Not long ago, some folks were cheering Sony Online's embrace of real-money trades (RMT) as a fatal blow to third-party RMT brokers like IGE. Well, if you believe today's rumors, we should all be so fatally, um, blown. Says Galrahn over at UO Powergamers.com: "My sources out of Florida have confirmed that IGE has completed negotiations for limited license agreements for at least 5 North American MMOGs. The official announcement is expected at E3."
OK, so maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Maybe the five games are Toontown Online, FurryMUCK, and Yahoo! Checkers, Bingo, and Canasta. But how about instead of pondering such imponderables, all you bright people sink your teeth into Galrahn's argument that game publishers are actually better off licensing IGE than running their own server-side exchange systems a la Sony:
With IGE, gamers subscribe to accounts and pay their monthly fees to supply the secondary market. IGE subscribes to accounts and pays monthly feeds to sell in the secondary market. Assume for a moment a game has 12 servers, 3 accounts for IGE and 300 accounts for 'farmers' alone on each server. Thats $54,000+ a month in subscriptions at $15.00 a month. You can still ban accounts for botting, and farmers typically use bots, so hey you get to make even more money off the secondary market.
Do the math, a company with only 12 servers and a tiny 300 farmer accounts per server is making over half a million dollars a year simply acknowledging IGE, not to mention whatever fees they are making as apart of any licensing agreement with IGE.
Let the comments commence.
Julian (quoting Galrahn):a company with only 12 servers and a tiny 300 farmer accounts per server is making over half a million dollars a year simply acknowledging IGE
And why would those 300 accounts disappear if the farmers sold through SonyBay rather than through IGE?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 18, 2005 at 03:16
The "Join Them" camp is growing as this is the current/next cash cow.
Casino/gambling has a similar evolution process. Every state in the US has looked or is looking at the tax revenue gains from allowing casinos. Moreover even Singapore is thinking about this form of activity as an integral of "family entertainment".
So soon we'll have gambling, RMTs, theme parks, and resorts in the virtual world near you.
Frank
Posted by: magicback | May 18, 2005 at 07:31
{shameless}In my State of Play I paper, I argued that the meme of commercialization would dominate the meme of roleplay.{/shameless} That's why, since then, I've felt that the critical job in front of us is to figure out how to preserve even one non-commercialized space. My default assumption has been that all pure-fantasy worlds are going to be wiped out. Can we design anything that resists the coming flood?
Again, I don't argue this because I think RMT is evil per se. It's great for some, or even most, applications. In many applications, it is both welcome and unavoidable.
But there is one application where it is unwelcome and, I hope, avoidable: Secondary Worlds, separate spheres, Other Places, alternate social realities. Earth written by different rules. And it so happens that, for completely personal reasons, I care about that application much more than any of the others.
Let the flood come. It will teach us where the highest ground is, and how to build our world there.
Posted by: Edward Castronova | May 18, 2005 at 09:50
IIRC, SonyBay only affects certain servers.
If IGE entered into a limited license agreement with, say, WoW, Blizzard might be able to dictate similar conditions to IGE: that they only offer "authorized" services (limited to a particular set of servers). IGE would have to believe that the profit gained from legitimate-trade servers would exceed the loss from the no-trade servers, but it may be willing to enter into such an agreement.
Under that rationale, developers may be able to justify this as a method to insulate some of the servers from "real-world economies."
--
magicback mentioned gambling- and this brings up one legal issue I was trying to figure out- At what point do online gambling laws come into play?
If a developer facilitates the conversion of cash to VW currency and back, and a developer provides a "game of chance casino" in his world, is he facilitating online gambling illegally? What if the casino is player-created content, like "There" ?
Posted by: chasyork | May 18, 2005 at 10:45
Ted>I've felt that the critical job in front of us is to figure out how to preserve even one non-commercialized space.
This RMT stuff is just the latest in a long line of wacked-out decisions made by people who don't fully appreciate the effects of what they're doing.
The entire concept of virtual worlds is being nerfed before our very eyes.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 18, 2005 at 11:06
"My sources out of Florida have confirmed that IGE has completed negotiations for limited license agreements for at least 5 North American MMOGs. The official announcement is expected at E3."
I read that as IGE no longer needing to rely on farming, they will just *buy* the resources directly from the MMOGs cutting out the need to farm altogether.
Posted by: Rich Thurman | May 18, 2005 at 11:19
Do the math, a company with only 12 servers and a tiny 300 farmer accounts per server is making over half a million dollars a year simply acknowledging IGE, not to mention whatever fees they are making as apart of any licensing agreement with IGE.
But if a MMOG operator is going to acknowledge this market exists and take advantage of it, why give money to IGE? What benefit does this bring the MMOG operator or its players?
That is, if you're going to license with IGE anyway, why not just create your own internal marketplace as Sony is doing. Any MMOG operator has one key advantage over IGE: they can assure the users the integrity of the data they're exchanging: you always know what you're getting up front, and you don't have to go through any out-of-game machinations to make your trade (RMT or hybrid).
Ted "argued that the meme of commercialization would dominate the meme of roleplay."
Well... yeah. When the games cost millions of dollars and take years to make (excluding outliers like the text games, which have a miniscule portion of the overall market, whatever their positive points), commercialization is going to win. Investors want to make a return. That's the way a market economy works (not meaning to say you don't realize this, Ted).
That said, nothing is stopping anyone, privately or commercially, from creating a true "alternate social reality" of their own.
Except that these are more myth than fact anyway. Even in the most die-hard RP history-complete sequestered virtual world, humanity and the real world eventually seeps in. This doesn't necessarily mean RMT or something overt like that, but the minute someone spends their money on a long-distance call to someone they've met in game, the real world has intruded and the magic circle, such as it is, has been broken.
Now, so as not to end on a negative note, it's also true that in a market economy people will pay for the experience they want to have. I'm often touting Disney in this regard because it works. Taking your family to Disneyland or WDW is expensive, no doubt about it. And personally I (and millions of others) pay this premium gladly. My family and I can have an aggregate experience (however carefully engineered) there that we can have no other place.
So if RP games die on the vine, this isn't an evil thing, though it may be sad for die-hard RP fans. But if this happens it's just because insufficient numbers of people really want to have role-play be king in their online game/world experience. If separate social realities fail, it's because we as humans aren't that good at really separating our social realities.
But the minute someone comes up with a way to make an RP-ish, separate-ish experience enjoyable by millions of people -- not just a few thousand -- it will be a stunning creative and commercial success. The first instance of this is certainly WoW in the US. I see it more and more as a bridge from the first-gen MMOGs to whatever comes next, being some of both.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | May 18, 2005 at 11:21
Edward wrote:
That's why, since then, I've felt that the critical job in front of us is to figure out how to preserve even one non-commercialized space.
No offence Edward, but isn't that kind of like trying to figure out how to get people to drive cars? There are over a thousand non-commercialized virtual worlds. FAR more than there are commercialized virtual worlds. If all you truly want is non-commercialized virtual worlds, there's nothing to fight about as they're not going anywhere. Now, if you start adding game specific features like wanting non-commercialized virtual worlds with 3d graphics or non-commercialized virtual worlds with quest cards and soulbound equipment and giant bulls to play as a race, you limit your options some, but if it's just the non-commercial aspect in general you're interested in preserving, it's a done deal.
www.mudconnect.com
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 18, 2005 at 12:55
Mike Sellers wrote:
But the minute someone comes up with a way to make an RP-ish, separate-ish experience enjoyable by millions of people -- not just a few thousand -- it will be a stunning creative and commercial success. The first instance of this is certainly WoW in the US.
I seriously doubt the people who are serious about RP are going to look at a monster bashing game and think, "Here's that hardcore RP game I've been dying for!"
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 18, 2005 at 12:59
Thanks for picking up the article. Since the discussion is theory, allow me to apply some theory based on what I think it would be like for the game I am currently playing.
The arguement is easy to make why investers should encourage MMOG companies to do this. Assume for example the company is NCSoft and the game is Lineage2. I play Lineage2, so I know for fact these numbers will be looked at by other L2 players as an under estimation of the facts.
Farmers in Lineage2 have to produce 5,000,000 adena per week. I know this because my clan/alliance understands, controls, and deals with farmers and farmer bosses daily. In all competitively structured PvP games like Lineage2, dealing with farmers, usually with your boot on their neck, is part of the daily life of powergaming.
Estimate low scale there are 300 farmers per server.
Assume that is 1.5 billion adena per week sold to players, which in reality would be fewer than 20 people per week making the top purchase at IGE for 80 million on a specific server.
80 million sells on IGE for a little over $300, so lets assume $300. Lets assume an agreement with IGE from NCSoft would be $1 per million sold.
1.5 billion adena a week, NCSoft get $1 for each million, comes up to $1,500 a week for adena sales via IGE. There are 9 servers in North America for Lineage2, so now your talking $13,500 a week. 4 weeks in a month so now Lineage2 has $54,000 a month or roughly $700,000 a year additional revenue simply acknowledging IGE and making an agreement. Sound far fetched? Didn't Cindy Bowens from Sigil games once tell us that IGE came to them and pitched an idea that actually pays Sigil for currency sold via IGE?
The key to competitive advantage within the game though is that currency in the game can't come out of thin air, it needs to come from the community so you know the currency sold is a fair representation of what is available to the community, in other words, currency for the secondary market would have to come from within the game. That means players have to go out and earn the money in game, partisipate in the economy of the game, and the currency sold needs to originate from within the game in order to keep the economy of the game in balance. That will be debatable to non gamers I am sure.
From what I understand Sony creates currency out of thin air for their virtual currency sales, but EA does not for UO. I believe if there is a flood of currency from outside the economy of the game it can destroy the economy within the game. That reality makes currency farmers, or subscription players, an important aspect of the secondary market, because without a stable in game economy, there is no stable secondary market.
So on top of the $700,000 revenue generated by my earlier example of a % off the top of IGE by a gaming company, you can add to it the additional 300 accounts per server providing currency to the secondary market, which at $15 a month on 9 servers in Lineage2 would be around $500,000.
$1,200,000 yearly revenue for a small North American game with around 65,000 subscriptions, using the model today where the entire secondary market is supposedly illegal yet in full effect anyway. In the end, the farmers in this model would represent less than 5% of the total subscriptions, and when you think of the potential control a company takes over their game with cooperation of the secondary market as opposed to a perspective of having to spend money to fight it, the cost effectiveness for partnerships with IGE are there.
Any Lineage2 player in North America will tell you I just under estimated the number of farmers on each server, underestimated the number of players active in the secondary market, and under estimated the amount of money in flux within the secondary market for Lineage 2 by alot, so anyone going on these numbers as a place to build on could assume the actual potential reveune for a gaming company, in this example NCSoft and Lineage2, would be a lot higher. In fact, some would say as much as 10x higher or more.
Add in the fact most games in North America are bigger and marketed better to the general gaming community than Lineage2, you can see where the revenue avenue is there, and there is no evidence that games have ever lost revenue due to the secondary market, which btw, exists anyway as a blackmarket despite the current risk for scamming and theft without partnerships from gaming companies.
Food for thought, but I stand by my story and sources, and expect announcements tomorrow or Friday.
Posted by: Galrahn | May 18, 2005 at 14:09
There's an important difference between the secondary worlds of Edward's Tolkien reference and the virtual worlds that exist in MMOGs, and it's this: the experience of reading a fairy story is a collaboration between two people, the author and the reader. The experience of an MMOG or other alternate social reality is a collaboration among many thousands of people. As such, it's going to be far, far more difficult to construct a single environment of that nature that pleases everyone involved in equal measure. Tolkien was able to appeal to millions, but each transaction was on a one-to-one basis, and each transaction was (is) different depending on who's on the other end of the experience.
Avoiding commercialization in a shared online environment implies limiting the population to those who don't care for commercial applications of the place. But for any such online space to be truly robust, I don't think it can pick and choose its residents that way. So we're left with online worlds resembling the real world: there will always be people doing things there that we don't like and which puncture whatever illusion we've created for ourselves. Even a non-commercial online space would be subject to hazards like ganking or OOC chat-spamming, so where do we draw the line?
There is a sense in which some virtual worlds are moving toward being something more akin to an application than a game, especially looking at the potential in something like Second Life. This, I think, is going to be very interesting to watch as it develops, as it will make online spaces more than just social.
I personally like the idea of game companies at least accepting the RMT markets, and see some real advantages to them were they to do so. Whether this would be advantageous to players is a different question.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement along the lines Galrahn describes from IGE, either. My own "sources out of Florida" hinted at something similar a few weeks back.
Posted by: Mark Wallace | May 18, 2005 at 17:00
Richard>This RMT stuff is just the latest in a long line of wacked-out decisions made by people who don't fully appreciate the effects of what they're doing.
I don't know how to tell you this, Richard, but those "people" that you refer to are called "paying customers". And while you think they "don't fully appreciate the effects of what they're doing", they just think they're playing the games they way they want to play them, even if it does not conform to your ivory-tower construct of virtual worlds, circa 1987. Even Sony concedes that something like 70% of their player base either engages in RMT or does not object to it. Time to throw out those bell bottoms, dude.
Chasyork>If IGE entered into a limited license agreement with, say, WoW, Blizzard might be able to dictate similar conditions to IGE: that they only offer "authorized" services (limited to a particular set of servers). IGE would have to believe that the profit gained from legitimate-trade servers would exceed the loss from the no-trade servers, but it may be willing to enter into such an agreement. Under that rationale, developers may be able to justify this as a method to insulate some of the servers from "real-world economies."
The problem with this is that, as Mike Sellers says later, the "real-world inevitably seeps in" to all virtual worlds. This it seems to me is a fundamental fallacy of Sony's public statements to the effect that their exchange platform will permit RMT to be removed from the rest of their servers. Do you think all the RMT players are going to move to the ghetto? I think they want to play where they want to play and how they want to play, and they're not going to stop engaging in RMT on their server of choice just because the publisher tells then they have to. It hasn't stopped them yet. :)- And if the publishers manage to ban them, they'll just move on to another game.
Mike Sellers>That is, if you're going to license with IGE anyway, why not just create your own internal marketplace as Sony is doing. Any MMOG operator has one key advantage over IGE: they can assure the users the integrity of the data they're exchanging: you always know what you're getting up front, and you don't have to go through any out-of-game machinations to make your trade (RMT or hybrid).
Mike makes a good point about the advantage that the publisher has in operating its own exchange platform when compared with eBay, etc. Of course, its debatable that this poses an advantage viz IGE since IGE built its whole business on the promise of providing a safe and reliable marketplace for virtual exchange.
I saw a bunch of posts a ways back to the effect that Sony Online's exchange platform is going to put IGE and other RMT merchants out of business. I have to disagree. Why would IGE not become the dominant seller on this auction exchange? Can Sony possibly discriminate against some sellers/buyers by excluding them from the exchange while permitting others? I don't see how that can be done legally. Seems to me that Sony's exchange provides IGE and their competitors with a great distribution outlet at some cost that I'd expect is less than IGE would have been charged as a licensee to create its own markets in Sony games, and Sony has endorsed the practice of virtual exchange to boot! And while the exchange platform will help with some types of fraud (i.e., "thanks for the money, but I got nothing to send you now"), Sony still takes on the much larger liability for the rampant "professional" credit card and PayPal fraud that will continue to occur. If its true that IGE will announce licensing deals with MMOG publishers [in return for presumably significant fees], then its hard to see how this was a smart play on Sony Online's part. It seems to me that Sony's approach was driven by the minority of customers that want to maintain the illusion of the magic circle.
Galrahn has it right. The reality of the expanding MMO player base is such that it makes perfect sense for the game operators to get in the game. But limiting the extent of RMT in ways that restrict what the vast majority of players want so as to satisfy the ivory-tower minority makes no sense to me and just delays the inevitable. Sony should have done it the other way around-- 98% of the servers should be RMT-allowed and the remaining 2% should have been reserved for Richard and Ted :)- Since the RMT merchants are going to play and dominate in this market anyway, why wouldn't the publishers take licensing revenue from them? I wouldn't be surprised if Galrahn's information about IGE is correct. I think the train is getting ready to leave the station.
Brian
Posted by: Brian S. | May 18, 2005 at 17:13
What if Sony (or anyone else) made the RMT (real market trade?) servers cheaper subscription-wise?
And if someone's caught participating in RMT on the non RMT servers, instead of banning them, simply transfer their characters to an RMT server, that way they aren't lost as a customer.
Basically, you'd pay an extra $2 a month (or whatever the additional money on top of your subscription is that Sony/whoever expects to get from you via RMT), and you'd be allowed to make characters on the non-RMT servers.
You'd quickly see how many people prefer the non RMT experience vs the RMT experience.
The extra coding work to make it feasable to trade items, currency, and characters for payment via Mastercard or PayPal might quickly pay itself off.
My own recent preference is for games without economies so I don't have to worry about these things.
Posted by: Dee Lacey | May 18, 2005 at 17:54
Galrahn wrote:
My understanding from reviewing the Station Exchange pages provided by Sony is that they are definitely not going to be creating stuff out of thin air to sell. Instead, Station Exchange serves the place of eBay in a secured form of player-to-player sale. Station Exchange is merely the broker, it will be a player who provides the sold items, gold or characters.
Brian S. wrote:
Exactly. The "Station Exchange" solution is at best a stop-gap measure. I'm dealing with this situation by specifically coding a ruleset which is RMT-resistant. These servers will provide the "sanctuary" from the disruptive effects of RMT that voluntary compliance simply can't.
RMT-enabled servers will be offered alongside the RMT-resistant ones, and we'll scale the number of servers of each type based on popularity (using population and composite playtime as a metric).
I predict that we'll see multiple fantasy spaces preserved from the effects of RMT... but a prerequisite of success in that preservation will be designs that prevent disruptive levels of the precursor events that lead to RMT in the first place: namely, unbalancing levels of gifting and the twinking that naturally arises in that environment.
I think we'll see more than one major commercial success in the next five years that incorporates that "preservation" concept for at least some server rulesets. Games that can't be short-circuited via excessive gifts are inherently more challenging (if you take "tasks required to be accomplished" as a first-order approximation of challenge). There's an audience looking for challenges, and the associated bragging rights that come with completing difficult challenges in an environment where it's not an option to "skip ahead".
Not everyone is looking for that degree of challenge or even enforcement of the tie-in between accomplishments and the tokens/benefits of those accomplishments. To keep that segment of the player population happy, it makes sense to give them an appropriate sandbox where they can also play. It's live and let live... but you only get that when you can enforce against those who want to bypass the server-specific rules.
From a licensing perspective, the rumored arrangements with IGE make sense as yet another stop-gap, but this one allows capturing of at least some of the revenue where rulesets obviously don't prevent the practice.
Posted by: Barry Kearns | May 18, 2005 at 20:37
From a business perspective, it does make sense to work closer with IGE, an experienced player in this new area.
Developers and the bean counters are just not ready to do it themselves. They are just taking this area seriously.
Also, anybody can set a eBay-type auction website, but eBay is eBay. IGE is aiming to be the IGE of auction websites and they'll do quite well. They will have an edge over the developers for a longer while.
Give developers time and allow them to experiment with stop-gap solutions :)
Posted by: magicback | May 18, 2005 at 22:11
On the bright side of things, it will be interesting to see how the guild networks on these shards will react. Those who choose to stay will then have the option of raising real money to cover not only their own subscription costs but also auxilliary costs like those of TS/Vent, website hosting, getting together IRL, etc.
Imagine guilds pooling real money from their 'weekly farming run' and using it to recruit key PvP players.
Imagine cartels of guilds getting together to farm goods in order to keep RMT prices low enough that commerical farming is no longer worthwhile.
And imagine the first time a guildmember on an RMT shard meets some disaster IRL and becomes destitute or requires medical care beyond their means--you're going to see server-wide farming drives for fundraising.
In many ways, if the player base takes advantage of it, RMTs *could* give players much more real influence over the worlds they play in than has been seen in a long time.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 18, 2005 at 23:25
Matt wrote "No offence Edward, but isn't that kind of like trying to figure out how to get people to drive cars? There are over a thousand non-commercialized virtual worlds. FAR more than there are commercialized virtual worlds. If all you truly want is non-commercialized virtual worlds, there's nothing to fight about as they're not going anywhere. Now, if you start adding game specific features like wanting non-commercialized virtual worlds with 3d graphics or non-commercialized virtual worlds with quest cards and soulbound equipment and giant bulls to play as a race, you limit your options some, but if it's just the non-commercial aspect in general you're interested in preserving, it's a done deal."
Guilty as charged. I want something as socially separate as a MUD that's also psychologically as immersive as the hi-graphics, hi-gameplay, hi-population MMORPGs. It was almost provided with UO and EQ, and perhaps that's as good as it will ever be. As Mike Sellers says, if that's the way it is, that's the way it is.
And in that case, you WILL find me in those MUD communities, no question. Or maybe a NWN PW.
Hell, just today my barber invited me to join a tabletop gaming group here in Bloomington. I left board games in 1985, but I might just go back.
Posted by: Edward Castronova | May 18, 2005 at 23:34
You're hopelessly naive.
This change will destroy the already fragile social structures in MMOs.
What happens to the guild bank now that it has a legitimate real world value of several thousand dollars?
Are people going to be sued for ninja-looting?
One can only imagine the kinds of fraud and grift that are going to take place at every level of social interaction - crafting, embezzlement, ponzi schemes, gambling (e.g., PvP with bets made in some suitable commodity), etc.
Game assets that have real world value + anonymous virtual identities = social disaster
kkthxbyen00b
/danked
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 18, 2005 at 23:58
Aaron>This change will destroy the already fragile social structures in MMOs.
You lost me, which social structure are you referring to? If you are lumping all MMOs in the same bread basket then your missing some of the key elements of the social communities that exist in games that are designed for different types of players.
If your talking about a PvE game like EQII, where the only player competition in the game centers around the individual wealth of a player against another player, maybe I see what your trying to say. But in a PvP game, what makes you think the PvP bank doesn't already exist?
I'll be honest, I had not extensively read much of the research done by this community until today, but after a lot of reading I think some you may have completely misunderstood a very large community that exists in MMOGs today, the $900,000,000+ community IGE has claimed exists.
Lets look at examples.
FL in UO. Empire of the Fallen Lords. This is a PvP guild currently touting their tour in UO as they go from shard to shard to fight the best PvP guilds on other shards. In the end, they basically do champion spawns for gold and kill their enemies for gold until they earn enough gold as a guild to cash in to pay for their next server jump. I don't know how much it costs them, but assume $1,500 collectively for all of their accounts. Last I heard they had jumped at least 4 times, it is likely more. In real world terms, that means a guild of 30-40 people has earned AND paid over $6,000 collectively just to move from server to server to fight other players this year, and it is only May.
Sinister Guild. I have known some of these guys for years, probably the elite standard for true a multi-game powergamer guild/clan. They built wealth once and now use it to move them from game to game as they search for the ultimate PvP. From a researcher’s perspective, several of their members are textbook examples of wealth building gamers. Using currency exchanges, they trade accounts/currency from one game to the new game to keep themselves at the cutting edge of competition in PvP games.
The Regulators. Basically another clan that moves from game to game looking for the ultimate competition so they claim. What makes them special? Well, if you believe what their Guild master says, they basically work for and own Enott's. What is more competitive than having several dozen extremely loyal and dedicated PvP centric competitive North American gamers that own a company heavily involved in the secondary market to forward their guild in their game of choice. I wouldn't be surprised at all if every one of them gets to right off their subscription fee for tax purposes. If what they have claimed in the past is true, then their highly competitive PvP guild is a real and operating US business.
Aaron, social disaster by your definition is already out there. Guild banks already have legitimate real world value of several thousand dollars. This isn't new stuff, it is just not talked about much in gaming circles because almost everywhere the secondary market would be casually discussed is censored.
When I left Black Company in UO after playing for 7 years, I didn't know anything about the secondary market, all I knew was how to kill people in Felucca. Imagine my surprise when a friend of mine helped me sell 1000 1 million gold checks on ebay for $5 a piece just so I could trade my old UO miner house to a clan mate for cheap Lineage2 adena during L2 open beta.
There is a reason why you can point to guilds like FL or BC in UO, SiN or TR in WoW, or any number of other guilds in other games and point to examples of where gamers have been running their guild/clan like you would expect a business to be run, and in the end, that business efficiency often becomes a model for other competitive gaming guilds/clans involved in the competition to mimic so they too can enjoy similar success.
If there is research out there, please point me to it. I just haven't found the 'powergamer' community in the social structure studies of this community, and if you don't understand powergamers, you’re not going to effectively understand the market IGE is in business with today with or without licensing.
The question was raised whether or not this would be good for gamers. I don't think I have a strong opinion whether it will help or hurt gamers, but I am starting to see where some good will come out of it from the perspective of this community. Today, any association a clan/guild has with a 'grey' market has prevented much of the truly interesting and successful tactics and methods of what I (a competitive gamer) would consider brilliant management, organization, and leadership structures of truly successful guilds in the PvP realm mostly unknown. Maybe with IGE becoming mainstream some new, relevant research data will be derived from MMOG social structures and the efficiency with which the competitive communities function, instead of in the past where the focus of research has missed this truly enlightening aspect of MMOG social groups (in my opinion).
Posted by: Galrahn | May 19, 2005 at 01:37
Well, for one thing I was being slightly facetious in order to take both sides against myself--see my first post. It was supposed to be a joke of sorts. hehe.
I agree with nearly everything you say. I think the problem here is that you may have misunderstood what I meant by 'legitimate real world value'. I am well aware that these things already exist in games.
What is new though, is that real world value will no longer be subject to a 'black' market or a market that publishers have maintained is actually a form of piracy. This change will drastically reduce the amount of 'friction' (I don't know the correct market term) in the conversion of virtual items into real money. With the publishers running/licensing the auction houses, it is not unlikely that we could see utilities built into games that further reduce this friction. As a result, the impact of the potential monetary value of in game assets on the social dimension of the shards in question will be significantly heightened. There will be more incentive for guilds to run themselves like a business, for example. And many issues that currently arise in mostly 'uber' guilds (such as banking issues, embezzlement, etc.) will emerge more easily and even penetrate guilds that are not ostensibly 'uber' in any way. (They may just be large, e.g.)
These changes will affect players relate to each other in a way that we haven't seen before. That's really all I was exploring. As a former 'competitive' gamer myself, I had no intention of giving the impression that all of this was new, simply that these tensions were about to get a whole lot more intense and pervasive.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 19, 2005 at 02:39
I guess my closing line of the post you referred to should have read (and again I'm being *slightly* facetious):
"Game assets that have *publisher-sanctioned* real world value + anonymous identity = social disaster"
But that doesn't sound good, and besides people have been fretting about this since these markets first started to coalesce.
Part of what's interesting is whether the Chicken Little's may be right this time. :)
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 19, 2005 at 02:53
Brian S.>I don't know how to tell you this, Richard, but those "people" that you refer to are called "paying customers".
No, you misunderstood. I wasn't complaining about the paying customers, I was complaining about the developers. They're the ones who are nerfing virtual worlds as a concept, not the customers. The customers (ie. the players) are just doing what they've always done - they're trying to "win". The developers are changing the gameplay to allow them to win, but in such a way that it makes winning a worthless concept. Fair enough if your virtual world isn't about "winning", but if it is (ie. it's a game) then each wrong-headed concession is another nail in the coffin.
>Even Sony concedes that something like 70% of their player base either engages in RMT or does not object to it.
What about the people who don't play because they don't like RMT (or don't like the effects that RMT has, even if they don't associate that directly with RMT)? They could have 100% of their players in favour of RMT, but lose out on a greater number of non-players who would play if it weren't for the effects of RMT.
I don't care if Sony wants to have RMT. What I care about is if all games have to have RMT whether they want it or not. The Sony decision to call virtual objects property, owned by the players, could give us that; this is what really irks me about it (well, this plus the headlong rush to copy them).
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 19, 2005 at 04:46
Lump me in the "ivory tower" with Richard. I may think these change are inevitable, but I don't have to like them.
After the monetization will come the regulation.. How much fun are we going to be having then, when we can in up in real life court for in game "violations"?
I wonder how long it will be before we see gambling on virtual sports events, hosted through X-Box Live. With the drive to network consoles they will be running into this soon as well.
Posted by: Thabor | May 19, 2005 at 17:00
I agree with you Thabor. It's not the 'degradation' of gameplay caused by the presence of RMTs qua RMTs that interests me personally but the complete reordering of social dynamics of the game worlds that 'monetization' will potentially induce. And like you said, regulation lurks not far behind.
Developers and publishers have already demonstrated that they are almost helpless to control the social fabric of their games. In some ways, that's natural and a good thing. But it's a complete illusion to think that by sanctioning monetization they will gain any greater measure of control over the 'integrity' of their worlds, including their economies. Sticking your hand to catch a bit of water from a broken pipe doesn't stop the water from eventually flooding your kitchen.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 19, 2005 at 17:21
Edward wrote:
Guilty as charged. I want something as socially separate as a MUD that's also psychologically as immersive as the hi-graphics, hi-gameplay, hi-population MMORPGs.
Different strokes, man. Most people play text MUDs because they find them far more immersive than the 3d games with their repetitive textures and models and such.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 19, 2005 at 19:27
Matt said:
Different strokes, man. Most people play text MUDs because they find them far more immersive than the 3d games with their repetitive textures and models and such.
I think that's exactly the point -- different strokes for different folks. Some people find the 3D games to be more immersive because the visual aspect brings a lot of value to the play experience, yet lament that many of the 3D games lack much of the social depth and other strengths of the text MUDs. Likewise, I would not be surprised to learn that the text MUD players would be quite happy if they could take the strengths of their games and add 3D graphics to them. Clearly you aren't one of those folks, but that doesn't mean that others can't or shouldn't feel differently.
Posted by: yph | May 19, 2005 at 20:25
I am staggered that any company would get in bed with IGE. Their entire business model is based on violating the contracts of the games that they parasitize. This does not give them a strong recommendation as an ethical business associate.
Posted by: Wanderer | May 20, 2005 at 04:18
Brian S.> The problem with this is that, as Mike Sellers says later, the "real-world inevitably seeps in" to all virtual worlds. <
I’d take issue with implied assertion that introducing RMT, and hence the market economy, into virtual worlds is the “real world” seeping in. Its not. The market economy is a human designed system. A system layered on to a much more complex and extensive underlying reality. Its certainly an effective system in some contexts. But we can, and should, make choices about where we apply it.
Though play is often thought of as entertaining diversion, many people have pointed out it performs a vital survival function. We can try out strategies in a safe space, that we may need for later survival. This seems to me a vital function of the virtual worlds. A space to try out other strategies for social, economic and physical interaction than are available in the familiar world. In past ages, very different civilizations could flourish quite independently of each other. Now all cultures interact extensively. If we shift one of the most pervasive systems from the familiar world into every virtual world, we are dangerously limiting our options I think.
That being said, I don’t have much expectation of the expensive mainstream being other than mostly market driven. But I am still kind of disappointed that, given the vast number of servers available, they don’t have one that makes the trivial code changes needed to avoid RMT. To my thinking, all that is needed is to soft cap the rate of experience and loot acquisition. With the removal of the “rat race”, the impulse for RMT would I think be pretty much removed.
I don’t think I will see the kind of diversity I would like in graphic worlds till the tools allow teams the size of a text MUD to produce interesting worlds. In that respect, the engine used in A Tale in the Desert is a good step in the right direction. Which is why I’ve spent a lot of time there. If history is any guide, really Alternate Worlds will be quite a minority interest. But I do think they would provide a seed corn of new strategies ready to sprout if our current mono-cultural crop fails. I’m a big fan of diversity as a survival strategy, and I see Virtual Worlds as having a role in fostering that diversity. If Virtual Worlds were just about entertainment, as they seem to be for many people, I don’t think RMT would be such an issue for me.
Posted by: Hellinar | May 20, 2005 at 10:47
My cents...
If I am all for trading currencies, I am against the fact that sellers are defining their price (just look at all them... all different and no reason why!). I think the introduction of the SOE platform is a great thing as long as the price is defined by the game server itself and not by people seeking for money.
I think it is worth that you are having a lot at www.bidnplay.com. This is exactly the model those guys are proposing!!!
The model is based on stock exchanges where the price is defined by the market and not the sellers.
Example at the following URL: http://www.bidnplay.com/sudetp/app?service=external/BrowseOverview&sp=1001003010
Buyers can enter a purchase order either at the price advertised (here $9.99), or enter a price a bit lower waiting for a seller to take it.
If buyer, respectively the seller, is not executed, then he can modify his price to an higher price, respectively the seller can modify his price to a lower value. Exactly how a stock market is functioning. That model will introduce fairness on the MMORPG market.
Bye.
David.
Posted by: David | May 20, 2005 at 10:51
Richard said, "each wrong-headed concession [e.g., allowing RMT] is another nail in the coffin."
What coffin would that be? More people play MMOGs today than ever before; more play MMOGs than have ever played MUDs by several orders of magnitude. Thousands of people are employed making these games today as opposed to a couple of dozen a few years ago. And while the big games are slow to change in some ways, new innovations come up all the time, with every game and release -- innovations not seen in any other form of game. Further, without these larger games, smaller more boutique games (e.g., ATiTD) would not exist.
So what's the coffin we're sadly nailing shut? Too many people playing, or just too many people not playing "the right way"?
"What about the people who don't play because they don't like RMT?"
How many such people are there? However many it is, I'm pretty certain it's a drop in the bucket compared to the number who don't play for other reasons: the genres are irrelevant, the games are difficult to get into, the gameplay is too narrow, etc. RMT, frankly, is a problem only for a subset elite players. For anyone else with less time, ability, etc., RMT is if anything a good thing (or just not part of their consciousness). Viewed in a political sense, this entire issue could be seen as the redistribution of power and goods from the gentry to the hoi polloi -- decried by the upper-crust as evil, cheating, a sign of doom, etc., but either unknown to or welcomed by the vast majority of other players.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | May 20, 2005 at 12:11
YPH wrote:
I think that's exactly the point -- different strokes for different folks. Some people find the 3D games to be more immersive because the visual aspect brings a lot of value to the play experience, yet lament that many of the 3D games lack much of the social depth and other strengths of the text MUDs. Likewise, I would not be surprised to learn that the text MUD players would be quite happy if they could take the strengths of their games and add 3D graphics to them. Clearly you aren't one of those folks, but that doesn't mean that others can't or shouldn't feel differently.
In the context of what we were originally talking about, which is the availability of non-commercial worlds, does this preference matter? I mean, interface is just one aspect of a virtual world. Do we want non-commercial virtual worlds, or do we want non-commercial virtual worlds with 3d graphics or do we want non-commercial virtual worlds with 2d graphics that feature red as the primary color scheme and have no PK except on Tuesdays that fall on the 5th of the month?
I'll stick with just asking for "non-commercial virtual worlds" rather than tacking on a bunch of qualifiers, I guess.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 20, 2005 at 13:14
Aaron Ruby wrote:
"But it's a complete illusion to think that by sanctioning monetization they will gain any greater measure of control over the 'integrity' of their worlds, including their economies."
Is that really the goal though? I think the motive of game companies like Sony has more to do with the all-mighty buck than anything else.
Posted by: lewy | May 20, 2005 at 13:25
Yeah, I'm sure it is the all-mighty buck. But I think that the pubs also know that the 'world model' is their core product. As it goes so does all else. So they would seem to have considerable interest in protecting the integrity of the game world, both social as well as economic. Of course, the reaction to the RMT experiment by the player base may just show that players value RMTs more than, say, maintaining a particular social dynamic.
I was assuming that Sony, e.g., was doing this not only to tap a revenue stream but also to protect their game from 'grey' markets by creating a sanctioned market that they would have some measure of control over.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 20, 2005 at 13:41
Aaron> So they would seem to have considerable interest in protecting the integrity of the game world, both social as well as economic.
From a gamers perspective, I don't think most gamers look at RMT as an integrity issue in relation to a specific game, sure some will, but not a majority.
From a gamers perspective, integrity issues with a game have to do with 3rd party products that influence outcomes of gameplay. If a game company is more worried about RMT than they are true integrity problems like bots, scripters, and cheats/hacks then the pub has their eye on the wrong ball.
RMT already exists in most games, but I am unaware of RMT ever effecting gameplay for entire communities within a game, rather just individual groups within the communities. However there are numerous examples of widespread 3rd party program usage directly effecting entire communities, and in the end they have more influence over integrity and external perception of integrity for a game than RMT ever will.
Posted by: Galrahn | May 20, 2005 at 17:26
I agree that 3rd party tools, etc. can have far more devastating direct effects on game-world integrity than RMTs. But that doesn't change the fact that RMTs, via their potential effects on both the economic and social aspects of game worlds, are part of the 'integrity' calculus.
As far as RMT effecting gameplay it depends what you mean. Many people in many communities are already livid with the impact RMTs are having on their game experience. The very *existence* of RMTs in their game world (whether it has an empirical effect on their actual gameplay or not)destroys for many the illusion of meritocracy and the ethic of earned advantage. I'm not endorsing that view but it exists.
That's just one reason why there's blacklists on forum boards, why toons targetted as farmers are harassed, why people leave for other games, etc.
As far as quantifying the effect of RMTs on actual gameplay, this is tough, since RMTs, unlike hacks, are very hard to isolate and analyze. For one thing, RMTs are conducted *outside* the game world, whereas hacks, exploits, and (debatably) botting and 3rd party utilities do their work in the game world. For another, RMTs take place in the socio-economic ecosystem of a world model, one that's comprised of players, i.e., transactions between humans. 3rd party tools take place at the level of the actual code of the world model.
If what you as a powergamer are most concerned about is the potential catastrophe of 3rd party utilities, hacks, bots, etc., you might also harbor at least some pause at the notion of legitimate (read 'pub-sanctioned') RMTs. Once it becomes trivial to turn virtual assets to cash, the incentive to find, build, and abuse 3rd party tools skyrockets. This results not only in making more determined 'cheaters' out of those already engaging in the act, but provides real world financial incentive for those to cheat who might otherwise not have. For some this incentive will be the tipping point.
Just because the RMTs don't *directly* impact your gameplay, the effects and incentives they induce in the playerbase well might.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 20, 2005 at 20:30
So... Now that E3 is over, did this announcement happen? I haven't seen anything, but I've also been busy this week.
Posted by: yph | May 20, 2005 at 20:50
Posted by: chasyork
[quote]
If IGE entered into a limited license agreement with, say, WoW, Blizzard might be able to dictate similar conditions to IGE: that they only offer "authorized" services (limited to a particular set of servers). IGE would have to believe that the profit gained from legitimate-trade servers would exceed the loss from the no-trade servers, but it may be willing to enter into such an agreement.
[/quote]
Sure, then a new company is formed -- let's call it EGI -- that isn't bound by the terms of the IGE deal. This company would continue to broker goods on the non-RMT servers. It's immaterial whether EGI was funded by IGE or someone else; either way it will occur. Embracing RMT is a pandora's box: There's no going back once you've opened the lid.
don
Posted by: Don McGlumphy III | May 21, 2005 at 04:28
Mike Sellars>What coffin would that be? More people play MMOGs today than ever before; more play MMOGs than have ever played MUDs by several orders of magnitude.
More people won't be able to play what they could have played.
If this carries on, virtual worlds are going to lose all vestiges of whatever made them special. People are going to wonder, 5 or 10 years from now, what all the fuss was about. There'll be some resonance through the culture that remains, but it will dampen down over time. All we'll see will be ripples of what once was. We'll have millions of people playing, sure, but what they'll be playing will lack the essence that makes virtual worlds different to other computer games.
If people want to turn virtual worlds into ordinary computer games, that's up to them. I just don't want for them to be able to turn every virtual world into a regular computer game. If they can do that, we've lost something special, precious and unique in human history.
Go ahead and celebrate the size of your player base. Incorporate sports of soap operas and you'll get even more. You'll be giving people fun. You won't be giving them the same kind of fun they could get before, though. Worse, it may be that you're ensuring nobody could ever have that kind of fun again. That's what's so disappointing to me.
I don't care if people want bland. I care if their desire for blandness prevents me from seeing awe.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 21, 2005 at 11:51
Richard wrote:
Go ahead and celebrate the size of your player base. Incorporate sports of soap operas and you'll get even more. You'll be giving people fun. You won't be giving them the same kind of fun they could get before, though. Worse, it may be that you're ensuring nobody could ever have that kind of fun again. That's what's so disappointing to me.
Text MUDs aren't going anywhere.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 21, 2005 at 15:05
Richard wrote:
"I don't care if people want bland. I care if their desire for blandness prevents me from seeing awe."
Isn't it possible that this development (assuming it becomes widespread) favors the creation of more, truly 'boutique' worlds for smaller numbers of people who are perhaps even willing to pay more for the kinds of awe you seek?
Isn't it also possible that in the coming decade as technology and bandwidth cheapen that something akin to 'the democratization of print, music and film' will happen for future vw builders?
Maybe, even if your worst fears come true, this will prove merely a slump rather than an extinction.
Posted by: Aaron Ruby | May 21, 2005 at 17:05
Weird. Richard - why aren't you just in SecondLife with your own SIM or in a group of like minded people with your own collective SIM?
If you want to see awe, you can, but we don't want it get in the way of our bland!
Posted by: blaze | May 22, 2005 at 07:29
> Edward wrote:
>
> Guilty as charged. I want something as socially
> separate as a MUD that's also psychologically as
> immersive as the hi-graphics, hi-gameplay,
> hi-population MMORPGs.
Commercial, graphical MMOs are immersive? Huh?
They have "hi gameplay?" Huh?
I play graphical MMOs and I tend to really enjoy them. I have 2 (and soon 3) lvl 60 characters in WoW, for example.
But I would never in a million years call it "hi gameplay." It is some of the shallowest gameplay in any online game I have ever participated. You kill monsters and get loot. That's it. The PvP is so-so, but even that only adds "Kill players, to earn points, to get loot."
Posted by: Aryoch | May 22, 2005 at 07:43
Interesting. I've been tracking this new trend since the inception of World of Warcraft and the old dog keeps digging itself a deeper and deeper hole.
Fact, buying and selling of ingame cash and items completely destroys the game economy of legit players. This leaves the only option of paying real cash in order to survive in a mmorpg. Those players who can barely afford to pay monthly fees..ie. their main source of weekly entertainment are more are less at a loss. I personally have met lots of players who love mmorpgs who live on a shoe string budget and are infuriated at this money brokerage.
After reading that Sony has joined the band wagon, it really makes me want to send EQ2 back to them and say this was not part of the prodcut which I purchased and demand in the least my money and my monthly fees back. (don't give me that content may change crap).
A nice class-action suit could solve the problem if only it could be accomplished. Letigiosity is not the idea here, but compensation for game, time wasted playing, and punishment to the game companies for scamming their customers in this way.
Don't think that "no" judge would ever take such a case. Perhaps maybe "a certain" federal judge would take this case.
Posted by: blowfish999 | May 22, 2005 at 11:07
Aaron Ruby>Isn't it possible that this development (assuming it becomes widespread) favors the creation of more, truly 'boutique' worlds for smaller numbers of people who are perhaps even willing to pay more for the kinds of awe you seek?
And when IGE starts listing those, then where do the players go?
>Isn't it also possible that in the coming decade as technology and bandwidth cheapen that something akin to 'the democratization of print, music and film' will happen for future vw builders?
I dearly hope it will. I also hope that any legal precedent set by SOE's actions here won't mean we end up having to play them in secret.
>Maybe, even if your worst fears come true, this will prove merely a slump rather than an extinction.
You don't know how bad my worst fears are...
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 22, 2005 at 14:57
Matt>Text MUDs aren't going anywhere.
[facetious answer]That's the problem with them.
[actual answer]It doesn't matter. They can lose out by doing nothing. How many large-scale developers have to acknowledge that players have ownership of their characters' virtual objects before some judge is going to accept that as fact across all virtual worlds - yours included? What powers will that give players to change your game, to reverse things that happened in your game, to stop you from doing things you plan to do in your game? We could see game-destroying things happen here, and merely being textual isn't going to save the smaller worlds from being caught up in it.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 22, 2005 at 15:04
blaze>Weird. Richard - why aren't you just in SecondLife with your own SIM or in a group of like minded people with your own collective SIM?
Because SL isn't expressive enough for me.
>If you want to see awe, you can, but we don't want it get in the way of our bland!
Fair enough. Awe and bland can live together; I've no problems with that. What's scaring me is that bland could be all we ever get.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | May 22, 2005 at 15:08
> Richard Bartle wrote:
>
> It doesn't matter. They can lose out by doing nothing.
> How many large-scale developers have to acknowledge
> that players have ownership of their characters' virtual
> objects before some judge is going to accept that as
> fact across all virtual worlds - yours included? What
> powers will that give players to change your game, to
> reverse things that happened in your game, to stop you
> from doing things you plan to do in your game? We could
> see game-destroying things happen here, and merely being
> textual isn't going to save the smaller worlds from
> being caught up in it.
Very well said, though quite scary.
This is the one thing that I am personally afraid of. For years, I haven't cared that the big corporate MMOs are lazy and only looking at the bottom line. The mentality has allowed my company to carve out a very successful niche.
But if their laziness, spinelessness, and sloppiness is able to create a legal precedent that players own their characters (and items), that is a HUGE problem.
The part of me that was once a lawyer thinks that no matter what happens with the EQ/WoW/SG type games, one can always draft a user agreement clear enough and specific enough to disclaim this. It might mean such agreements have to be more than quick "click through and ignore" things like you see now. But I just cannot see how any precedent could happen that took away the ability of a player to AGREE he/she has no ownership interest in his/her characters and items.
Nevertheless, your point is indeed something that worries me greatly.
Posted by: Aryoch | May 22, 2005 at 23:26
I can "see" where you're coming from when you speak of judges and laws taking over VWs in general, but you seem to be concentrating on the extreme. I'm pretty sure our legal system is secure enough to work out the kinks in such problems as "My sword was nerfed" or "Player X stole my kill" and that most of what was said above is a lot of Chicken Little stuff :P
Most likely, I bet you'll see a more gradual acceptance of VW economies, not some massive overhaul of the entire gaming experience. More MMOs will allow some limited trading and possibly open up more "Station Exchange"s, but other than that, I can't see any massive tidal wave wiping out the MMO world as we know it.
Posted by: Lee Delarm | May 24, 2005 at 08:52
I honestly can't find a reason for any game developer to strike an agreement with a specific company and make that known to anyone.
One way to profit of those sales (and the safe one) is doing it like SOE. They will work together with PayPal and together with their server logs they will be able to make things safe for buyers and sellers. Chargebacks are going to be interesting though - it might work out with PayPal, but how are they going to prove delivery to a credit card comapny? Who is going to eat the bullet when a buyer gets through with a chargeback?
The other method is to supply the cash directly (comparable to Project Entropia). This doesn't necessarily lead to inflation. Instead, they would only need to implement enough money sinks so that their currency retains its value. Moral and image problems could be countered by having a different company handle the sales. This company could be IGE. No one would know where IGE's gold comes from. IGE gets the currency cheaper than from farmers and the game company has a new source of income. That is as long as this practice remains unknown.
Posted by: Karsten | May 24, 2005 at 10:44
Regaring the pros and cons of currency trading in general:
The problem with the secondary market isn't necessarily the bots and farmers or the feeling that some people cheat. A different effect can have a much larger impact without becoming related to the currency market:
Selling currency incentives gold farming, leading to more professional farmers. That will either lead to devalueing currency or to the game developers implementing money sinks. Players who do not participate in buying cash will have an increasingly difficult time to buy something because ordinary gameplay doesn't supply the gold required to buy an item once this happens. This way even players who do not encounter bots or farmers personally and do not participate in currency trading will still experience the negative effects. People who vote "neutral" on this issue should be aware of that.
Posted by: Karsten | May 24, 2005 at 10:49
Looks like this was a big farce....no?
Posted by: Rich Thurman | May 24, 2005 at 14:35
I agree, I think whatever sources out of Florida this person had, they were blowing some billowing clouds of smoke into sun deprived areas of the human body.
Posted by: Lee Delarm | May 24, 2005 at 15:05
I doubt it is a complete "farce". It just depends how public they want to go with whatever deal(s) they have, if at all. They may not have five, but from what I have looked into they do seem to have some deal(s) linned up.
Posted by: Brian Whitener | May 24, 2005 at 18:36
Rich> Looks like this was a big farce....no?
Make of it what you want. I can't explain the lack of an announcement. I however believe my sources are credible, independent of each other, and shared too many similar details to be a farce, so I stand by my story of 5 games and will let time prove me right or wrong.
Secrets don't last forever, and this one won't.
Posted by: Galrahn | May 24, 2005 at 19:37
My sources out of Florida have just confirmed that IGE have purchased Sony, Microsoft, and are tenatively buying out EA as well. Now everyone run with this story quickly so IGE can get even more free publicity!! It is amazing how two 22 year olds (the two owners of IGE are both 22 to those unaware) are such business wizards and financial geniuses!! Has anyone ever heard of the term hook, line, and sinker? I think the NY Post has some job openings!!
Posted by: NotBuyingIt | May 25, 2005 at 03:40
Well, all of my research and "sources" have pointed in the same direction as Galrahn. Nothing is offical, but time will tell.
Posted by: Brian Whitener | May 25, 2005 at 16:14
http://plaguelands.com/?p=75
=============
Pitfalls: What publishers have you brokered deals with or at the very least could you tell me when the announcement will be?
Yantis: As for as I know we are just waiting on approval from publishers.
Pitfalls: Limited licenses huh. Sounds like more of a testbed. Station Exchange is now IGE’s Global Exchange.
Yantis: Its all stuff I can’t talk about. Publishers always have a clause for non disclosure which basically means IGE keeps its mouth shut.
Pitfalls: No problem, give me a job working as your assistant and than you can tell me. Hire me for 5 minutes, I will work for free than you can tell me the lowdown and then fire me.
Yantis: lol.
===============
Posted by: Brian Whitener | May 25, 2005 at 16:33
Yantis: As for as I know we are just waiting on approval from publishers.
So is that to say, "We've sent paperwork to Sony and EA and Blizzard and haven't heard back from them. It's taking long than we thought it would for them to sign over their souls, but we're hoping they say yes!"..?
Posted by: Samantha LeCraft | May 25, 2005 at 17:09
"Approval from the publishers" is a somewhat ambiguous phrase. Does that mean approval on the deal itself or approval to make a public announcement about the deal?
Posted by: lewy | May 25, 2005 at 18:52
>>
I can "see" where you're coming from when you speak of judges and laws taking over VWs in general, but you seem to be concentrating on the extreme. I'm pretty sure our legal system is secure enough to work out the kinks in such problems as "My sword was nerfed" or "Player X stole my kill" and that most of what was said above is a lot of Chicken Little stuff :P
>>
I don't know if you live in the US, but I do, and unfortunately I've heard about a lot of ridiculous lawsuits that have gotten through our system. For example, a judge ruled that a horribly smelly homeless man who was driving people out of large sections of a public library must be allowed to remain there because "society produced him and therefore society must deal with him."
If that case can get through, the case against designer freedom in VW's could too. Much more easily, since the IGEs have "established" that virtual objects in VW's have real value and that the players have a right to trade them (implying ownership) regardless of what the game's developer says and regardless of things like EULA and ToS.
{sarcasm}Personally I think we should take a note from the US congress and consider a nuclear option; namely that we deploy tactical nukes against IGE before this all gets out of hand.{/sarcasm} (The US congress is not considering using nuclear weapons, by the way, but there is a "nuclear option" idea about senatorial procedural rules on the table.) RMT is not immoral by any means, but the business practices of IGE and those like them are simply evil. "You don't want RMT in your game? Too bad. We want to make money off of your game, so we're shoving our RMT down your throat. Your players wanted it anyway. Now smile and thank us and tell everyone how good it was."
*finger hovers over the big red button*
Posted by: Jim Self | May 25, 2005 at 22:11
Here's the market scoop/rumor.
E3 had lots of Asian MMO developers that already have integrated RMT as a business model.
US MMO developers are having second thoughts about recent developers.
The thinking now in the broadroom is that IGE is not the only option.
Posted by: magicback | May 25, 2005 at 22:40
Richard wrote:
How many large-scale developers have to acknowledge that players have ownership of their characters' virtual objects before some judge is going to accept that as fact across all virtual worlds - yours included? What powers will that give players to change your game, to reverse things that happened in your game, to stop you from doing things you plan to do in your game? We could see game-destroying things happen here, and merely being textual isn't going to save the smaller worlds from being caught up in it.
If things started going that way (I see no evidence of a trend), we'd just move our operations to a more reasonable country. Many games exist outside of the US. The US doesn't run the world completely yet.
Anyway, the idea of the law telling games that they can't change the gameplay of their game without reimbursing players for it is not a a serious concern of mine. I could see a judge somewhere ruling on it, but I have at least a little faith in the judicial system of industrialized countries, and I can't see this sort of ruling standing. The sky isn't falling.
Blowfish999 wrote:
Fact, buying and selling of ingame cash and items completely destroys the game economy of legit players. This leaves the only option of paying real cash in order to survive in a mmorpg.
The amount of ignorance out there about RMT is so high that I think some people must be taking idiot pills.
I played Worlds of Warcraft. I never paid any non-subscription cash. I played CoH. I never paid any non-subscription cash. I know lots of people that played Everquest. They never paid any non-subscription pills. I personally thousands of people playing our games that have never paid us any cash at all, subscription or otherwise, while others have spent upwards of $10,000. They seem to be surviving just fine.
Try to stay in touch with reality.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | May 25, 2005 at 22:59
Sorry,
that's 'recent developments' not 'recent developers'
lol
Posted by: magicback | May 25, 2005 at 23:00
Matt> "I played Worlds of Warcraft. I never paid any non-subscription cash. I played CoH. I never paid any non-subscription cash. I know lots of people that played Everquest. They never paid any non-subscription pills. I personally thousands of people playing our games that have never paid us any cash at all, subscription or otherwise, while others have spent upwards of $10,000. They seem to be surviving just fine."
Not to keep opening this issue, but from what I've heard, WoW is experiencing substantially more inflation than the developers anticipated, but that game is still too "new" to determine the full impact of such accelerated growth. The question will be whether, at its 1 year anniversary, a new player can viably use the earnings associated with normal gameplay and still afford items from the player economy.
City of Heroes doesn't really have much of an "economy" at the moment. There is no marketplace for trading enhancements and very little "loot" that might be traded. It avoids all the pitfalls of bad economy models by ignoring that element of gameplay (which, I believe, works for COH- I'm still playing and enjoying it, and I'm normally an economy-based player)
My first experience with "rampant inflation" came from Star Wars Galaxies just after a substantial credit duping. I started a new character on a new server, and found that the cost to "upgrade" any of my gear was prohibitively expensive (over 20x what I experienced with my first character) and well beyond what I could earn from the "grind."
While I think it's a bit melodramatic to call it "destroying gameplay" it IS a substantial barrier that hinders the game's ability to draw fresh blood. If people hit this barrier before they establish connections to established players, they will likely lose interest in the game.
Posted by: Chas York | May 27, 2005 at 13:27
I've heard the term inflation being thrown around more than once. I would like to take note that almost all of the money in every game system out there is "legit" as in, not duped. This means, in short, that RMT was not the problem if the economy crashed, if inflation went wildly out of control and/or monkeys appeared out of the ceiling.
Quite simply, if you can't make something out of nothing, a lot of the inflation "problems" were bound to happen anyway since nothing ever actually left or entered the game itself. It just sped up the process.
Posted by: Lee Delarm | May 28, 2005 at 13:44
The other method is to supply the cash directly (comparable to Project Entropia). This doesn't necessarily lead to inflation. Instead, they would only need to implement enough money sinks so that their currency retains its value. Moral and image problems could be countered by having a different company handle the sales. This company could be IGE. No one would know where IGE's gold comes from. IGE gets the currency cheaper than from farmers and the game company has a new source of income. That is as long as this practice remains unknown.
Posted by: WoW Gold | Jul 21, 2005 at 17:12