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Letter from Smed:

John Smedley Discusses Station Exchange

Hello Everyone,

We have a big announcement coming out in the press in the next day, and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me directly rather than reading an article about it.

Starting in late June, SOE will begin offering a new service called Station Exchange. This secure service will allow EverQuest II players on specific servers to buy and sell the right to use items, coin and characters. To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.

I'm sure this is going to come as a shock to many of you, since for the past six years, we have held the line in not allowing these sorts of things to occur. I'd like to explain the primary drivers for this change from our perspective:

First: It's obvious that a large percentage of our players either don't mind this activity or actively participate in it. We've done a fair amount of homework on this subject, and we believe this is a $200 million dollar market worldwide, and there are a huge number of our players taking part in the buying and selling of virtual goods. We have conducted polls, and the vast majority of players either doesn?t care about it or would like to participate in it. We believe that by allowing this to happen on select servers, we can have a solution for both the many players who want to participate in this and for those who don?t.

Second: Dealing with fraudulent transactions of one type or another takes up roughly 40% of our customer service people's time. We have players calling us up or requesting in-game service for activities related to these sorts of transactions constantly, even though they are specifically disallowed by our EULA. You may ask why the percentage is that high when it's not allowed in the first place? The answer is simple. Many times, people in these situations aren't up front with us about what actually happened. "My sword disappeared from my inventory" comes to mind, when what actually happened is the player has sold the item to someone else. Our CS people have to take the time to investigate this claim because if something legitimately happened, we of course want to take care of the player's needs. We believe that by taking this course, we will free up a great number of resources to deal with other things for our players.

Third: We see this as a potentially interesting model for future games. If we came up with a game specifically designed around these sorts of transactions, it might be pretty cool. Online gaming is always evolving, and we?re going to see how a sanctioned exchange service shakes out in EQII. From our perspective, it's always wise to keep pushing the envelope.

With the big reasons we're doing this laid out, I'd like to now tell you about the process:

On Wednesday, you'll see some press about Station Exchange. After about a week, we will conduct an in-game poll that's going to ask whether you:

1) Want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
2) Do not want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
3) Don't really care

Based on the results of this poll, we will light up a certain amount of new servers that are specifically "Exchange enabled." If the percentage of players who want this service is high enough, we might consider converting some existing servers to "Exchange enabled." Players who want to play on those servers will have the opportunity to transfer over to the "Exchange enabled" servers for free on a one-time-only basis (but you can't ever move that character off these servers). We will, of course, let people who don't want to stay on an "Exchange enabled" server off with a free transfer.

I want to be clear here: We will be lighting up a few new servers that are specifically ?Exchange enabled,? and the number of existing servers we convert to ?Exchange enabled? will be based on how many people actually want to be on "Exchange enabled" servers.

In addition to the issues listed above, you may ask, "What about farming?" The simple answer to this is that we're going to continue to heavily enforce the rules of EQ II, and those rules don't permit players to monopolize spawns or in any way harm the play experience of another player. We will continue to enforce these rules, but we also think that by allowing for a legitimate way for players to buy and sell virtual goods among themselves, there will be fewer problems on the non-Exchange servers.

I realize this is a lot to think about, and I expect a pretty good debate to start on this subject. We welcome all your feedback, as it will help determine the future of this service. All I ask is that you consider the fact that we're really addressing this problem in the best possible way for all sides of this issue.


John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment"

Wow.

I was part of an incubator team that played around with this exact idea for about 6 months, but in the end we couldn't get the lawyers involved to buy off on not being exposed to too much risk.

Even if it's disclaimed, acknowledging the fact that your virtual objects have a monetary value by brokering the transactions is way outside of any legal precedents in online gaming, and it was too much of a risk at the time we considered it.

I do think that it's going to be very interesting to not only see how this works out, but also see any repercussions of the risk they (may be/are) taking on.

Of course, I haven't played EQ2.  Perhaps their customer service policies are different from other MMOGs and they actually will materialize equipment that you lost due to a bug for you.

In a few years Sony (or some other larger company, Achaea doesn't count :P) *will* start selling the items directly. 

Well, it was a good hobby while it lasted.

That day will probably be the end for me.  And that day is much closer now.


I don't think they will be able to keep this restricted to only a few servers, because that won't solve the problem.  I think that most people who e-bay don't want to be known as e-bayers.  Thus, they will stay on the "pure" servers and keep buying from Yantis & co, locking SoE out of that revenue stream (and keeping GMs busy with complaints) until they make all the servers "Exchange" servers.

Why sell in-game now?

Be interesting to see if they allow character selling as well. Buy a character + change name - sounds like good money making to me. Can't wait to hear about the first GM's getting busted for this buffing characters to sell.

Heh, I can see it now ... Imagine a team of intrepid explorers in Lower Guk.  The Ykesha drops.  The entire party rolls for the item, even those who cannot use it.  Those who can't use it demand to be on the roll because, "Dude, I can sell it on Sony's site so I should have a chance at it."  You can now add that lame excuse to the list of such great reasons as "My alt can use it" and "I can sell it for [in-game] gold."

I've come to hate all item-based MMO's for that reason (among others).  We really can't have nice things.

Is this sort of blantent trashing of immersion for a commission on more revenue inevitable?

I have no intention of paying real cash for an item so this will have no effect on me one way or the other.

Those against buying and selling will probably benefit from less farmers as the market for virtual goods will decline on the non-Exchange servers.

You can choose to play on a non-Exchange server. Don't like it? Don't roll a character there.

Those against buying and selling will probably benefit from less farmers as the market for virtual goods will decline on the non-Exchange servers.

It's about fucking time. Writing on the wall has been there for years, they might as well make some money off the stupid people with more money than time or sense.

However, the fact that they are ONLY doing this on EQ2 leads me to believe there is a 4th reason for doing it: that particular project is swimming in debt, despite everything they've said about its success. We all know this kind of thing is more suited to EQ1, and that would probably generate more revenue.

But I'm sure EQ1 doesn't need the extra money. EQ2, probably so.

See, that isn't the game that I bought.  Pick up the (original) EQ box, look on the back, and you won't see anything that even remotely hints at real-world cash being a deciding factor.  It also isn't what players like me wanted when we decided to play games like this.  I wanted a fantasy, an escape from reality that could possibly be described as a virtual community.  I wanted to get into a group and go hunt things that my character would hunt, not things that drop phat lewtz.

Casual players are the ones with money. The "hardcore" players are the ones without good jobs (or any) and without a family life (usually anyways, about 90% are teenagers).

I agree with your thinking in many ways but this act by SOE sanctions this whole activity and changes the game.  This means:

/shout Jboots for sale 10 dollars US!

This is no longer "just a game".  Moving from clandestine ebaying to this sanctioned activity is going to erode the mentality of the player base.

What do I care that Joe-blow bought a +10 Sword of Destruction (still restricted by character levels) when I got the same thing doing a quest? *AND* I can kick his ass because I know how to play my character better.

Since there isn't much PvP (any?) in EQ2, does this really hurt anyone other than the people who still have global channels on?

I still call bullshit on loot as pvp.  It smacks of hyper-sensitivity to the very presence of other players. 

PvP was a perfectly good term with a well-understood meaning...sigh...You've already got Viin using the term "item pvp."

I'm not sure adding "sanctioned" real-life money auctions is going to cause this "item PvP" to get any worse. From the stories I hear of EQ1 (and now EQ2), this is already happening with guilds controlling drops, yes?

John:  "Hey does that new game have pvp?"
Bob:  "As an enlightend gamer with a well-developed cerebrum, I have to ask:  What kind of pvp do you mean?"
John:  "Nevermind.  Hey, WTF is up with that Mace guy?"
Bob:  "Don't even get me started."

I'm not sure adding "sanctioned" real-life money auctions is going to cause this "item PvP" to get any worse. From the stories I hear of EQ1 (and now EQ2), this is already happening with guilds controlling drops, yes? It may make it slightly worse, but then I think the whole game is flawed if a "good game session" is one where you camp a spawn for 8 hours to finally get UberItem#42.

Well, it was a good hobby while it lasted.

That's a strange avatar for someone who disapproves of real life trading for game objects.

Well, it was a good hobby while it lasted.

I really hope lawsuits over servers going down and wiping some items will stop this and discourages everyone from ever trying it again. They are getting very close to playing with 'virtual item has value' fire.

Youngins...

This (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=687) is not this. (http://www.wizards.com/magic/welcome.asp)

Temporary, permanent long/short term--Sony has opened up a legal circus that is going to affect online gaming pretty much forever from here on in (once any suits are brought, accepted, and then decided).

The legal stuff is overstated.

Sony have made clear in the licence, and in the exchange rules, that ownership of everything in the game resides with them, and that items are part of the service, and that the service can be withdrawn at SOEs discretion.

I can't see any serious way this gives SOE any liability whatsoever.

Note that DAoC already do character transfers for cash. NCSoft publically issues advice on issues quiet obviously related to selling accounts. Wizards runs an in game exchange in MtGO that uses hard currency to exchange in game items, and has largely accepted that the right to use in game items has value by recognising that the awarding of loot (online cards) as competition prizes is illegal in certain US states.

I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure SOE does have lawyers, and I don't see how this opens any sort of *legal action related* pandora's box.

There are a number of real lawyers on this site, unfortunately I really doubt if they will say anything because lawyers are generally pretty smart about not giving out legal advice to people that might sue them if they are wrong.

You just looted a leather vest.  Current market value is $2.60 US.

Youngins...

This is why I think folks that say it does not really change the game much are naive on this point.  I could be wrong - we are going to find out.

Oh, man. I gotta dig MoM out, such a great game.

Why, oh, why are we getting Civ 4 (please unfuck the changes from Civ3...fat chance...) instead of Colonization 2 or Master of Magic 2? Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is a nice game, but it'd be nice to have a full-blown real sequel! By Firaxis, if possible (since Reynolds is an RTS bandwagon bitch). I don't know who owns those properties, but they are not using them!

I'm very concerned that this could be a slippery slope; limited-but-sanctioned trading one minute, and the next, everyone is buying their swords and armor with US dollars instead of, y'know, playing the game for them.

Here is the scenario that killed the idea for my incubator team, more than anything else:

People get laid-off, fired, demoted, or recieve pay-cuts all the time.  Why should a bunch of losers making a living off of video games be so special as to be immune from these things?  Yes, they will whine, and probably sue, but they will have no case.

People get laid-off, fired, demoted, or recieve pay-cuts all the time.  Why should a bunch of losers making a living off of video games be so special as to be immune from these things?  Yes, they will whine, and probably sue, but they will have no case.

Dangit, schild beat me to the post. It's mostly just a rehash of what has already been discussed here though his point about IGE being able to do transactions more efficiently using SOE's system is interesting.

Grats on post 666. :-D

Mythic Rips SOE a new one (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/23/0422231&tid=187&tid=10) (from Slashdot)

So, Marc Jacobs decided to talk smack about SOE starting an auction site.

I'm going to refrain from discussing my frightfully clear view of their new game and instead say:

"Heh."

The character transfer procedure is designed for those individuals who share an account with multiple characters on them and wish to play together at the same time. With the character transfer ability, one will be able to transfer their character(s) from their existing account to a brand new account on the same server without losing any of their character(s) data and progress. At this point both users will be able to play Dark Age of Camelot at the same time using separate accounts.

I think that not only supporting the sale of in-game characters, items and currency, but also taking a 'cut' of those sales, is not only a mistake but one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry

Will there be a service fee charge if I wish to transfer a character to a new account?

Yes, the credit card that is on file from your source account will be charged a $40.00 transfer fee. Once you have verified the appropriate information with a support representative, your credit card will be billed and the transfer will be queued for processing.

Crap job, no life, no prospects, no incentive to change.

One more point to add on the silliness of Mark Jacob's article...

How exactly is "assistant manager of a retail store" a better alternative?

But no one cares about Galaxies anyway. This fact was already found in the other SWg thread.

The guts of the game is being replaced with a level-based forced-grouping traditional MMOG model.

You should care about Galaxies. Because on May 5, that game as you know it will end. The guts of the game is being replaced with a level-based forced-grouping traditional MMOG model. Soon after that it will be rebranded and relaunched as a "new" game: Episode III Rage of the Wookiees, to co-incide with the Star Wars Episode III movie. If that works, it could bring in a helluva lot of players and therefore potential Station Exchange users.

Unsanctioned virtual property auctions are now rampant, and will continue to grow whether or not publishers implement their own auction sites. Every MMO company has to assess the needs of its own player base. It is clear to us that we have many loyal and honest players who simply don't have the time to take multiple characters through the game's higher levels of play and want a sanctioned, secure means to broaden their play experience. Increasingly, our customer service department has had to bear the brunt of futily attempting to assist these players when they are cheated by unsecure transactions. Station Exchange will enable these honest players to use an auction service without concern that they will be scammed.

Instead of actually, you know, altering the game so that it doesn't take goboodles of useless hours grinding and camping in order to get anywhere, and thus helping all the casual players, including the ones who don't want to spend cash on virtual nothings, we'd rather keep the game as lazy and lackluster as it is now. Only, we'll make MORE money because you retards will continue to play boring, grinding ass gameplay to get the sword of whoopty, AND you'll pay us transaction fees to BUY the sword of whoopty from some other useless catass. WE R TEH WIN! MY C0rVeTt3 needs new wheels, little man!

I still am in favor of doing this, because it means companies can make more money at the games they create, as well as shortcut the little cocksuckers like IGE who want to leech off of others work.

I am beginning to see the merits alternative payment schemes.  If I am paying a monthly fee, I don't want people to be able to grease the wheels with cash. I also don't want to deal with people who are operating under a profit motive.  It just drags the game down.  But if I am not paying a monthly fee, I am open to other possibilities.

Maybe this could advance to the point where the game is FREE (not like Project Pyramid Scheme, real free) and the company makes money on transfer fees.  Maybe in 5 years when MMOGs pricing starts getting cutthroat.

It's going to take less time than that. Should Guild Wars be successful, all hell will break loose on pricing schemes. We're already starting to see some of it, with AO's free for a year thing. The generation of cash cow recurring revenue is a finite market, and eventually, some one will actually return with a "per-use" pricing scheme, as well as others like "time-limited" pricing.

Maybe this could advance to the point where the game is FREE (not like Project Pyramid Scheme, real free) and the company makes money on transfer fees.  Maybe in 5 years when MMOGs pricing starts getting cutthroat.

Obviously there are other factors, but it still is a very nice consumer model for pricing, assuming you enjoy the game itself.

If you could pay one of 3 tiered prices for WoW based purely on your weekly play time, would you? Say for the first 20 hours, you paid only $6.95, up to 40 hours a week, you paid $10.95 and then if you played over 40 hours, you'd pay the full $14.95; you'd also have the option of paying the full price all the time, no matter how much time you averaged that month. Would you bite on that one, knowing that if you got an extra day off and played that extra hour or two, you'd have to pay more (but not more than you currently are)?

If you could pay one of 3 tiered prices for WoW based purely on your weekly play time, would you? Say for the first 20 hours, you paid only $6.95, up to 40 hours a week, you paid $10.95 and then if you played over 40 hours, you'd pay the full $14.95; you'd also have the option of paying the full price all the time, no matter how much time you averaged that month. Would you bite on that one, knowing that if you got an extra day off and played that extra hour or two, you'd have to pay more (but not more than you currently are)?

I was working off the thinking that you can't increase the maximum sub price beyond what is already being paid. Thus, the highest you'd have to pay would be $14.95 a month, no more than you already do. It would be offered as an incentive to draw in more customers who wouldn't fit in the unprofitable catass realm. It was also a set of numbers pulled completely out of my ass.

I think we're more likely to see more offerings like SOE's Station Pass than we are offerings that cost less based on time-spent. Also, $3 an hour is no longer being used in things like MMOG's because it's insane. It was then, it's just there wasn't anything else like it. If you are going to move towards a per-time based scheme, you have to think micro-amounts per hour, i.e. 18 cents an hour or something. I get that from thinking the "average player" plays 20 hours a week, and you want a 4-week period to total up to the same price as a regular subscription, so $14.95/80 hours a month = around 18 cents.

It could be a billing nightmare. But once that type of billing is in place, the type of per-item transaction fees we're talking about could be added in easily enough.

You couldn't be charged less than the base ($6.95), even if you play 0 hours, because it's still a subscription service.

Probably the best way to implement this thing to an existing MMOG is by bundling it with a price increase. Since the price would be going up anyway, keep the lowest tier at only a few dollars off of the old price, make the median price what is was before, and make the catasses pay more.

But, of course, this type of pricing scheme would really need to be built into the plan from the ground up, like PVP, in order to get accurate numbers for what you need to be profitable.

I think the big flaw with the subscription model is it forces all, but the most hardcore, to choose one game or another.
A good pricing scheme would not punish people for being inactive.

I am probably going to cancel my COH account, because for time being my interest has waned.  I would like to play the game again in the future, but I can't see myself paying 15 bucks a months to hold my characters so I can play again in 8 months.  Nor do I see myself re-penning my account, if I have to re-do all my Heroes.

If you had a flexable payment system, you'd never need to have a win-back program because EVERY patch would be one.  No one would ever really need to "quit".

Schmoo, still if I wanted to play CoH just one day a month, the monthly sub pretty much forces me to quit because I sure ain't paying 5 dollars an hour to play CoH.

Sure, but that's not what you said.


If I've gotten used to paying $5/month and then I suddenly get a $15 (or $25 or whatever) bill because I played a lot more one month, I would tend to be annoyed, yes, even though I have no logical right to be annoyed, and I would likely blame SOE or whoever rather than my own catassery.  People do not always behave in logical ways (that's a generic "I" representing the average player, not me personally).

Probably the best way to implement this thing to an existing MMOG is by bundling it with a price increase. Since the price would be going up anyway, keep the lowest tier at only a few dollars off of the old price, make the median price what is was before, and make the catasses pay more.

Sure, but that's not what you said.

If I've gotten used to paying $5/month and then I suddenly get a $15 (or $25 or whatever) bill because I played a lot more one month, I would tend to be annoyed, yes, even though I have no logical right to be annoyed, and I would likely blame SOE or whoever rather than my own catassery.  People do not always behave in logical ways (that's a generic "I" representing the average player, not me personally).

the game was kept afloat by the small, 30-40k permanent base of subscribers who stayed because of the community that had formed.  It's not exactly true to say that its failure was due to the lack of a community, because a really good one was eventually established; it's a bit more complicated, I guess I'm trying to say.

Make players a part of a tight-knit community, even if they're bound together by hatred of the game, and they won't leave no matter what your pricing plan is.

You may recall that SoE is charging an extra monthly fee to display your stats online.  Stuff like "most monsters killed," highest single hit, most items discovered, etc. etc...

Now they can add stats for "most items sold for real money" and "most $$$ earned from sales."  And perhaps the top sellers could list their stats for free!

Way to bring out the achievers!

Wouldn't touch EQ2 with Vin Diesel's proboscus, at this point.

You're 18 and just out of high-school, no real skills or talents but you do have an EQ X account.  Sure, before you might of stuck some of your loot, that just would have gotten sold to vendors anyway, up for auction to net you a few extra bucks for the weekend, enough for a pizza maybe, but now your parents want you to get your own place and move out and they are harping on you to 'get a job'.

(snip)

Time passes and here you are a year later, you haven't hardly been out of your room in months but your paying your parents rent and helping with the bills, sure your lucky to make $600 a month even putting in 95 or a 100 hours a week, but it's easy money right?  You still have no marketable skills and the time that you could have spent learning the retail ropes at minimum wage so you could look for a job with a big chain with benifits and a small chance at maybe even being assistant manager someday has been flushed into EQ hell.

Crap job, no life, no prospects, no incentive to change.

----

How much you want to bet the scenario above plays out with rather disturbing frequency once this goes live?  I'm sure it's happened a few times already but if the stigma of buying and selling your 'phat lewts' goes away I am positive that this sort of thing will become all too common.

4) SOE goes after first corrupt GM and tries to have what he does be considered imbezzlement

And probably a shitton of other issues I can't even imagine. Now, I'm not saying any or all of even one of those cases is winnable. But that's just a few of the worms in the can o' worms this opens up. There are going to be some hefty retainers paid and some happy lawyers made out of this decision.

Dollars to donuts, this decision would NEVER have been made had EQ2 held its own against WoW. SOE doesn't do this kind of expensive proposition unless pushed. EQ2 cannot be doing well if they chose to do it in this game and not EQ1.

Critics have charged that Station Exchange lets players buy their way to the top and may open a legal can of worms. Though Kramer admits that the idea behind Station Exchange was controversial, even within SOE, with 20 to 25 percent of players buying and selling, the company says it's just giving players what they want. According to the results of an in-game poll conducted by Sony, players are almost evenly split in their feelings--for, against, or neutral--toward the service.

You might have been joking, but I think the next step along those lines will be in-game advertising.  A nominal fee will get you wall-space in a capitol.  More cash might get your banner ad on the back of a raid boss.

Put a Diet Coke banner up in Qeynos and then charge for 'ad impressions'.  Each time some player runs past it there's 1/2 a penny.  It would probably bring in an easy hundred grand a day, there is no way that Smed, as money grubbing as he is,  isn't eventually going to try this.

Ya know what amazes me?

Smed still has a job.

Apparently, SOE measures executive job performance on the same scale Bush measures Condi Rice.