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GI.biz Editorial: Gold Rush Article
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by
Rob Fahey
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Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial is a weekly dissection of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer a day after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.
Antonio Hernandez is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it any more. As a long-time player of the world's most popular massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, he's spent the last two years watching the in-game economy being utterly devalued by the actions of companies selling virtual currency to players for real money.
They're called "gold farmers", a piece of net slang which refers to groups of people in low-income countries who are employed purely to play games like World of Warcraft. They attain large stocks of virtual cash and sell it on at a dollar premium.
Explained in simple terms like that, it sounds utterly ridiculous - people paying real money to acquire in-game currency? Chinese "sweatshops" filled with low-wage workers playing orcs, dwarves and elves? Depending on which angle you look at it from, gold farming either sounds like an outlandish idea from a cyberpunk novel, or a sad reflection on first-world society. Or both.
However, the reality of the situation is that gold farming represents a very real problem for companies who operate MMOG games - and for the players of those games, who see the balance of resources in their games being destroyed by an influx of players whose sole objective is to make gold and sell it to others.
Which brings us back to Antonio Hernandez. Like many World of Warcraft players, he hates gold farmers - but he has decided to take the matter into his own hands. This week, he instigated a class-action lawsuit against IGE, the biggest gold-farming company in the world, alleging that they have profited from deliberate interference in the enjoyment WoW's subscribers.
It's tough to see Hernandez winning this case, but even if he does, it's eminently unlikely that it will have much impact on the inexorable rise of the gold farmers. What the case will do, however, is draw further attention to IGE - the leading company in this field, and perhaps the firm which has done most to legitimise gold farming as part of the videogaming ecosystem.
Although IGE's biggest business comes from World of Warcraft, the firm provides in-game currency for 14 different MMOGs - everything from EverQuest through to recent arrival Lord of the Rings Online.
Its highly professional website is covered in logos attesting to the firm's reputation as an online retailer, and is translated into French, German, Japanese and Korean. Buying in-game currency from the firm is a highly automated, well-implemented process, with good communication, order tracking and prices set based on availability and demand.
What's more, IGE has firmly lodged itself within the MMOG ecosystem - and has made impressive moves towards establishing its credibility with MMO players. Last year, the company acquired popular MMO website Allakhazam, which includes vast databases of statistics, information and guides for popular massively multiplayer titles. Other database sites routinely used by MMO players, such as World of Warcraft's Thottbot, also belong to IGE.
Keenly aware of the hatred some players hold for gold farmers, IGE has resisted the temptation to brand those sites, or to advertise on them; but nevertheless, the connection exists. It's a foot in the door for IGE and its ilk - but the gold farmers' courtship of respectability doesn't stop there. Gamers will take a long time to change their minds about gold-selling practices, but the multi-billion dollar industry behind MMOs could move a lot faster.
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Comments: 1-20 of 20 in total
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The question, then, for anyone buying gold is simply this; how valuable is your time? If saving up gold is a tedious part of gameplay which is merely there to prolong the game experience and prevent you from reaching end-game content too quickly (which it is), and you consider your time to be worth more than a handful of dollars per hour, then buying gold is a perfectly logical thing to do.
If I were an MMO player, this would most likely be me. I don't have the time to sink into things like this. I don't think I'd take it seriously enough to view spending hours and hours grinding for money and experience as something that's worth my time. I'm sure that people play MMOs for a multitude of different reasons. I would most likely be playing it for the social aspect more than anything else.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 08/06/07 @ 07:32
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JohnnyWashnGo
08/06/07 @ 07:19
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I cannot see the attraction of MMOs to be honest.
Having tried a couple of the 'big name' games for a reasonable length of time, I came to the conclusion that I do not have the time spare to invest in playing these types of games properly. Have a been a hardcore gamer for the earlier part of my life, it would appear that I have now mutated into a kind of neo post modern casual gamer, who plays only the best casual games, through lifestyle choice. These MMOs look, at least from my perspective, as another way for companies to keep you hooked on their product for as long as possible whilst at the same time, having you generate revenue for their business. It sounds too much like a job to me and I already have one of those :) |
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It would be better if developers came up with something more attractive to earn your goods...
Yeh, why not just get rid of gold? Allow people to collect objects (by exploring or completing missions etc) which can be traded in for better objects in virtual shops. Don't allow players to trade items between themselves. Wouldn't this eradicate the problem completely? |
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EvilSpaceMonkey
08/06/07 @ 08:45
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"If saving up gold is a tedious part of gameplay which is merely there to prolong the game experience and prevent you from reaching end-game content too quickly (which it is)..."
I thought in WoW the main limit on reaching end-game content was caused by experience and reputation, not how much money you have, though obviously money always helps... For example, to get into the Black Temple requires you to be level 70 and have completed a huge grind on faction reputations and quest chains. Now gold may come in to play in terms of equipment repairs here and there but it's not the speed bump preventing you from reaching that content. No amount of gold enables you to buy the faction reputations and attunements required to see the end-game. In those cases, people aren't buying gold, they're buying power levelling services. It's just as bad, but there is a distinction. The only real barrier in that case is obtaining mounts for characters, but the epic ones require reputation grinds in addition to money anyway, so again the limiting factor comes down to XP/Rep. Gold buyers use their money on levelling up other skills where they can't be bothered to collect the materials themselves and that's where the economies of the auction house can be destroyed. As it is though, if you play the game normally with grinding and questing you'll find that the materials you need for levelling up your skills are in plentiful supply as you go through the game. I'm levelling up my tailoring character at the moment and almost every mob I'm killing is dropping the cloth that I need for the moment, so I can't see the problems. What's the hurry anyway? I only play once or twice a week for an hour or so and I'm levelling pretty quickly due to the "resting" ability when you log off in an inn which doubles the rate of advancement. Normally only takes about 90 minutes to move up a level at the very most.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 08/06/07 @ 10:01
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EvilSpaceMonkey - Yes, the end-game content in TBC is at least partially an attempt at addressing gold-selling. That said, for a lot of people the speed-bump will now be farming for Primals; which can be bought on the auction house for gold.
As for playing the game normally, there are two problems with that for many players. First, most MMOs put in speed-bump content which is utterly dull and tedious, and a casual player will find going through that incredibly offputting - an easy way out that costs a couple of quid is very appealing. Secondly, most people play MMOs with their friends - and if you have some friends playing the game who have much more free time to play than you do, they'll quickly overtake you and you'll end up so far apart in level terms that there's little point in playing together, which ruins the game. Allowing people with less time to spend a little money in order to keep up with their friends actually makes sense, to my mind. Indirectly, that's a service the gold farmers are providing. |
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reality_cheque
08/06/07 @ 12:25
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I'd buy gold, it's the town-skippers I don't like.
For example the L1 player who was at the ascention quest area in Guild Wars, who'd bought truck loads of in-game cash from gold-sellers, and them paid people to party up with him and run to the next town. |
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I bought some potatoes from a farmer once. He was based in Surrey somewhere and '/w' me.
I don't have time to trawl the allotment for hours collecting my own, so I thought 'why not?'. I guess it takes some of the fun out of it, but then I really do loathe grinding. True story. Yours, shamefully, Chudders |
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"IMHO going out and meet people would be a better, more pleasant way to reach that goal."
Yes, I agree. I don't play MMOs. I was just saying that, if I were to play one, I would see it more as a casual social experience rather than some race for the best equipment, mounts, etc. Hence me not having so much of a problem with buying in-game currency. |
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As an on-off again MMO player, I can say I personally could quite happilly live with gold farmers, and even more so people paying for their gold. Heck, they're probably the ones buying the over-priced drops people put up for sale.
However, there is one thing that really is stopping me accepting this as a part of online gaming. That is, the spam. The harassing spam. Went back to WoW a couple months ago, and in my first couple of hours I had 28 advertisements in my whisper box. It hasn't improved and it's fast turning me off this line of gaming. If I want gold, I will look for it on Google. When I'm in-game, some respect that people may want a little privacy and anonymity would be very much appreciated! I've suggested this before - opt-out systems, like e-mail spam. If you get spam from them, a quick visit to the site advertised and dropping name and server in to say "Please don't ever spam me again!" would be great. But they won't do this, because it's counter-productive. Easier to spam anyone and everyone in bulk than try and adopt a reasonable business practice towards it. That's my take. I can live with it - but I don't want it and I wish they'd leave me the hell alone when I want to be playing with some of my friends. |
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I've bought gold before, but it was more as a reaction to the in game legit economy. Once TBC came in, the entire level 60 economy dissolved, leaving all the high end herbs and metals I collected to earn my mount useless to me. I was 500g short of my mount cost so I decided to buy my way forward.
thankfully, I'm no longer in danger of that happening again, so I doubt I'll buy any more. Besides, the next expensive mount costs 5000g, and anyone stupid enough to buy £100 of gold for a faster bird to ride deserves a fucking epic slap. |
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It's pathetic that computergames can turn into jobs. And then I mean 2 aspects: the goldfarmers, but also the gamers.
I've played WoW for 1-2 years. I had a lot of fun from it, but in the end it just became a chore. It became work. I had to put time into it to achieve certain goals, since I was a raider (up to 4 Naxx bosses). It was more time than I felt happy with. If I didn't do it, the game had nothing to offer me. So that's when I quit. Seriously, ask yourself why you play. Is it really still fun? Edit: "leaving all the high end herbs and metals I collected to earn my mount useless to me" Ehm, what did you do with those materials? I bet that after a few months, they were very rare and expensive again. When I played my free trial of TBC a few weeks ago, I sold all my enchanting mats and made lotsa buncha money. For a lvl 60. ;-)
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 09/06/07 @ 17:43
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I find this column's tone to be surprisingly relaxed in relation to people who actually stoop low enough to buy online-gold. Let's get this straight, people who do it are cheaters, no more, no less.
I couldn't care less whether it's a good business move to "embrace" such companies who sell gold, because it's still wrong and damages the experience of players who want to just pay for their subscription, and nothing else. If companies really do decide to accept gold-buying as a reality, then they should at least mark players who use the service with certain marks. You know, like maybe a big fat pig's ass constantly lodged above gold-buying players in World of Warcraft. That way other players can know that they cheat their way through progress, rather than earn it. |
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YourMessageHere
09/06/07 @ 22:51
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What about high-interest ingame bank accounts for infrequent players? Dump a modest sum in and set a time limit; the longer you lock yourself out, the better your eventual return. Control access to these via reference to how often you log in and/or how long you play, and set some limits on amounts based on player level or whatever, to prevent exploitation.
Surely ideas from cyberpunk novels are, by their nature, not that outlandish? Also, I'm not happy with the use of "Ecosystem" to mean "Economy". |
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Eisenstein
11/06/07 @ 10:20
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80 $ for 1000g. 5h work for the average office jockey or 40-50h (or whatever, haven't played since February) of tedious farming gold. I think the choice is quite easy for afluent members of the society. In this regard I don't see it very different from paying a cleaning lady once a week to take care of your flat.
Yes, gold buying is here to stay, it is a big business because millions of people buy the gold. There is demand and those people satisfy it. Only chance for MMORPG companies is indeed to take the whole thing into their hands. And yes, the fact that you rather spend some money than to play certain parts that are required in the game should tell the designer that they might need to think over the game concept a bit.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 11/06/07 @ 11:23
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Comments: 1-20 of 20 in total
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