Sep 25
On WAR, RMT, and Goldspammers
Wow, what happened to snarkily ranting Tobold? I really like this measured, thoughtful Tobold!
Syp is right in saying that the problem of gold selling is the demand of gold buyers. But his solution is wrong, because he short-sightedly attributes the demand to notions of “morality or honor”, which is just plain silly. Player’s demand for gold is simply a function of how grindy it is to get gold, and what you need that gold for. And that are all questions of game design. It is a lot easier to solve the problem with good game design than to start a successful crusade to stop people from cheating in video games. Google has 80 million hits in a search for “cheats”, most of which are about video games, that isn’t something we can make go away if we all just hold hands and wish for it very, very strongly.
Okay, if he was snarking about me I might be a bit more testy. He’s 100% right through that whole post, though, and about the only thing I can add is that I can’t believe people are still high and mighty about secondary in-game currencies in 2008. I mean theres, what, a kabillion dollar aftermarket for that gold piece you earned from your Dailies in WoW, right?
The truth, though, is that people wanking about the dishonor of goldbuyers and the scourge of goldsellers should really put it back in their pants. For better or worse goldselling is something that’s … well, I’ll say it outright: in my mind it’s not an issue that players have to worry about anymore. Every game I can think of has done their best to deal with goldfarming and spammers at this point. Every one. It’s 2008, and if you are still getting spammed by goldfarmers in-game it’s becuase the game developers want you to be. It’s as simple as that.
To clarify: I am being mostly flippant with that statement; obviously the developers don’t *want* you to be spammed. Ultimately my belief is that goldfarming hurts game developers in actuality, whereas goldfarmers are really only a perceptive annoyance/negative impact on players. Scott has a fantastic, AAA-level writeup on his solution to this issue at Broken Toys. Go read.
Let’s go down the list of some farming/spammer solutions:
- EverQuest 2: Solved issue. Players who want to buy currency have the official aftermarket to use. I know for a fact, having talke to some of them, that some EQ2 players that were buying gold on the secondary market are now happily on the two RMT servers run by LiveGamer. They like the fact that they don’t have to worry about scams, and that there’s no stigma attached to their purchases. Goldfarming is still big on the other servers, but it’s REALLY hard for spammers to do any advertising because of SOE’s robust filter/blocking system. Result: plat is more expensive.
- World of Warcraft: Solved issue. Spam-blocking to the max, and … wait for it … gold is really INEXPENSIVE on the open market. Daily quests out the yin-yang was basically Blizzard’s solution to goldfarmers, with the idea that it should be easier to just farm the money yourself than rely on an unreliable farmer and a system of possibly felonious fellows. Right now 1000 gold is selling for less than $20. The price was probably … I’d guess about three times that a year ago?
- Final Fantasy XI: Solved issue. There’s an entire taskforce dedicated to stamping out these ruffians, and the in-game gambling scam factories are pretty well done and over with. Obviously there are always folks skimming the edges, but the pernicious existance of these characters is well and truly under control.
The real problem with goldsellers, in this day and age, isn’t their impact on the players. Game developers pretty well have that element under control, I think.
The real problem is their impact on the companies, with chargebacks to stolen credit cards and endless account forgery. That’s the real problem. If you’re going to get on your huffy bike and be upset about something, that’s the thing to be upset about. Chargebacks and bank fraud are already a major concern to MMO developers, and at this point if you’re launching a game without some serious consideration of those issues, you’re just being naive.
8 Comments so far
All good points. A lot of people don’t even know what chargebacks are and how credit card fraud affects companies. Most people assume that credit card companies end up paying for goods sold to stolen cards, while it’s actually the merchant who ends up getting stuck with the bill.
I’ve always been of the mind that:
1) The game devs have a good reason to be pissed off about this
2) The hardcore, 40+ hour per week gamers have a good reason to be pissed off about this
3) No-one else has a good reason to be pissed off about this…
Seriously, aside from your own moral code being affronted, is there any way that gold farming negatively affects people aside from #1 and #2 above?
Game devs are more than just pissed about this, Snaf. I don’t care if you buy gold. I’ll just say that right off; I have no fundamental problem with people trading real currency for virtual.
The problem is that in order to get the gold, common practice is to buy stolen credit cards, buy accounts, farm with them, and then chargeback the monthly fees to the companies when the law starts to come down on them.
That’s REALLY bad for MMO businesses, and can be crippling to companies big and small. That’s a big problem, and is the real issue ‘behind’ goldfarming.
[...] leave a comment » Link 1: Mark Jacobs describes the “naming and shaming” Warhammer is doing re: gold farmers Link 2: Syp, Warhammer blogger, on the above link, with his own take Link 2: Tobold on the above 2 links, with his own take Link 3: Michael Zenke on the above 3 links, with his own take [...]
Realize, it does affect the players in the end.
When the fraud skyrockets, so does the GM enforcement. With more GMs and staff on farmers, the less on your ticket. Which is what we have now in WAR.
Your solutions above. Sorry to say, but they aren’t solutions. They are just how those particular games managed to bring the farmers underground. The farming is still there, the farmers are just more quiet. This is why the farmers buy up fansites. (Yes, it is still happening)
The situation is MUCH worse than people know. MJ has a habit of saying what he probably shouldn’t. There is a reason that companies tend to be very vague about the farming situation.
Think about it this way. Farming/Selling is extremely profitable for all involved. Consider it not much different than drug selling. They don’t stop, they simply become more clever, more underground, and in larger numbers.
The level that the farmers are currently working on has changed dramatically over the past year or so. Much if this the general public is only vaguely away of. You can find statements from Smedley about some of this as well. It only scratches the surface.
So, why is it, exactly, that every time I enter Bree in LotRO, I have to hit the “report gold spammer” button about three times? I’m a very casual player (not a game developer, or a 40+ hour per week player), and I’m pissed off about it. Sure, you can say that Turbine hasn’t done enough to disincentivize gold selling, but I don’t think that means they WANT me to be annoyed by spammers.
[...] Zenke of MMOG Nation weighs in with his view of the real problem: On WAR, RMT, and Goldspammers The truth, though, is that people wanking about the dishonor of goldbuyers and the scourge of [...]
[...] griping about the sever-wide pop-ups to announce gold spammers being banned, and some people were a bit skeptical about the sincerity of the war on gold sellers, which in turn led to a fruitful post, if only in [...]