f13.net

New interview (http://www.okratas.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=57&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0)
Gamespy interview (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/584/584932p1.html)
Ogaming interview (http://guildwars.ogaming.com/data/2315~IGEInterview.php)
Slashdot thread (http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/02/13/2154214.shtml)

Bruce

It's a truly terrible interview.

I wish leprosy upon both him and his monkey.

Edit: (All of the interviews, btw).

I added my two cents on a site which shall not be named, because I'm not a terrible shill.

That first link was a fucking travesty. When the answers didn't sound like talking points on a fucking memo, it was all caps PR Mouthpiece shooting back the worst "No comment" answers I've ever seen.

I wish leprosy on them all.

Yes, but you can't call him a blistering wound on the head of a cock.  :roll:

Didn't someone post something last week showing how IGE owns Ogaming?

Yes, it got moved to the Den.

Everyone else who posted in this thread is an admin.

I'm scared.

Bruce

Joe posted too.

He's like honorary or something.

Bruce

IGE is a parasite that leeches off all that is good about gaming.
Their very presence taints and distorts the fundamental virtues of online games.

I look forward to the day when either the players or the game companies recognize the harm real-world sales do to virtual worlds.

PR MOUTHPIECE: WE CAN NOT COMMENT ANY MORE ON OUR PARASITICAL NATURE. WE CANNOT GET INTO OUR PRESENCE AND HOW IT EFFECTS ONLINE GAMES. WE DO HOWEVER HAVE A NIFTY VORPAL SWORD OF VAMPIRE BAT SLAYING + 3 THAT WE'D LIKE TO SELL YOU.

I look forward to the day when they realize they can't stop this stupid shit, and start offering their own service. Let players sell to other players, charge a very modest fee on top of it, funnel that money back into development, etc. Also, segregate servers so that people who want to do this don't have to be on servers with people who don't want this to happen.

Everybody if fucking happy, and shitweasels like the interviewee can go die in a nursing home smelling of Vicks Vapor Rub and hemorrhoid cream.

We did a lot of research on this, and while off the top it sounds like a natural feature to provide, it brings up all kinds of legal questions and consequences that are pretty dangerous to touch from a professional perspective until the legal precedents are actually set regarding "virtual property".

Here's just a couple of examples of the underlying issues:

1) What happens if a powerful item is in the game, and becomes a basis for the virtual economy in the game, but is then taken out completely by the developers, or "tweaked" (nerfed) to make it no longer have as much "virtual value".

--it could be taken from a legal perspective that the change was an arbitrary one taken without consideration for the "virtual market value" of the item, and theoretically, the player base could sue the developers for destroying the virtual net worth of their players that had the item. Current "real world" equivalent: Class action law suits happen all the time when a stock tanks, and the shareholders sue the exec management for a wide variety of reasons.

--What happens when a game reaches the end of it's useful lifetime (profit wise specifically), and the developers/publishers want to shut down the game servers? This would basically wipe out every player's virtual net worth, and you know that they will react to that with a "sue 'em" mentality.

I realize right now that all of this type of concern is totally hypothetical, but there have been attempts in the past to start up lawsuits in similar scenarios, and the only recourse so far has been that the developers/publishers "own all the virtual property", and that any appearance of real worth is not a legal fact. It is all up in the air right now, but it is a huge risk for MMOG devs/publishers.

Back to the quote, the main issue in my mind is that if a game actually provides a mechanism for secure trading, and even more importantly charges for that service, it could be argued legally that they are tacitly recognizing the "real value" of virtual property, and that could be a strong blow against the current standard defense of "we own all the property".

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer (and I know there are a lot here!), but the potential for downside risk based on the above scenarios, and a lot of others, was the key factor in our decision to not provide this type of functionality for a fee in game.

One reason some mmrpg are very leary of going into this business themselves is the weird and varied internet gambling legislations. My friend who lives in florida and likes magic the gathering online cannot play in any tournies at all. This is because florida bans internet gambling in their state and since you technically can win awards worth real cash value Magic the gathering tournies are not allowed.

If the devs give the nod to people selling items and characters it opens them up to questioning if about people winning an item from a random event worth real world cash is gambling in a MMRPG. If it gets the nod that it is that opens a HUGE can of nasty icky worms and is one of the main reasons I think alot of MMRPG put up at least token resistance to people selling crap for real cash.

kaid

Edit cause spelling is tough.

The MMOG companies don't bother with it because they don't want the legal fees associated with it, nor the legal hassles. It's so much easier to just wallow in the mire of the gray areas than try to set trends.

But somewhere, somebody is going to bring a lawsuit eventually that WILL settle things pretty clearly, both about EULA's and terms of service in general, and items in MMOG's specifically. It will happen, and I guarantee NO ONE will be happy with the end result for a long time.

As for market value, I think the MMOG makers would probably be best off going the way comic book publishers did. We create the items, provide the storage space, etc. but we are not responsible for the value of the items over X dollars. If the server craps out, you get X dollars (probably equal to 1 months sub fee), no matter what the "market" value is. Treat the market like a collector's market (just like the back issue market in comics) in that it sets its own price and the comic company is not responsible for what that price is. I'm not saying the MMOG maker should sell the items to players, just allow players to sell their own stuff to other players, guarantee the transactions and make them secure. No need for credit cards or Paypal, just charge the total to the buyer's account.

Well, at very least, the developers of Second Life actually encourage people to buy their in-world currency at IGE or this other site called Gaming Open Market.  They link to them in their FAQ.  Granted, having cash in that game doesn't really mean much.  And it's not really a game as much as it is a virtual world with user-created minigames tacked on.