Comments on: The game mechanic and its subversion

By: Britt

Britt — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:49:47 +0000

No game will survive the long term effects of having ‘bought’ items or currency allowed. The reasons are several fold. First and foremost, like any real world economy, an unlimited supply of new currency would de-value all existing currency and lead to hyper inflation. Secondly, the major draw of these games is that you can log in and leave the world where you are ‘poor’ behind and be on the same level as everyone else in the world. A ‘poor’ nobody in real life, can be an all-powerful hero in the game world – escaping the ordinary to become the extraordinary. If they are no better off in the game world than in real life….you are going to have a lot of unpopulated servers. Sometimes a game developer has to outsmart the player. Allowing the purchase of gold isnt what the player wants, it is what the player THINKS they want. When you have everything there is to have in the game, how long will it hold your interest? One need only lok at the most successful mmorpg to see that. World Of Warcraft does what it can to stem gold farming(or at least the selling of said gold), and focuses a lot of attention on maintaining a rich economy. The result is a growing subscriber base that in spite of the game’s many imperfections, are still playing after several years. I wouldnt consider 10-11 million subscribers worldwide paying $15 a month, a broken business model in need of fixing.

By: King Vivil

King Vivil — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:57:57 +0000

Most MMO games cover lack of content by loads of grind.
But there are games in development which won’t go this way.. Like Stellar Dawn (it won’t have levels or XP) by Jagex, or in some games you can choose grind (faster) or “fun” way (slower) which is better than korean MMOs (grindfest FTW) but not as good as single player RPG (fun+XP). Games were made for entertaiment not for “work” (grind).

-King Vivil

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:57:11 +0000

@Bruce
I’d say it’s more like paying your caddy to hit the ball. It’s basically outsourcing work that you don’t want to do. The gold farmers still have to do the same level/item grinding work that you would have done don’t they? They’re not walking over to hole and dropping the ball in… they are being paid to hit it for you.

No idea what the actual game rules are for this (I imagine some games have terms and conditions that ban things like selling players or game items for real money), but technically it looks more like contracting a specialist to do a job… not cheating.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:54:39 +0000

@Steven Leicester

Of course it is cheating.
We are talking about games here.
It is like paying your golf caddy to walk over to the green and drop the ball in the hole for you.

By: Nils Jørgen

Nils Jørgen — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:04:27 +0000

And those same poor players will be at a huge disadvantage, and will recieve less off a gaming experience due to it. And is many cases effectively ruining their gaming experience. Something you forgot to add in your sports comparison is the fact that all the sports teams have an equal oppertunity to get sponsors or other ways off aquiring money to pay for said training and investing in improvements for the team. The poor players you mention have not the same fair chance. So do us all a favor And stick your poorly thought through comparisons where the sun don’t shine.

By: Captain Rhubarb

Captain Rhubarb — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:54:51 +0000

In the real world, a sports team or competitive athlete can spend real world money to increase its advantages and win more sporting events. How many people get a gold medal in the Olympics without paying anything for training?

Why should virtual games be any different? Players that can afford to spend more money, should get some sort of advantage in the game. Those players are also subsidizing the developer and hosting costs of the game for all the players that want to play free, or have no money due to living in an impoverished nation.

By: Quest Yarbrough

Quest Yarbrough — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:08:14 +0000

As you noted, many companies have started bypassing the RMT by selling in-game currencies themselves.

However, RMT has popped up in every market that would be profitable to farm in. The first party selling of currency does raise other issues, but logically, it does give the developers control to force any RMT movements out by undercutting them, albiet with some side-effects to the economy.

From a player’s point of view, being able to buy in-game power with outside money undervalues those who play the game but don’t have outside currency to put into the game. The players are not equalized according to the time they put in.

Here’s an idea to compromise between the systems to reduce RMT movements and still retain some level of equalization.

Allow periodic (daily?) purchases that exchange some small amount of in-game currency for out-of-game currency. Each time the user does this within the time period, the efficiency of the exchange goes down in the company’s favor.

Ex.
1st Purchase: $.50 USD for 10 currency
2nd Purchase: $1.50 USD for 10 currency
3rd Purchase: $3.50 USD for 10 currency

After each period, prices are reset to the lowest level.

Presumably, the initial purchase or two would undercut RMT sales if any exist in-game. After that, RMT may be cheaper, but players are taking the risk they get caught and banned.

The smaller purchases could cover impulse buys for the majority of the playerbase. It’s not completely equalizing; players that put more outside money into the game will still gain more power, but the increasing price of the purchases should provide some equalization for all but the most rich of your playerbase.

It is likely that RMT would still exist in such a system, but much reduced, as the RMT has to beat the 1st-party sales costs and the player’s fear of getting banned and still be able to make a profit.
—

That’s the best idea I can come up with at the moment. Perhaps an MMO could experiment with a purely barter based economy, but that opens up an entirely different can of worms.

By: Docred

Docred — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:56:35 +0000

I’d have to disagree on the cleaning example – cleaning your home is a real world activity that most people (?) practice at least semi-regularly as part of their ‘life maintenance routine’ for want of a better phrase. A game is just that…a game, regardless of how addicted someone is. It has the benefit of providing entertainment and perhaps arguably some social and intellectual development in limited ways, but comparing it to having someone clean your house, buy your groceries for you, or chauffeur you is rather misleading.
I just don’t quite understand the mentality of those who buy all the rewards and advances. I suppose they are fooling themselves into thinking they are superior or successful players…I doubt they are really fooling anyone else. Makes the whole idea of game and skill challenges rather pointless.

By: IAHed

IAHed — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:25:26 +0000

Hiring a house cleaner is benefits the general economy by giving someone a job. RMT destroys the game economy by creating inflation and maldistribution of even midlevel items. The level 100 player who can’t afford even level 50 armor through his ability to earn in-game and can’t even farm the item for him or herself because of wall-to-wall bots is forced to either quit or RMT themselves.

Because there’s even a market for game gold, “entrepreneurs” go the extra mile to defeat any bot-prevention measures until the environment of the game is ruined as well. The social element is removed, and other players can’t ask for help, squad, or to share the spot.

Furthermore, RMT increases attrition by exposing players to scams and malware.

Granado Espada stopped banning bots all together. The fact IAH was even ignoring screenshots was proved when some people pointed to screenshots on the forum as well as ticketing, and yet botters weren’t banned. As a result nothing was done about a major invasion from a new RMT operation for three months, and this may be related to a recent outbreak of hacking cases. When games open the door to botters, the situation will always be taken to the extreme because Real Money is at stake.

I’m glad there is a thriving blogging community about this, because the game companies seem to be choosing PR control over actively managing their games.

By: Steven Leicester

Steven Leicester — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:10:49 +0000

I’m not sure it’s cheating as such. I work full time and hire a cleaner to do my cleaning for me. Am I cheating a cleaning in getting someone else to make sure my house is as clean as my married friends where only one spouse works so the other can stay at home and do the ‘boring’ jobs?