Apr
9

More Reality

17 Comments

Sounds like we’re getting more reality in our games, not less….but this time it’s coming from the player base and not politicians seeking votes from “concerned” parent groups:

It will be waged in the Fort Lauderdale federal courthouse. The former assistant manager at an Orlando-area video game store is suing a company he says sells “virtual gold” from the World of Warcraft for real money. He wants IGE U.S. banned from selling gold ? a practice commonly called “gold farming” or “real money trading”? because it hurts the game’s economy and ruins the entertainment experience, according to the lawsuit. Virtual gold, earned within the game, can be used for such things as buying and repairing equipment or learning new skills.

See….this is a bit of a stretch. I think I’m starting to come down on the “you’re all full of shit” side of things with all of this “they’re hurting my experience” excuse. I just don’t buy that some gold farmer running around Azeroth somehow kills the fun you have. It’s kind of like the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane in Mexico….or something. Great in theory, but doesn’t really have any practical use. I totally see Blizzard getting pissed off because they may have an actual business case for going after gold sellers….but players? Please. The players go on to argue:

Devout World of Warcraft players argue that people who buy gold are akin to baseball players who take steroids. Gold should be earned by each player by doing such things as completing quests and slaying monsters, not with a checkbook or credit card, they argue.

Yeah…but no matter what kind of laws baseball puts in, you’re still going to have people taking steroids…but now, everyone has to piss into a cup to prove that they don’t take steroids. You get what I’m saying here? What’s the online equivalent to getting everyone pissing into a cup to make sure they’re not buying/selling gold?because that’s what is going to happen. Laws to stop people from doing things always seems to involve putting extra barriers in front of legitimate users of a system. Example: guy goes on plane…tries to blow it up with a shoe. Law result? Everyone take off their shoes. Kid goes into school with gun….kills people. Result? Everyone go through a metal detector. Lock school. Curfew. Zero tolerance. Etc etc etc. So…WoW players complain that gold farmers are “ruining their experience”. Result? Fill in the blank…but you can bet that it will be a pain to the rest of the player base and I can also guarantee that you won’t like it. Like a good prison convict, you’d better be ready to take it up the ass (…ummmmmm….sorry for the mental picture there….).

So, what do we do? Do we ask judges to put laws in place that will strangle us a bit…or do we put up with gold farmers and let Blizzard handle all of the banning from their end. After all, it is Blizzard who is really suffering from these guys, not the players and I for one don?t want to keep my ass to the wall everytime I log into my games.

D out.

Posted in Editorial
17 Comments Posted by Darren

17 Responses to "More Reality"

  • SmakenDahed says:
    April 9, 2008 at 7:44 am

    Take gold out of games, make all items BoP and only possible to earn by non-tradable amounts (honor, tokens), quest rewards and drops from bosses. This way they have nothing to sell.

    Of course, we’d also all end up looking the same, having the same gear and we wouldn’t be able to have any economy at all which means no crafting/tradeskills. But hey, we wouldn’t have gold farmers out there since there would be no gold to farm.

    I think someone who was clever would end up selling some other service, honor farming? “Hey, give me 20$ and I’ll let you defeat me in arena battles or PVP.”

    Anyway, the whole thing silly. I have yet to have my game impacted by a gold farmer in any of the MMOs I’ve played.

    Actually, I’d be curious to see how a system based totally on Honor would work… you complete a quest? Get some ‘honor’. Want to learn a new ability? You have to earn it by raising your honor in an area and proving your worth. It could be interesting, Essentially exchange gold, silver and copper with honor or tokens which wouldn’t be tradable.

  • Scott says:
    April 9, 2008 at 8:20 am

    The problem with removing currency is that, while eliminating the gold seller’s market, it increases the market for power leveling. We’d see spam to get X reputation or X honor tokens for only $49.99… /sigh

    I have no idea what the WoW/farming situation is now, but Pre-TBC I routinely had to fight farmers for ore veins in the plaguelands and un’goro crater, and a couple other places. I also recall farming the Tar Beasts in Un’Goro for the Living Essences for my druid and had to work against 3 farmers, who after a few weeks of careful study, I determined were bots. I had my revenge though — being unattended bots, it became easy to study their pattern then tag all the mobs and let the bots kill them for me! Farming went much faster that way!

    But yes, at the time, the farmers themselves *were* impacting my (and others) game experience.

  • Phil says:
    April 9, 2008 at 8:51 am

    “Gold Farming” is a funny way of saying it. “Gold Seller” is a better term because I farm gold but do not sell it. Am I a bad guy when I do dailies to “farm gold”? For this reply I’ll assume the topic is “Gold Seller”s. Anyway, I always chuckle when I hear someone use the excuse: “Gold Sellers ruin the economy and should be stopped.” While they do affect the economy they certainly don’t ruin it. Wanna see who ruins it? Take a look at the AH. See that 1c item placed in the AH for 1g? See that 10g blue listed for 100g? How about the lvl 19 blue sword for 500g? IMHO those aren’t gold sellers. (interesting side note: The other day on my server someone put the mage turtle book in the AH for 3000g, ouch) What ruins the economy are those schmucks who buy things cheap and inflate the prices insanely. In theory, gold sellers who farm will want to move their wares quickly so they typically undercut the competition. IMHO, the more farmers (gold sellers and regular) out there the more stuff available in the AH at a reasonable price. I like farmers in that regard.

    However, this guy just sounds bitter. Sounds like he either A) Wants to buy gold but doesn’t have the funds to do so, or B) Had his account hacked and blames IGE, or C) Bought gold from IGE and didn’t receive it, or D) is looking for his 18 seconds of fame. I’m betting its “D” with “A” running a close second.

    Don’t get me wrong, I don’t buy gold. With 5 lvl 70s there is no need for me to do so. I farm, farm, farm. But I can’t help but feel benefitted by other farmers (gold and non) because for every daily I do I get gold to afford that primal in the AH that I’m too lazy to farm otherwise. Course, I don’t buy the inflated (posted by a non-gold-farmer) but do buy the reasonably priced ones.

  • Swift Voyager says:
    April 9, 2008 at 9:24 am

    Try reading this interview with the Plaintif’s attorney, it’s much better than all the other articles: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/1220-Plaintiff-s-Attorney-in-Player-IGE-Lawsuit-Speaks-to-The-Escapis

    I’ve noticed an interresting thing about the IGE law suits. IGE has repeatedly claimed that Blizzard cannot show proof of direct damages. It seems like IGE has a point. It’s easy to point out that some players benefit from RMT. It’s also easy to point out that gold farmers pay for thier own subscriptions. So, the question becomes; where is the damage? One damage is the crowding of servers. When looking at the number of hours online per subscription, the farmers certainly spend more time actively playing than real players do. Another damage is that certain areas will get farmed completely out so that real players can’t use those areas. Another damage (although this one is kinda sketchy) is that RMT ‘players’ aren’t usually very social, hence they are ‘less fun to play with’. I would totally discount that one, but a lot of people seem to think that’s an important issue. One of the claims commonly made by CCP (Eve Online Developer) is that RMT companies are also responsible for nearly every occurrance of account theft, phishing, hacking, scamming (in-game and out-of-game), credit card theft and fraud, etc. Those last few issues are very real and in my mind they are the most serious issues surrounding RMT. CCP have actually done a brilliant thing though. They have created a sanctioned method to buy subscriptions from other players in exchange for in-game money. Kinda sneaky, but now they have direct proof of real damages as seen by a court. They have monetized their in-game money. Every time they sell ISK for real money, they are potentially costing CCP $15, and it’s against the TOS and EULA. The farmers may be safe from prosecution from Blizzard because of how difficult it is to show actual damages and add them up, but CCP is loaded for bear and can claim damages.

  • sam says:
    April 9, 2008 at 9:26 am

    Everyone I hear ranting and raving about gold selling are usually the ones that can’t manage thier money in game. I”ve tried to help people use the AH or give them strategies to raise money at thier level and they whine and moan its not fast enough or some other stupid exuse. In fact as much as it used to bug me the current inflation caused by dailies not gold sellers is making leveling my toon a joy. i’m farming a few hours a week and playing the AH lightly and am up to 700 g. So I can’t see how those farmers are hurting me. Now Pre BC when I had to fight 4 or 5 people for every node and valuable mob in the game, I was upset about it. But thats been fixed as far as I can see.

  • Swift Voyager says:
    April 9, 2008 at 9:35 am

    Note: I don’t think inflation is a problem in Eve. There’s a wonderfully huge sink in Eve. It’s called negative sum loss. So the more minerals you have in the game as a result of farmers, the cheaper and easier to build ships become, hence more PvP and more splody pew pew. So the Eve economy kinda controls inflation on it’s own regardless of how many farmers are in-game.

  • Akely says:
    April 9, 2008 at 9:59 am

    The only way I’ve noticed gold farmers/sellers is when they /tell me directly and when one run into a harvesting bot of theirs (just check out the top rare collector on the Crushbone server and you’ll see who I mean ;-) …

    The tells are annoying, at worst. The harvesting bots are often so easy to mess up that they are mostly amusing.

    But I can’t see how making gold selling illegal could hurt my gaming, so I’m actually for this!

  • Rez says:
    April 9, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Gold farmers do have an impact on our game. They do have an impact on the economy, however slight. I’m not talking about the outrageous price for a single piece of gear placed on the Auction House, I’m talking about the average price of goods – even if GF’s drive the average price of ore up or down on the auction house a wee bit, it still has an impact on all of us – from the crafter who is leveling up, to the guy who buys the crafter’s end product, it will all be reflected in the price of goods in the end. It also affects new players trying to make a virtual living, who now have a higher barrier to entry and live with inflated prices, while the rewards for completing noob quests remain the same.

    Also, imagine for a minute that you are a hardcore PvP junkie, and the guy you are fighting has inflated his stats by buying gear purchased with gold from a gold farmer. Some would view that person as a cheater because he is using methods outside of the game to affect things inside of the game. It sounds a little bit like those kids who hack their games to gain an advantage. I’m being a bit extreme here, but you get the picture.

    Others would argue that the GF’s are leveling the playing field between the casual and the hardcore. Which is probably true. To me it just seems that if a method for acquiring gold was not
    programmed into the game by the devs, it is altering the rules and therefore should be considered cheating.

    All that aside, I don’t think that kid has a leg to stand on. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the verdict.

  • Thoms says:
    April 9, 2008 at 10:38 am

    People can vote for change with their money. Currently they seem to be paying both Blizzard and the goldsellers… so unfortunately i dont expect to see any changes soon.

  • Swift Voyager says:
    April 9, 2008 at 11:11 am

    “All that aside, I don?t think that kid has a leg to stand on. I?ll be eagerly awaiting the verdict.”

    I realize that this is the attorney for the plaintiff talking, but the interview I linked above sounds pretty convincing. I bet they win an injunction, but probably not punitive damages. However, this attorney is working on contingency, so if he didn’t feel fairly certain of victory then he wouldn’t be doing it. That lends a lot of weight to his opinion about his chances of success. He also sounds like a guy with reasonable credentials in this sort of thing. IGE is probably in more danger from this suit than they are from the Blizzard suit.

    I’ll be extremely surprised if IGE ever gets involved in WoW again. The question in my mind is whether another company will take their place or if this will be the death knell for RMT companies in MMO’s.

  • p@tsh@t says:
    April 9, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    What an amazingly crappy story. The suit has been going on for what, going on a year now? Damages on a third party beneficiary theory would be speculative and very hard to prove which is why they seem to be emphasizing the Florida unfair business practices statute (as noted, a very typical consumer protection statute like that in many jurisdictions– we have one here in California too) which provides for statutory damages and potentially injunctive relief as well. Virtually Blind has the blow by blow and links to the underlying docs here http://virtuallyblind.com/category/active-lawsuits/hernandez-v-ige/. Read them rather than rely on the drek that passes for journalism about this stuff.

    With statutory damages, you don’t need to prove the actual damages that would be required on another theory of liability. I believe they are only $10k per violation under the Florida statute. With a class action, that could get expensive, but not nearly so much as punitives would be if they were available.

    The biggie remedy available under these kinds of statutes is the ability to get an injunction against the defendant prohibiting the offending conduct.

    Still not a slam dunk by any means, but probably a higher likelihood of success than other theories which is why IGE is probably paying attention now.

    And yes, this has absolutely nothing to do with IP or the fantasy of virtual property.

  • Relmstein says:
    April 9, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    If any decision actually held IGE accountable to financial charges then you can bet it would have an impact on gold farming Look at how the U.S. recently killed online gambling sites by making credit card companies and paypal not process transactions from them. I wonder if a court decision could ever be used to similarly block transaction with gold farming websites?

  • sam says:
    April 9, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    I think you are mistaken. farmers and gold sellers depress the price of goods because they have to keep things rolling through the system and convert it all to money. Every time I’ve seen a crackdown on gold sellers the prices go up not down. I make a killing the AH in wow now because most of my competitors are farming dailies. I get to set my own outrageous price and they either pay it with that new daily money or go farm it themselves.

    Now the dark side of the gold farmers. Acount hacking etc etc. That’s a different story.

    Even if they decide against IGE. gold selling websites will move to poland or russia. Its like trying to stamp out Fire Ants. They just come back in a new spot. As long as game design makes it more appealing to buy gold they’ll be there.

  • Phil says:
    April 9, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    @Sam – I hope you are kidding. If not, its attitudes like yours that make business for the gold sellers in the first place. When prices go higher than gold is attainable then it creates demand for more gold and it trickles down hill from there.

  • sam says:
    April 11, 2008 at 11:56 am

    So you are saying people shouldn’t play the AH and try to make money? That’s why it was implemented in the first place. If players are allowed to sell things then rare things or stuff thats a pain to farm will always be expensive.

    But I garrauntee you that farmers keep the price of your goods lower. Just take an economics class. The harder they make it on farmers the higher prices will go and the more people will want to buy gold.

  • Phil says:
    April 11, 2008 at 7:55 pm

    @Sam – Um, I think we are saying the same thing. Let’s break it down. Pro farmers because they keep prices reasonable and thus excess gold is no longer needed. But, if they make it hard on the farmers it allows people to inflate (take a look at inflation in your economic class) the prices requiring more excess gold. Yeah, I think we are saying the same thing.

  • sam says:
    April 13, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    LOL Phil I guess we were. Its a vicious cycle because everything you do to get rid of them makes people want that gold even more. Get rid of the farmers long enough and it becomes profitable enough for them to work around whatever barriers to entry you add.

    I’m not sure any system where characters can buy stuff from one another or pass things on to alts will ever be free of gold sellers.

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