Gold Farming 900 Million a year Industry

[Morat20]

There is another can of worms on the horizon - IRS thinking about taxing mmorpg-related sales.

The screams of confused stupidity over that one have been amusing as hell. I sell you "intellectual property" -- a simple concept that has no concrete existance -- I pay taxes on the money I just earned. I sell you 1000 gold pieces in WoW -- a simple concept that has no concrete existance -- and I shouldn't pay taxes on the money I just made?

It seems a few idiots thought they were going to start taxing you for earning gold in game. :)

[sinij]

Taxing something implies value added or created. It brings us one step closer to ‘virtual property’.

[Roac]

Taxing something implies value added or created. It brings us one step closer to ‘virtual property’.

When you sell something, you earn value.  We like to call it "money".  Taxes on "money" you get is called "income tax".

[Nebu]

Because that would shorten subscription life, but more importantly, it would codify rules for virtual property. And that would potentially make them liable if those virtual assets get hosed, fraud occurs, etc.

I agree with the latter but wonder what your proof is of the former.  Gold/plat/etc have been available on eBay for years with no real proof that this availability shortens subscription lifetimes.  I'm advocating doing it in-house so that the game makers aren't losing a good portion of the revenue to outside sources.  I do see how this could legitimize the whole "virtual property" situation and add to game maker liability.  I also agree that this may likely be the primary reason for avoidance.

[HaemishM]

I don't know that there is proof RMT shortens sub life. But I am sure developers think anything that shortens the leveling curve shortens subscriptions, and they are very very afraid of that. Otherwise, why the fuck do they insist on making us level so much on needlessly repetitive shit?

[Xilren's Twin]

Taxing something implies value added or created. It brings us one step closer to ‘virtual property’.

When you sell something, you earn value.  We like to call it "money".  Taxes on "money" you get is called "income tax".

If you have to pay taxes on selling your expertise or advice (much like a consultant, lawyer or personal shopper does), selling "poweleveling services" or "account combat enhancement (i.e. sword of leet) would be no different.

I would stay as far away from the "virtual property" line as possible; keep everything in the realm of services.

Xilren

[Nebu]

Otherwise, why the fuck do they insist on making us level so much on needlessly repetitive shit?

That's the million dollar question.  Current models exist by inertia (it worked well in the past, it will work even better if we streamline it).  We all are also well aware that repetition is easier to implement than fresh content.  I still contend that a game with a rich endgame will maintain longer subscriptions than a game with a long grind to the endgame with little endgame to speak of.  Sadly, I have no data to back this statement up.  I leave it to the experts in the field to explain.  

[StGabe]

If a significant subset of your playerbase is paying real money to avoid playing parts of your game that you theoretically intended to be enjoyable, that is a design flaw.

It's not a design flaw so much as a design paradox.

The core player deomgraphic wants to feel that achievements are meaningful.  There are generally a few known solutions for "meaningful" achievement:

1) Requiring player skill.
2) Requiring long time investments.
3) Require coordination of 20+ players.
4) Spend tens of millions of dollars on what is essentially single-player content for your MMO.

The core demographic, however, strongly objects if you push #1 too far.  You have to keep in mind the always true statement that: half your players are below average.  A game that requires too much skill will leave them behind.  And when you lose half of your players, then suddenly half of the players left are below average.  It's a vicious cycle.

#2 has certain advantages for creating this meaning and the other options are not without disadvantages.  #2 pushes people to macro, to RMT, etc., however it still sort of works.  And by removing it you are not only removing your "design flaw" but you are also undercutting some of the perceived meaning of your in-game accomplishments.

The argument against it is then exactly what you said: why doesn't the US government just start printing money?  Why don't MMO's just start printing achievements.  It's the same answer: inflation and devaluation.  In one case you devalue your currency and in the other you devalue your accomplishments.

[DataGod]

The only way for RMT to be ligitimized in house is if it avoids unfair advantage. Otherwise farmer or company sponsored its always going to cause a haves vs have nots issue among the playerbase.

As to the Tax issue Terra Nova and Raph have threads related to this issue. Basically the JEC Congressman stated no tax will be levied unless its a "taxable" event, meaning a conversion from game currency to money.

It occurred to me the other day that 2 alternatives to this company sponsored vs illegal farmers market are possible:

1. Cap the total amount that a players account can have, any excess is "taxed" and fees are paid to the game (call it king, lords etc) company, taxes are in the form of real currency or game money.

This is a punishment mechanisim but youd have people thinking twice before buying excess currency.

2. Allow players to set of banks/auction houses in game and the game company takes a cut of the transaction.


Just some thoughts

[Murgos]

If a significant subset of your playerbase is paying real money to avoid playing parts of your game that you theoretically intended to be enjoyable, that is a design flaw.

Yeah?  We've all been saying that for years.  No one is listening and I am willing to bet that whatever it is you are working on now will have some form of huge time-sink farming opportunity in it.

[stray]

I hope more devs think like Lum.

Pretty sad and ironic that RMT is the one thing that gives me hope for MMO's though....But if that's to be the catalyst for change, then so be it.

[Margalis]

The core player deomgraphic wants to feel that achievements are meaningful.  There are generally a few known solutions for "meaningful" achievement:

1) Requiring player skill.
2) Requiring long time investments.
3) Require coordination of 20+ players.
4) Spend tens of millions of dollars on what is essentially single-player content for your MMO.

The core demographic, however, strongly objects if you push #1 too far.  You have to keep in mind the always true statement that: half your players are below average.  A game that requires too much skill will leave them behind.  And when you lose half of your players, then suddenly half of the players left are below average.  It's a vicious cycle.

The problem with that logic is that half the players also have a below-average amount of time to spend and a below-average tolerance for large group play.

No matter how you slice it, 50% of people are below average at anything. Time spent is no different from skill.

If skill becomes the limiting factor then all the people that had low skill but a lot of time might be left behind. But then again you might pick up the people that had a lot of skill but low time. A lot of people do quit games because they take too much time to accomplish anything.

[Viin]

A lot of people do quit games because they take too much time to accomplish anything.

Amen.

And just because the number gets bigger doesn't mean that I'm "accomplishing anything".

[Stephen Zepp]

Lum's got it nailed---fundamentally, if you are broken into the "end game" and 'get to end game" paradigm of most MMO's today, then you're simply following a broken design that's been accepted for years because it's all that's there.

A lot of people here on f13 have danced around this idea (or come right out and said it) so it's not like the ideas are new or anything, but it literally takes years to get these thoughts and realizations refactored into future products. For example, I just had a AAA studio that has already developed a previous MMO in a boot camp this week setting up for their next project (can't give any additional information due to NDA), and while the programmers and artists were interested for sure in new design direcitions and monetization styles, in my personal opinion their ideas will be an extremely hard sell to their management, and producers, and we're talking a minimum 2 year cycle, which makes it 2008++ before even their incremental modifications to MMO design will make it to market.

Untiil the game is enjoyable and playable for it's own sake at all levels of progression, 3rd party RMT's are a severe issue, and not one that can be fixed in my opinion.

[tazelbain]

RMT *could* be great.  But as Archlord has shown if you are going to use your RMT to strong-arm players you are better off with a sub. On the other hand, if you trust that your game doesn't suck and use RMT to give significant but optional benefits, you "take all the money off the table" and players get the flexibility to play as they wish.

[Tale]

I don't know that there is proof RMT shortens sub life.

Once upon a time, I had a great adventure in EQ's Solusek B with people who remain my best online friends. We fought our way to the Reckless Efreeti spawn and got a couple of pairs of Golden Efreeti Boots for our characters. The conversation was awesome and the combat was intense. Everyone displayed good skill and we got out alive with plenty of XP.

Later, I saw a halfling druid I knew and saw he had new Golden Efreeti Boots. I associated this with in-game achievement and good times, so I congratulated him. Turned out he bought them on Ebay.

The game moved on. I was in a raiding guild. Golden Efreeti Boots were a long-forgotten newbie item. But that guy became a member of my guild, along with others who had fairly obviously used RMT. It became irrelevant as long as they were helping the guild and not selling us out.

But I did not enjoy grouping with those people. I had no respect for them. No matter how well they played, they were lesser players because they had cheated. I was already losing interest in EQ anyway, but as those people rose in my guild, I lost the desire to raid with them. I cancelled my subscription.

I feel the same about RMT-equipped PvP opponents or auction bidders. Gold farmers taking my spawns. RMT ad spam in the chat window. A fly in my soup. A roach on my pizza.

They all shorten the life of my subscription.

[lamaros]

The core player deomgraphic wants to feel that achievements are meaningful.  There are generally a few known solutions for "meaningful" achievement:

1) Requiring player skill.
2) Requiring long time investments.
3) Require coordination of 20+ players.
4) Spend tens of millions of dollars on what is essentially single-player content for your MMO.

The core demographic, however, strongly objects if you push #1 too far.  You have to keep in mind the always true statement that: half your players are below average.  A game that requires too much skill will leave them behind.  And when you lose half of your players, then suddenly half of the players left are below average.  It's a vicious cycle.

The problem with that logic is that half the players also have a below-average amount of time to spend and a below-average tolerance for large group play.

No matter how you slice it, 50% of people are below average at anything. Time spent is no different from skill.

If skill becomes the limiting factor then all the people that had low skill but a lot of time might be left behind. But then again you might pick up the people that had a lot of skill but low time. A lot of people do quit games because they take too much time to accomplish anything.

Ah, but the 50% who don't have the time do get there in the end, they just get there slower. And they can always say "I'm just as good at you, I've done half what you've done in half the time".

People still enjoy single player games even if they suck. They do them at their own pace and get there in the end. People don't often enjoy competitive games if they suck, because it's something they can never overcome.

Most if not all "Grinds" in MMORPGs are single player elements, not competitive ones. Even WoW BGs do not take skill into account.

That's the big reason why 2 is better than 1. Not because of time, but because 2 is you versus the machine, and everyone wins in the end, and 1 is your versus other players, and you can never win that if you dont have the skill.

[Yegolev]

If I was a manager in the MMORPG industry, I would view this as a revenue loss.

Be sure to post here and let me know which game is yours, so that I might avoid it.  I'd hope that you would view this situation as a design deficiency instead.

[hal]

Lum is strumbing on a chord thats very applicable. I am a moron, I've bought platt in eq1, I've bought isk in eve, I've bought gold in wow. I'm currently playing wow on a server I've not bought gold on, and I'm wondering why. 1) its more fun (challenging) 2) I have no idea what I should be buying with the gold. But somehow I'm compelled to buy it. It's not that expensive, I have some disposable income. We all want to succeed. Why do I keep trying to shortcut a game that I think I like? At least some of it is I will get blocked because of lack of funds and I know how to solve the prob. But its a symptom worth discussing, shouldn't a game compell you to play harder, smarter faster, rather than pay a disadvantaged person? Or, is it better in the longer sense to give that disadvantaged person an oppruntiny. In truth oppruntities are not spread equally across the globe. Is this a good thing in disguise? or am I reaching at straws because I'm really a shit. You need not feel compelled to answer that last question, it was rhetorical, really it was.

[Engels]

You're not a shit, but you really need to think about what you're doing when you're paying someone else to play a game for you that you're paying to play in the first place.

Think about it this way; would you pay someone to drive your brand new Ferrari? Would you pay someone else to play with your child? Would you go to an amusement park and pay someone else to ride the rides?

The only reasonable place this happens is at work, where you decide to pay someone to do some aspect of your job you don't want to do, or can't do, or don't have time to do. If you're doing it anywhere else that's not work, stop what you're doing and find something else that's fun.

[hal]

Now this gets interesting. I would never consider paying someone to do anything toward my job. I would consider that criminal. No matter how repetavive. I will do my job and I will Succeed or not based on my skills. But I was talking about a game, not my career.

[stray]

I would never consider paying someone to do anything toward my job. I would consider that criminal.

Criminal? What if you were a manager up to your neck in work? You'd hire some new employees to take the load off, so you can concentrate on your main tasks. Or what if you felt like relaxing on a Sunday, instead of mowing the lawn? You'd pay the kid across the street to do it for $10.

People pay other people to do their work for them all the time. It isn't criminal.

[hal]

Is my carear mowing the lawn? I think in your case its not, it's mealy another thing I gotta get done. Sure, using another hired hand applies. But thats not my carear, at least if I'm not in the landscaping business.

[Trippy]

Would you pay someone else to play with your child?

Yes it's called preschool/a nanny/a babysitter.

Would you go to an amusement park and pay someone else to ride the rides?

No, but I might pay somebody to stand in line for me if I had to wait 4 hours under the scorching sun to ride it.

Camping Hadden in EQ for the fishbone earring is not fun. Wearing the earring and being able to explore underwater zones is fun. Paying somebody a few bucks to camp Hadden and get the earring for me makes perfect sense to me.

People pay for gold/items/levelling services/etc. because they want to skip what they consider drudgery and get to the parts of the game they think are fun.

[hal]

It just gets better and better. When you got there, did you think it was fun? This is getting close to the MMorpg compulsive thing. Heres my take. In the normal course of events, A person get to make a difference rarely, like every 20 years rarely. In a MMORPG it can happen much more often. And we like it, we like doing it, we like other people seeing us do it.

[Tale]

Camping Hadden in EQ for the fishbone earring is not fun. Wearing the earring and being able to explore underwater zones is fun. Paying somebody a few bucks to camp Hadden and get the earring for me makes perfect sense to me.

Some in-game friends gave me a fishbone earring because they wanted me to have one. I helped them get stuff too. It wasn't out of obligation, it was the nature of the game. That was what the game encouraged: working together to progress.

That got you far further than lonely little fuckwits who opened their wallets for RMT gear. They were failing at a co-operative game.

[Krakrok]

The core demographic, however, strongly objects if you push #1 too far.  You have to keep in mind the always true statement that: half your players are below average.  A game that requires too much skill will leave them behind.  And when you lose half of your players, then suddenly half of the players left are below average.  It's a vicious cycle.

It seemed like the Guild Wars random arena allowed everyone to win 25% of the time. The only people who weren't happy were the top 1% who could only win 75% of the time and not 99% of the time.

[damijin]

People pay for gold/items/levelling services/etc. because they want to skip what they consider drudgery and get to the parts of the game they think are fun.

Thanks for the tip. I'll be investing in PC workshops that have already pre-ordered their Vanguard collector's editions.

[LC]

The answer is simple. Make a game without "gold".

[lamaros]

The answer is simple. Make a game without "gold".

Are you daft?

[Murgos]

The answer is simple. Make a game without "gold".

Are you daft?

It certainly appears so.

[Nija]

Are you daft?

I think he me is talking about either something like Diablo2 or something like a barter system.

Diablo2 has so much gold that there might as well not be any. The items you want are not bought with gold.

I guess kind of like early UO where everyone had duped gold. You didn't care about it, you bought the piddly things and made what you needed. Or you looted a house and took what you wanted.

[Murgos]

Are you daft?

I think he me is talking about either something like Diablo2 or something like a barter system.

Diablo2 has so much gold that there might as well not be any. The items you want are not bought with gold.

What a pointless distinction.  The gold is not the problem.  The grind is.

[stray]

It helps to just simply offer multiple paths to advance and make cash. People might not "skip" the game so much if you gave them as many options as possible to get from point A to point B to point C and so forth. Have minigames and moneymaking opportunities scattered about that play to everyone's strengths.

[Zane0]

You can buy influence for CoH on E-bay for chrissakes.  RMT can be mitigated by design to a point, but some people just don't get it.