Interview with a goldbuyer part two
Written by damiende on September 16, 2007 – 3:21 pm1
Can you tell us a little bit about the various online games you have played.
The first game I played was Everquest, followed by Final Fantasy XI and Everquest 2 The first game I played intensively was Everquest 2. I have played it since it first launched.
2
How much time do you spend playing games each day?
Ca 2 3 hours each day. Some days more some days less.
3
When did you start thinking about buying currency ?
I bought it from day one. It was money well spent.
4
Why did you start thinking about buying ?
I hate doing things over and over. So buying currency really was the only way for me to be able to enjoy the game. I hate doing stuff poorly, so I do whatever I can to become one of the best.
5
Have you cheated besides buying currency ?
No
6
Where you afraid of getting busted ?
No not once. When was the last time you heard about someone being busted for buying, it’s the farmers that get busted.
7
Would you buy currency again ?
When the odds of being busted buying plat is zero to none of course I will.
8
What would you say to those who call you a cheater?
Call me a cheater if you want, I don’t care. I buy currency to play the game my way. So just leave me alone. I’m not hurting anyone. It’s a game what is so bad about buying currency?
Posted in Real money Trade |
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:12 am
You stupid moron.
Why do you care about a non problem.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
Well….
Buying plat/gold may not be hurting anyone directly, but it provides a market for the plat/gold farmers and they =do= hurt the game. They monopolize zones, grief legitimate players when they think they can get away with it, and significantly impact the in-game economy by dumping inflated amounts of loot on the brokers.
I understand the logic behind buying plat/gold and/or items. When I played Asheron’s Call, I bought a fair amount of cash on Ebay. I will point out that, to the best of my knowledge, it was =not= against AC’s EULA at the time, so it was not “cheating.” It was a logical economic decision: I had a great job which paid well but was very time-consuming. What little time I had available to play, I’d rather spend doing something fun rather than farming for money.
Of course, in retrospect, all I did was contribute to the massive inflation the game experienced (good items would sell for millions of pyreals while subpar items were only worth a couple of thousand at the NPC vendors). Given what I know now, I wouldn’t buy plat/gold in any of the games I’m currently playing. I value a stable in-game economy and farmer-free zones more than I value the convenience that in-game cash provides.
The best solutions MMO companies can implement IMO are: 1. make cash generation entertaining (in-game gambling where the payoff =slightly= outweighs the expense, well-designed content that awards enough cash at any particular level to cover the likely expenses at that level, etc.); 2. monitor large cash transactions and ban plat/gold sellers/resellers and the accounts that generate the plat/gold; and 3. identify plat/gold purchasers and punish them with escalating temporary account suspensions.
I advocate the third because A. without buyers, the sellers are out of business and B. so many players must be buying to provide a viable market that it would drastically harm the MMO companies’ incomes to ban them all outright on first offenses.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 am
I do believe that they should start to punish the buyers more. At this point they are focusing on the sellers and farmers. And by all means that is a good thing. But why not focus on both parts. I do believe that if we started to hear tales of people getting banned for buying currency. It would put a dent in sales.
Damiende
September 30th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
The only problem that you have with the gold sellers is that it is not illegal for them to sell the gold or items. There is no federal law out there that forbids them from selling it. There are laws against spamming though. The thing that hurts the companies making the games and that people who play the games does not realize is that the EULA and the TOS that everyone signs in and of itself is illegal and a majority of them have been thrown out in court. They have already made laws in the United States at least that recognizes the items inside of MMOs as items that are own by the account owners. It is an extension of the common property law that is established in most modern countries. The law states that people own anything that they have a value in do to the time and money put into the item. The time is put in by “Grinding” or whatever it is that you do to make the money/item. The money is put into the equation by you paying a monthly fee or in some games where it is free to play, the amount that you paid for the game is considered the money. The companies do not want you to know that which is why they do not talk about it. If you look at the lawsuit against Peons4hire by blizzard, if it was illegal for them to be selling the gold then they would have and should have been sued by blizzard for it. If it was illegal for people to sell accounts then they would be sued by the owners of the game. The law is the same if you are “renting” time/space in a MMO as if you are “renting” space/time in the real world. There are already laws out there to stop companies and businesses from taking your property and telling you what you need to do with it. The only help for the companies is to realize what is going on and stop the spammers. Stopping the spammers will stop the sellig of gold that is rampant right now. Everyone that was banned from the accounts/games can be reinstated if they wanted to by a violation of the law by the game owners and runners.