to die.
Come on guys, how hard is this concept to grasp? When a ship blows up, not a single isk leaves the economy...the only things getting blown up are assets. The isk sits safely in the wallet of whoever sold that pimp gear to the pilot getting blown up. If you crash your car on the highway the money you paid for it doesn't magically disappear from the dealer's bank account either, does it?
RMT does not generate isk. Blowing stuff up does not destroy isk. In fact, blowing stuff actually injects a small amount of isk into the economy because of the insurance payout on the ship(note for non-players, insurance is a game mechanic where an ingame organization gives you some cash back when you lose your ship, as opposed to ingame money moving around between actual players).
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Sometimes the real life busts in and makes us painfully aware that some people have more, much more disposable income than others.
EVE Online's RMT system is by and large a brilliant idea. People who are so inclined, can buy virtual wealth for real world money, and people who are good at the game can play for free. The developers benefit either case. The vastness of EVE's playerbase however means it includes some individuals who are far, far ahead of the average on the income curve.
In the latest "Great War of EVE", a small Russian alliance RED.Overlord (ROL), with connections to virtual money farming industry, grew hostile with their neighbors, the largest player alliance Goonswarm. A certain VERY well off member of ROL then bought at least 500 billion ingame ISK (~$10k+ worth) from the black market to buy its alliancemates five Titan class capital ships (strategic weapons in EVE which take a lot of effort and 2 months of real time to build). CCP got a whiff of the transaction and banned all the titan pilots and their associates.
Unfettered, ROL's "mysterious benefactor" turned to legal means, and publicly sold 1000 real-money-bought timecards to fund its ingame war effort - a cool $27,000 worth. That is an undeniable fact, with sale threads still visible on EVE's official forums.
A harder to prove, but with the above in mind not the least unlikely, were his solid real-money-bribes to the leaders of other EVE alliances for help in the war. It's rumored that Evil Thug, the leader of a powerful Against All Authorities alliance, received a cool $30,000 bribe to turn his ingame organization against their former friends at Goonswarm, and there are more reliable information that certain leaders of other neighboring alliances received solid five-figure dollar bribes to either turn coat, or at the minimum stay neutral, in this purely ingame conflict. Perhaps interestingly, not many agreed.
Real life bribes don't as such have a lot to do with ingame RMT, but that's because the effect of ingame currency only goes so far, and rallying real people one way or the other is the true means to win.