The Beeb on phat lewt

[Yegolev]

If the phat lewt was fun to acquire in the first place, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  People pay for stuff in online games because they want to get to the "endgame" faster, which means skipping the "game".  That seems to me like a good indicator that the "game" bites.

I agree.  Buying equipment or whatever is seen as buying a train ticket to the fun.  The problem is that there isn't any shining light at the end of the rainbow.

[Righ]

Frankly, its time that one of the big companies engage their lawyers to try and generate some legal decisions on this. The secondary market parasites are selling something that they do not own. In doing so they are catering to a smaller subset of players than those they are hurting. This inevitably has a negative effect on the desirability of the game to the majority of players. It seems like a little legal moolah would go a long way. It seems pointless wasting manpower finding the cocksuckers and banning them if you aren't going to put them out of business and eat their children.

[Pococurante]

Suing customers.  Seems so RIAA-ish.

The trend is too large, gamers are aging into large disposable cash with little time for catassing.  Not to bring too much Zen into the situation but it's simply better to find a way to accomodate the demand.

[Righ]

Suing customers.  Seems so RIAA-ish.

Straw man. The majority of a game's customers are not selling in-game items to the detriment of the other customers. The little fuckers who work for secondary market companies are. This situation is not happening in the movie industry, and it is not an apporopriate comparison. Don't be an apologist for the secondary market. These people RUIN games.

[Samwise]

I used to be more bitter about the secondary market, but my current philosophy on them is that if there's such a rich demand for a service that allows the game to be circumvented, the game sucks anyway, and why am I playing it?  The secondary market just throws existing flaws in the game into sharper relief - any game that has "farmers" is a game with fundamentally broken gameplay.

[Cheddar]

I used to be more bitter about the secondary market, but my current philosophy on them is that if there's such a rich demand for a service that allows the game to be circumvented, the game sucks anyway, and why am I playing it?  The secondary market just throws existing flaws in the game into sharper relief - any game that has "farmers" is a game with fundamentally broken gameplay.

This was basically my point.  But look at all the discussion that spawned from a little prompting!

[Sairon]

Character growth is pretty much what MMORPG is all about and character growth relates directly to time. Even if D2 isn't an MMORPG, it offers what I'd like to call decently fun gameplay, people were still paying loads for items in that game. I don't think it matters if the game is super fun, as long as there's phats and character growth there will probably be a market for this kind of stuff.

[Samwise]

character growth relates directly to time.

And, in most cases, patience, since you need to not only invest real-world time, you have to spend that time doing mind-numbing things like camp mob spawns and click on them.  In a system where you could do your leveling offline, I'd imagine there would be a much smaller market for pre-leveled characters.

Of course, in a system where your level was a reflection of player skill, there'd be almost zero market.  (See: Puzzle Pirates)

[Pococurante]

Don't be an apologist for the secondary market. These people RUIN games.

I've been hearing that since the Compuserve/Prodigy/Genie days.  And yet the games keep on trucking, people still play and enjoy themselves, merchant/craft classes keep Keynsian to victory.  Even in the games where dumb loot templates and non-effective gold sinks should have sunk the server into the abyss a half decade ago, ala UO.

Just ain't so Righ.  What drives players like us out of games isn't virtual asset sales.

Still a tempest in a teacup.