The Beeb on phat lewt

[Righ]

Article on 'secondary markets' in MMOGs.
 
Buying success in online gaming

Mage! You make me waters and breads ok!

[Mesozoic]

"You can't buy a gold medal and then claim you're the world high-jump champion. You have to jump something."

Uh, yeah!

[stray]

There was a thread on the "other site" a while back about how a single piece of WoW gold has now exceeded the worth of the Mexican Peso, Israeli Shekel, and the Russian Ruble.....Among other currencies. Granted, those aren't super valuable to begin with, but it still blows my mind.

Funny enough, this was the first thing that got my attention about MMO's in the first place. I had a friend who was playing UO when it came out, and I never really cared until he started telling me about his eBay stories. He was raking in a good deal of cash even back then. After that, I had to play 'em for myself (I've since changed and value "fun" a hell of a lot more....Mainly because it isn't to be found).

[squirrel]

EQ's plat was worth more than the Italian Lira for quite a while. Was in an economic study years ago that im too lazy to google.

Oh, and you can buy anything dontcha know. We won the war. Sure the gold medal analogy stands, but olympic (read amatuer) individual achievement doesn't mean anything anyway. You're known for a while to the few people who care about high jumping and then you're back working at Home Depot, unless you get sponsored. You can't buy talent to experience but you can own it. Aint the market grand?

[Wasted]

I like how camping some mob for 12 hours to 'earn' a supersword +10 is comparable to winning an olympic gold medal.

[Strazos]

I like how camping some mob for 12 hours to 'earn' a supersword +10 is comparable to winning an olympic gold medal.

It is if you're a moron.

[Calantus]

You can't buy a Sword of Leet +5 and then claim you're the world catass champion. You have to camp something.

See? When you look at it like that it makes perfect sense!

EDIT: /end sarcasm

[tazelbain]

You can't buy a Sword of Leet +5 and then claim you're the world catass champion. You have to camp something.

It's your fault for playing a game that has camping as the primary method of acheivement.

The only thing more pathetic than playing a tedious game, is to buy a shortcut past the tedium.

How about you pay me kick you in the crotch?  And then, you can pay a third play for a cup to make the kicks bearable. Fucking Brilliant.

Campers are sad, people who pay cash for the campers's fruit are some how noble... 

[Calantus]

I don't know if you're calling me out because the sarcasm was too subtle or you're agreeing with me and your method is too subtle. Either way I added a little something to my previous post.

[tazelbain]

Bleh I don't I know.
Campers suck.
People who buy items suck worse.
Many people use these items to show their e-peen.
Many people who buy items are posers passing off e-peen bought off ebay as their own.
Just like someone trying pass themselves as a track star by buying a medal.
Bartle's statement could be any situation involving e-peen badges, weither its through camping or something requiring skill.

[Cheddar]

Bleh I don't I know.
Campers suck.
People who buy items suck worse.
Many people use these items to show their e-peen.
Many people who buy items are posers passing off e-peen bought off ebay as their own.
Just like someone trying pass themselves as a track star by buying a medal.
Bartle's statement could be any situation involving e-peen badges, weither its through camping or something requiring skill.

I do not understand your hate towards the purchase of in game items.  In my opinion there is nothing wrong with purchasing in game items beyond the IP perspective.  Does it bug you that much that k3wld00d1234 spent 40 dollars on some pixels?  Do you pay that much attention to what others have achieved and feel slighted?  I guess the next argument will be that up up down down left right left right B A select start is lame because it gives certain players more lives than others.  I dunno, just seems like you are mad because you do not have money for shiny nor patience/time to dig up that there pretty shiny, but you really want it because your friends will think its cool.  Not trying calling you out, just trying to understand here.

[Ironwood]

  In my opinion there is nothing wrong with purchasing in game items beyond the IP perspective. 

Then your opinion is wrong.

[stray]

It's just a game folks (actually, that statement could probably be used for or against either argument. Nevermind).

Hey, how about that we think of it in RP terms? Buyers are the equivalant of the wealthy, the royal, and the privileged. Not everyone has to work as hard to get things in the real world. Not everyone has to travel the same path to reach a destination point. It's only natural that it would happen in a fantasy world as well. Not everyone has to be a lowly, dirt poor, working class adventurer. Think of the of all the rich guys who could buy their way on to a suborbital space flight, while hundreds of potential applicants with "the right stuff" don't make it. Or think of people who've had an easier entry into a lucrative career, by virtue of their family. Or just think of Paris Hilton in general.

[Koyasha]

As usual, the 'i don't care' folks don't get it.  Neither does Bartle...or maybe he does, but the statements he made only comment on the popular view.  Doesn't mean shit that soandso bought a vast fortune in plat or an ubersword of dragonslaying.  Some people get riled about that, but that's not really what has an effect.  What matters is that the potential for real-world profit drives people that would otherwise not even play, to farm cash in the most efficient way possible, indefinitely, thus vastly inflating the money supply.  There's two responses to that, both bad for the average guy that doesn't buy his plat, and doubly so for the 'casual' gamer that doesn't have much time to farm AND doesn't buy his plat.  First, prices of items go up because there's just more money out there to buy them with.  Second, game designers often increase moneysinks, which increase the outgoing money for the average gamer, which means they have to spend more time farming just to get along.  Add to that the fact that now, when they want to farm, they must compete with professional farmers that make a living out of doing it as efficiently as possible, and there's a whole slew of ill effects that buying plat leads to.

And you know, the ones to blame aren't so much those that are selling the plat, or those that are farming it.  It's the ones who buy it.  If there wasn't a demand for it, it wouldn't be going on.

This is more akin to printing money.  Admittedly, it's not exactly counterfeiting, unless the people are duping the money, but it's close enough to not make much difference.  They may still have to go through some effort to farm the cash, but guess what?  They get so good and efficient at it, that the cash is being produced at a rate that would never happen under normal gameplay circumstances.  Cause, y'know, all but the most miniscule margin of people would get fucking bored of farming cash for so long.  They would stop after they get 'enough'.  Since the professional farmers are making real money off of it, they never get 'enough', so they never stop.  Many of the reasons why counterfeiting is illegal are the same reasons against selling in-game money.

[Calantus]

Yep that's exactly it. The more people farm the more everybody else has to farm in order to compete on buying items in the player economy. Basically people who buy ingame cash makes me have to kill X more foozles to afford the widgets I wanna buy.

[Cheddar]

 All the games I have seen run on a flat economy though.  I mean you may not be able to wield a +5 sword of flame breath with neon highlights, but so what.  I do agree that campers can ruin an area by running people out (something that disgusted me in Lineage 2).  As far as ruining it for the casual player, there are a plethora of games out these days, all of which are relatively similiar.  If you NEED an uber item to enjoy a game, and it takes 100+ hours or 50 bucks to get, then maybe you should think about switching games.  Also I hate to say it but money is a facet of these games and will continue to be so; it is up to the devs (the guys YOU are paying every month) to come up with a solution to make their subscriber base happy.

[Merusk]

Inflation doesn't affect JUST uber items, though, it affects all items.  If Uberitem suddenly = X+12% then all other non-vendor-provided items are affected by a similar percentage to make-up the lost cash.  Switching games doesn't help, as these professionals are in ALL games these days.

[tazelbain]

Does it bug you that much that k3wld00d1234 spent 40 dollars on some pixels? 

There are 3 types of MMOG players:
Those who want a game.
Those who want a world.
Those who want a sweatshop.

I can respect an honest disagreement between the first 2, I am vehemently opposed to the later.
k3wld00d1234 is encouraging others to do the later.

I am not oppose to all item transactions.  I bought a ship in Puzzle Pirates for $4.44 and some in-game money.  But that went to 3R instead of a subscription fee and no one was encouraged to play the game in order to earn a slave wage (because bots are useless, kickass econ and Doubloons can't be redeemed for cash).

If you NEED an uber item to enjoy a game, and it takes 100+ hours or 50 bucks to get, then maybe you should think about switching games.

Who are you arguing against? No one has said anything even remotely like this.

[Strazos]

All the games I have seen run on a flat economy though.

Which games are this? I have yet to encounter an MMO that runs on a "flat economy."

Mudflation is more like it.

[Typhon]

In a weird way, I think the McQuaid (old man brain sez that it was McQuaid that decided to sell in-game money via the game service directly, put correct name here if I am wrong) may have been on to something when they decided to sell game money via the web.

Here's my thinking:

First we'll put people into labels to make ourselves feel superior and help define things.

• assume that a significant portion of the client base likes waving e-peen - let's call them "achievers".  Let's also assume that you cannot "fix" acheivers, getting stuff that other folks don't have is really 'fun' to them
• of this set of clients, there will be a subset that will be willing to get their e-peen enhancement with cold, hard cash - let's call them "lazy-assed rich folks" for convenience.  We'll ignore that many in this set are neither rich nor lazy because it's fun to call them "lazy-assed rich folks" See? We feel better about ourselves already!
• also assume that there exists a portion of our client base that are "opportunistic, money-grubbing whores".  This segment will do anything for cash.  Cash that they might use to buy food or clothing, but is likely going to buy themselves more stuff they probably don't need... like some game
• lastly, assume that another signifcant portion of the client-base doesn't spend alot of time caring about the size of their e-peen - let's call them "everyone else"

Well, so far I'm feeling pretty good about myself, cause I'm just like "everyone else", although I have to admire the plucky attitude of the opportunistic, money-grubbing whores, but then I tell myself that I still have my pride, which money cannot buy (at least, the money that I can get my hands on).

Now we'll guess about what motivates these people and how some groups will cause us to make gaming decisions that the other groups will dislike, ruining our plans to have every human on the planet playing our game.

• achievers will do anything to have a bigger e-peen than everyone else's.  Please note, however, that achievers are wiley, if all of the things that give bigger e-peen do not impact gameplay, the small portion of the achievers's brain that is like everyone else's will notice that it's all meaningless e-peen waving and they will hate your game and make other's hate your game (yes, even everyone else.  achievers stop at nothing to achieve a larger e-peen, even resorting to black-listing games that have no e-peen to enlarge (I was going to use "engorge" instead of "enlarge", but then I remembered that this is a family show)
• there is a limit to what everyone else will do to achieve.  everyone else will tolerate far, far less tedium then the amount of tedium that achievers will tolerate
• opportunistic, money-grubbing whores's... no guessing here, we know what they want, we know what they'll do to get it.  Whether it be greed, or a desire to eat or feed "their families", there are no depths these folks won't sink to make a buck. Bastards.

Well, what's been tried before?

• EQ: "It's about the suff, stupid".  A game for achievers, by achievers - very sucessful for 5 years, folks seem to be getting that it's all pretty meaningless and gradually moving on.  Took everyone else a couple years to realize that the grind wasn't all that fun.
• COH: "Non of the stuff, alot of the grind".  A game for the casual, with almost all of the grind. Mildly successful, game designers seem convinced that it wasn't more successful because it was too easy.  They seem to miss that the level curve is too slow to avoid doing a similar/same activity far too many times before being able to do the same activity in a different location.  Game needs content, developers focusing on balance.
• WoW: "All things to all people".  This game tries very hard to do it all, and in a clever way.  It assumes that everyone else will only stay till they get a level 60 character, and they will only stay while it continues to be fresh and entertaining.  It also assumes that the acheiver doesn't give a rats ass about the fun that exists from 1-60 and will blindly race to the grind at the end of the game... you want grind? One catasstastic grind, coming up!  Everyone one wins, right?

Wrong.  What about the opportunistic, money-grubbing whores's?  Do they win?  Well, yes, yes they do.  Which causes either the achievers to loose ("everyone else has that Sword of smite-tasm, and my e-peen feels flacid!"), everyone else to loose ("Jesus H.! the farmers are breeding like jack-rabbits and I can't buy a break!") or both to loose.

WoW instituited draconian practises to reduce the amount of farming (c.f. Fishing) in game to keep shit from breaking.  Very noble of them, and the right thing to do, unfortunate that it made some of the "fun" go away (c.f. Fishing).

McQuaids idea, in essence, seems to be like putting a flat rate against how much game money (and thus, game stuff) is worth.  In an odd way, it's also putting an upper limit on how much time someone should spend to get something in-game.  If you, as the player, aren't having fun "achieving", then you can consider buying cash to get done what you want to get done.  You can feel good about yourself as a player because you are putting (real) money back into the game (and not into the mouths of the kids of those dirty, farming, opportunistic, money-grubbing whores.

Of course, for this idea to work, everything in game must be able to be purchased for with in-game money.  WoW's "uber-loot" model would break Brad's idea because the monetary unit of transfer would become an in-game item instead of in-game money (c.f. Diablo II "SOJ").

That's the best possible spin I can put on paying for loot.  It still feels pretty whorish.

I think a much less "whorish" game system would involve having characters with interests that don't overlap other characters.  I said that very generically on purpose, not to be confusing.  Characters should only be in competition with other characters of a similar type, and should be in cooperation with characters not of similar type.  For characters not of the same type, the game should give enough information to help players cooperate.

Example: A warrior has interest in winning in combat and the stuff needed to win in combat (weapons, armor, fighting styles, etc).  A holy man character has interests in furthering the goals of his god, and the stuff needed to further the goals of his god (building temples, learning, sheparding the flock, etc).  The god of the holy man (in-game mechanic) directs the holy man to build a temple in a monster-infested area, and gives the holy man with the ability to "bless" one weapon with power (read: permanent enchantment).  The holy man goes to a village near the monster infested area and posts his need and reward (need: kill monsters, reward: bless weapon).  A warrior picks up the task, kills the monsters, and gets his reward (ideally the two group up, but it shouldn't be required).  The warrior recieves experience for killing monsters because it's a contract killing, not random violence.  The holy man recieves "experience" for furthering the goals of his god.  Note that each class should have a different type of "god", or several differnt types of "gods".  Example: warrior has a DoJo-master, a regional noble and a war god.

Ideally, there should be nothing to buy/sell, it should be the experience that brings the reward.  Possibly, the warrior never has anything but the same weapon he started with, but it is changed over time to become more powerful.  Yes, people could create "mule" characters to help eachother out early on (and then delete those "mules"), but that should only get you alittle bit along the way toward higher levels.

Unfortunately this only works if the in-game "gods" can direct people with somehting like a plan.  It would be interesting to try to have the "gods" compete with other "gods" to acheive victory conditions.

ok, an hour of my life is gone, and no one is paying me to spew this drivel. apologies for length.

[Sairon]

E-peen is what the entire genre is all about. I can't see how anybody can enjoy an MMORPG by todays standards without being a fair bit of an achiever. I've yet to find an MMORPG which is fun in the same way as for example an FPS. The basis of all MMORPGs I've played so far is to set up goals for the player to achive, and then don't give a shit about how fun it actually is geting there. MMORPGs doesn't have an involving story, they aren't skilled based while lvling, there's nothing of what usualy makes a game fun. I would like to hear how that category called "everyone else" haves fun in an MMORPG, because as you might've noticed all the other 3 categories which you supplied has e-peen as the goal.

[HaemishM]

You are all missing the point. It's not the people BUYING the items (i.e. the junkies) that are the problem, though they contribute. It's not the idiot developers who keep shitting out level-based DikuMud's tailor-made for profitable farming that are the problem, though they contribute a lot more than players. No, it's the cocksucking anal ferrets that sell the shit, the organized parasites on the nutsack of the industry who are the problem. You know, the crack dealers.

This is not a problem that's going to be solved or resolved by lawsuits. This is a problem that will get solved when the law enforcement agencies of the world wake up and realize that these are the new international money laundering schemes used by criminial cartels around the world to shift money from illegitimate businesses to legitmate ones. These guys are the bagmen.

So yes, when you buy plat off of IGE, the terrorists win.

[stray]

E-peen is what the entire genre is all about. I can't see how anybody can enjoy an MMORPG by todays standards without being a fair bit of an achiever. I've yet to find an MMORPG which is fun in the same way as for example an FPS. The basis of all MMORPGs I've played so far is to set up goals for the player to achive, and then don't give a shit about how fun it actually is geting there. MMORPGs doesn't have an involving story, they aren't skilled based while lvling, there's nothing of what usualy makes a game fun. I would like to hear how that category called "everyone else" haves fun in an MMORPG, because as you might've noticed all the other 3 categories which you supplied has e-peen as the goal.

I know that I'm no achiever. If I am, then I achieve jack and shit.

And my guess is that the same goes for just about any of the regular posters here. I mean, look at Bat Country. That's like the most pathetic MMO guild/group in existence!  

Anyways...

Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I mainly play because I'm on some quest for fun. That's the uber rare loot worth paying cold hard cash for. I play for (lack of a better term) research.

[Sairon]

Yea I can buy that, exploring the game can be pretty intresting, but if you're not a bit of an achiver I don't think it's possible to endure the grinding to reach the end of it :P

[Pococurante]

[Koyasha]

You are all missing the point. It's not the people BUYING the items (i.e. the junkies) that are the problem, though they contribute. It's not the idiot developers who keep shitting out level-based DikuMud's tailor-made for profitable farming that are the problem, though they contribute a lot more than players. No, it's the cocksucking anal ferrets that sell the shit, the organized parasites on the nutsack of the industry who are the problem. You know, the crack dealers.

I used to think like this, but I can't agree anymore.  I place the blame squarely on the people buying the items.  The ones selling are simply meeting the demand that exists, which is what we see in just about any instance, involving anything, whether games or real life, where there is a demand for something sufficient enough to make a profit.  I'm not saying they're not doing anything wrong by fulfilling this demand, I'm just saying they're not at fault.  Your comparison to crack dealers is close, but there's a major difference, being that said dealers have a product which is addictive, and they often go out of their way to promote the use of their product, which tends to mean getting people addicted by either taking advantage of their stupidity, or tricking them into it in even more subversive methods.  In this case, the buyers can't be blamed anywhere near as much for the problem.  IGE, on the other hand, is no more persuasive than a Coke commercial; they put up their ads, but they don't exactly shove plat down your throat until you feel like can't LIVE without buying more.

I make no apologies for the sellers; what they do is wrong, in my opinion, although it is logical.  Without the buyers, they wouldn't be there, though.  So who do we blame for the vampire in the building?  The vampire, or the guy that invited him in?

[Ironwood]

Yeah, I wondered how long it would be before we got onto vampires...

[Tale]

I do not understand your hate towards the purchase of in game items.  In my opinion there is nothing wrong with purchasing in game items beyond the IP perspective.  Does it bug you that much that k3wld00d1234 spent 40 dollars on some pixels?  Do you pay that much attention to what others have achieved and feel slighted?  I guess the next argument will be that up up down down left right left right B A select start is lame because it gives certain players more lives than others.  I dunno, just seems like you are mad because you do not have money for shiny nor patience/time to dig up that there pretty shiny, but you really want it because your friends will think its cool.  Not trying calling you out, just trying to understand here.

Your logic is false, because that "bunch of pixels" has an impact on the game world. The presence of that sword in that person's hands changes things for other players, while the presence of farmers acquiring stuff to sell creates problems for legitimate players.

If fuckwad is killing me with the sword for which he paid US$40, then of course it matters. If fuckwit is chosen for raids instead of me because of his US$40 sword, maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it shits me. If fuckstick is camping 24/7 for US$ profit at the spot where I would like to PvE, then yes, it's FUBAR. All of the above are common occurrences in a game like WoW.

If I was playing Monopoly and some players were making sly real-money trades for properties under the table, while the rest of us were using Monopoly money as per the rules, I would strongly protest and leave the game. There is no point in playing with cheats.

[stray]

The difference is that Monopoly is meant as a game "to be played". There is no "playing the game" in most MMO's. It's just pure acquistion. Monopoly, even though it's based on acquistion, still offers more than that. Even a loser can enjoy himself. If it was the same with MMO's, then people wouldn't find a need to pay real cash for things. If players could still have fun even as a lvl 1 noob, then they'd be too busy to worry about items and progress. I think that anyone who wants to prolong the crappy achievement based "gameplay" of online rpg's, be it devs or players, should just suck it up. Either that, or they can go fuck themselves. They chose their poison -- Now they should drink it.

[Yegolev]

So yes, when you buy plat off of IGE, the terrorists win.

Well played.

I don't like the farmers because they flood the market with everything.  Before the WoW server transfers, Crushridge was unquestionably a low-population server.  As a lowbie miner, I could count on selling enough copper or bronze in the AH to fund further adventures in blacksmithing, even splurging on the occasional weapon upgrade when combined with combat spoils, as long as I was smart and posted my auctions at the right time/price.  After the transfers, the new kids naturally posted their wagonloads of metal and ore, driving prices into the ground for low-end items.  The good resource nodes were all taken, as well.  Node-iquete went out the window.  Charred Vale looked more like Talladega Speedway on race day, mobs huddled in the infield while dwarven paladicks spun around the zone like node-stealing locusts.  The only people who could reliably get good ore were the farmers, or people like me who didn't mind getting beetle guts on their hands to score a tiny bit of mithril in the middle of nowhere.  I would bet money that these days most people don't know where the good ore spawns are without looking at a spoiler site, since in normal operation they are regularly cleaned out by farmers.  Somehow the "hard-to-get" items didn't come down in price, they just went up in number.

Of course, if I wanted to mine uncontested resource nodes, I guess I should just go play Horizons, eh?

The difference is that Monopoly is meant as a game "to be played"... Even a loser can enjoy himself.

Oh, come on.  Plenty of losers are enjoying WoW this very minute.  Your point on the lack of gameplay is dead-on.

[HaemishM]

Your comparison to crack dealers is close, but there's a major difference, being that said dealers have a product which is addictive, and they often go out of their way to promote the use of their product, which tends to mean getting people addicted by either taking advantage of their stupidity

What could be more stupid than buying virtual bits that just about any legal expert will tell you are not owned by the seller, on a service the seller does not run and cannot guarantee the availability of, in a game the sellers are in no way affiliated with and which might be shutdown or be prone to bugs at any moment? For all the backing of the product these muppets can give (i.e. jack shit), you could just as reliably set your money on fire in the middle of the your living room and be as assured that you'll get what you pay for. This is the problem I have with the sellers.

Now, if the game company sells stuff, or allows stuff to be sold and backs up the sale to the point of securing the credit card transaction? That's fine with me, it's their service, let them make a little more money, especially if they segregate those servers from other non-transaction-based servers. I really believe SOE did it the right way with their Station Exchange program, loathe as I am to admit it. We know the shit happens, and no one is willing to take the legal fight to the dealers over this shit, because they have no assurances the decision will be a good one. SOE sets up their shop, lets people sue them over it (and you know it's going to happen - or might if anyone was playing EQ2), and they will have the advantage of having set the terms on the sales beforehand.

[stray]

Oh, come on.  Plenty of losers are enjoying WoW this very minute.  Your point on the lack of gameplay is dead-on.

[EDIT] Ninja-ed. I think I read your post wrong.

[Sairon]

Not to be a racist but they should ban Asian ips from NA and EU servers, there's just a way to large economical diffrence between this regions. Sure there's some farmers from EU and NA but they're nothing compared to the asians. I wonder how well those "no blizzard employees or affliates are permited to bid" would hold up in court, going that route could also destroy the market.

[Samwise]

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.

[Yegolev]

Oh, come on.  Plenty of losers are enjoying WoW this very minute.  Your point on the lack of gameplay is dead-on.

[EDIT] Ninja-ed. I think I read your post wrong.

I usually write them wrong, so it's fine.