Gold Trading Exposed: Introduction Comments by Nick Ryan

Secondly inflation in MMOS is no bad thing for players, in general terms it means your resources are worth far more compared to the gold sinks, meaning much less grinding.

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People buy gold because the items they want are too expensive.

So as a result they devalue gold driving up the prices of everything, meaning people go and buy more gold, which drives up the prices of everything so they buy more gold.

Try and justify it all you want, Spindle, but you're basically cheating and damaging the game for others.

And yes, I think you should "qualify" to see the content. That's the, I don't know, POINT OF THE GAME maybe? You know, progression, advancement, doing stuff FOR YOURSELF. "Grinding" in games rarely is. It's more a symptom of somebody raised in a culture that rewards people for just turning up.

You want to use cheat codes to skip to the end of a game offline, go right ahead. But cheating in online games does nothing but destroy the game's economy, alienate the player base and result in the game's closure. But hey, you got to WIN TEH GAEM so well done you.

Surely the "poor game design" is deliberate. If you can't keep players in the grind, raiding and so on, they'll leave? But a by-product of needing to grind those items and cash is time. If you're time poor and (relatively speaking) cash rich, seems fairly obvious to me some people are going to short cut it.

Oh -- to those who doubt whether or not it's 30% of MMO players who buy. 1. It's difficult to go a survey of 30 million folks ;) 2. Even research back in 2005 was drawing the figure *22%* as a representative sample [Nick Yee, Daedulus Project]

But again, we're back to the idiotic belief that endgame = win the game.

You don't "win" in an MMO and people need to see that.

I think you actually contradict your own argument though - "grinding" is a Godawful thing to have to do. It WON'T keep people playing. I play MMOs to amass items, explore, have fun encounters/fights, make friends, for the storyline and to generally enjoy the "now" of it. Anybody playing an MMO expecting a "win" is playing the wrong game.

Remember, I'm (as the writer of these articles) simply the messenger here. All I can tell and show you is what I see, what people say to me. I have my opinions, as you can see here, but the interpretations we all draw are interesting ...

(I've spent a long time researching books among extremists, religious groups, and so on; as well as been in a number of very difficult countries. My own opinion is that we "believe" something first; then we fit our arguments around those beliefs. Even the most high-falutin' academic.)

Oh I appreciate that. All I'm saying though is that when you say the "grind" is what keeps people playing, the "grind" is also what people don't want. I'm just not getting the connection you're making.

Surely the "poor game design" is deliberate. If you can't keep players in the grind, raiding and so on, they'll leave?
Surely if your game is not entertaining enough to keep players by simply being fun then there is something wrong with your game. Timesinks are just plasters on the wounds that are the crap core gameplay mechanics that most mmos are based on.

Iok - I never bought gold to "win" (although I'll not argue that a lot do). I did it just to allow me to explore, have fun encounters/fights, make friends, for the storyline and to generally enjoy the "now" of it. Just without having to kill hundreds of elementals every nights by pressing 1,2,3,3,3,3 over and over.

mmos need to get out of the shadow of Everquest. They need to make the core gameplay mechanic a lot more fun and give us dynamic worlds that really change with players actions. Do that and you wont need timesinks to keep players and player wont feel obliged to "cheat" the timesinks.

Another way to approach this: are you saying there is no grind in MMORPGs?

(My own view? Players get addicted. Needing to slowly level, to get better gear, etc, takes time. If they could leap to end-game, they'd probably quit earlier. Grind to me seems built into MMOs. It puts me off, but I don't have 8 hours a day to play).

If grind is not built into MMO design ... what is?

We need to define what "Grind" is to answer your questions.

For me, "grinding" is the act of visiting an area with the express goal of killing the mobs there, solely to gain XP and/or cash.

A lot people get confused and think any quest that involves killing X mobs or collecting Y drops is "grind" but that's not true.

All I can say is I've been playing LOTRO for some time now and have yet to encounter any situation I'd consider "grinding." WoW on the other hand...

Iok - I never bought gold to "win" (although I'll not argue that a lot do). I did it just to allow me to explore, have fun encounters/fights, make friends, for the storyline and to generally enjoy the "now" of it. Just without having to kill hundreds of elementals every nights by pressing 1,2,3,3,3,3 over and over.

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Sorry but you did. You're not enjoying the "now" - you were enjoying the "future" of it.

And can you honestly say you think it's fair you skipped that whereas everybody else "earned" it by investing the time? There's no reason why you couldn't have killed elements every night except that you didn't want to and wanted to jump ahead.

The constant propaganda spouted by Blizzard and other major MMO companies that gold traders are akin to organized crime is completely unsupported by any sort of real evidence; some of the claims made in this article argue strongly against it. Illegal trade is indulged in because the profits from it are great then that of a legal trade - and in this case, these businesses are not netting in excess of 2 billion annually from credit card fraud. Why on earth would anyone jeopardize such a huge cash flow, with almost no overhead, to add a small illegal supplement to it? They wouldn't. No one would believe a claim that Blizzard is using World of Warcraft to launder money to fund the drug trade - there's no way they could make more money laundering drug money then they could by just running WOW - so why risk it? And why bother to steal a credit card, risking criminal prosecution while doing so, to pay such small overhead costs and jeopardize your cash flow?

Internet credit card fraud as a percentage of total fraud is very, very small, despite all the moronic press it gets - I used to work in the fraud department of an international bank, and the number of confirmed cases of real internet fraud were tiny. Want to know how to really protect yourself? Shred your mail. People with enough intelligence to snatch your credit card number online usually just get safer jobs as network admins. Any half-wit can make off with a bag of your trash.

Another way to approach this: are you saying there is no grind in MMORPGs?
God no. What I'm saying is I wish there was no grind in MMMORPGs. I wish MMORPGs were good enough to keep people playing simply because its fun to play, not because you dangle a carrot in front of them. I played Team Fortress for two years, pretty much on a rotation of four maps. No character, no gear and no story line. The game retained me because its core gameplay mechanic was great. My perfect game would be all the great parts of MMMORPGs - the exploration, the team work, the world, the story... but just with an underlying game play mechanic that was fun and engaging. Oh, and no damn grind.

iok - I guess we have different definitions of "win". I don't see how I won anything? If I had bought gold to go buy a mount or shiny gear then yeah. All I got from buying gold was to avoid dull part of the game and still be able to pay the part I find interesting.

The point still stands though Spindle that you cheated.

(I'm using "TEH WIN" in an ironic/moronic sense.)

With all the bashing WoW and Blizzard is getting with regards to gold farming here I do think that people should bear in mind how much they limited it.

Most of the items you need gold for a vanity items or equipment which is roughly equivalent to what you can get by running standard dungeons. Most of the best kit can't be bought you need to raid to get them. In addition due to instancing there isn't the same competition for spawns as there was in EQ for example. You wouldn't be able to get the same situation as in FFXI which was mentioned earlier as organised goldfarmers can't control or deny access to the top end spawns and content to other players.

Also, as an aside, Scribe in your wanderings how many people did you witness being swayed by rational argument (or the attempt of rational argument in any case). What kind of things have you seen change opinions of the people you interviewed and met during your research.

@Vasenor: My profession has made me somewhat of a hardened cynic when it comes to humanity ;) Rational argument? Hehe, pull the other one ...

p.s. what I find quite ironic is that one part, and one part only, of one story -- which itself is part of 4 stories (a series) -- gets picked up by other blogs, which then quote each other, out of context, and you get loads of people heading off away from what the actual original stories say ... Ah, the wonders of the Internet.

Would you believe that right now I am trying to write a 3000 word feature on Islamist gangs for a men's magazine? More coffee!

This just in (not seen any mention of it in the comments so far)- MMO company granted banking license:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/mm...

That'll learn those damned third world terrorist RMT farmers. Shame the publisher (Mindark) seem to be linked to a world of crap though. Or is that 'blah'?

Oh, one aside about game companies selling gold and in game assets directly is that it would indeed give them a sort of license to print money. They would be able to create an asset at effectively no (well very little) cost to themselves.

The only reason they don't do it at the moment is probably the negative PR impact. A significant part of the player base is really unhappy about the thought that someone can buy an in game advantage using out of game means.

@scribe
Where are you getting material for that article then? Also, which bit got picked up and quoted on other blogs?

My other article (on Islamism and gangs) comes from five years' worth of research in inner city London. Prior to that, I wrote a book which involved six years travelling inside extreme Right groups (like neo-Nazis). Most of my research is done like this: it's one reason I clash with bloggers sometimes, because any person can just copy, paste and comment on what someone else has created. Original material takes a lot longer (and more costly) to research.

Anyway, that's an aside. Hope the material proves of interest. My site http://www.nickryan.net has more of my stuff if you want to see it.

cheers,

Nick R

Grind is when you are repeatedly forced to do an action which represents little to no challenge for the purpose of being able to advance at another place in the game. Grind has no meaning, conveys no story, offers no challenge is only there to measure your ability to sacrifice a certain amount of time.


The quote:
"but the endgame is..."
should never be an argument for anything. If you really liked Gears of War, would you still buy it, if part of the deal was, you had to sink 100h into Kane & Lynch before playing Gears? I doubt that. So even if the "endgame" in some MMOs is good, many people will never bear grinding their way until they reach that point.

what the HELL is this article going on about?

equalling gold selling on a video game to prostitution? jesus christ...

you guys really got to get outside more often! Seriously...

And about that sweatshop thing: it's either playing WoW 12 hours a day *edit: which most of you do already out of free? will* or breaking your back on a 40 kilo bag of rice in a boiling hot sun or even child prostitution. If you guys find this basic economic principle of inequality of wealth so hard to accept, go to a 3rd world country, give all your money there and I'll accept your critique, untill you've done that, better be quiet since you are an accompliche just as well. Either you act accordingly, or you accept, or you are a hypocrite.

The MMO guys whine about gold farmers because it allows ppl to waste less time on the zzzz grinds and actually have a life, thus often shortening their memberships -> less money for MMO company.. durrr I dont really think this is an argument, it's not like ppl cheat, it's done within boundaries of gamerules. I do not respect E-bay gear players too, but at least I'm not a complete tosser.

They should ban spammers though, annoying as hell.

Not quite sure the point the poster above is trying to make, seems to be several conflicting issues he's raising.

Anyway, the quote about "prostitution" comes not from me; not from Eurogamer; but from an *interviewee*, namely RuneScape content boss Imre Jele. A quote is a quote, not a view point of the reporter. (I know the blogosphere confuses people sometimes -- some of us actually have to take care about small things like libel, slander, etc ^^)

Keep reading.

And about that sweatshop thing: it's either playing WoW 12 hours a day *edit: which most of you do already out of free? will* or breaking your back on a 40 kilo bag of rice in a boiling hot sun or even child prostitution.

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They're not "playing WoW."

They're being sat in front of a PC without breaks and told to generate X amount of cash or resources by repeating the same processes over and over and if they don't hit their target within a specific period they won't get paid and so will go home empty-handed.

So no pressure, you know?

Quote
They're being sat in front of a PC without breaks and told to generate X amount of cash or resources by repeating the same processes over and over and if they don't hit their target within a specific period they won't get paid and so will go home empty-handed.


Like anything else with a "Made in China" label in your household. If you look around, I am sure you can find quite some items that were manufactured under the same conditions which you complain about when it comes to gold farming.

No, the person buying gold to cheat and show off in front of you is not ruining the game. It is you fooling yourself into attributing any value to virtual vanity items, who is ruining the game. Think about it.

''Anyway, the quote about "prostitution" comes not from me; not from Eurogamer; but from an *interviewee*, namely RuneScape content boss Imre Jele. A quote is a quote, not a view point of the reporter. (I know the blogosphere confuses people sometimes -- some of us actually have to take care about small things like libel, slander, etc ^^) ''

I did not claim EG said it, I referred to some sources displayed in the article itself. The author/you did however put this (bizarre) quote in the article + the article covers mainly heavy nay-sayers of the concept of gold farming. Quoting almost exclusively sources on only one side of an argument portrays a viewpoint indirectly. You may not have conveyed your opinion, yet you do indirectly show bias towards a certain viewpoint. If I write an article about apples and oranges, and yet I only quote apple lovers, surely I've chosen a side?

I've read many nice articles on the subject of quasi-economies in MMO's (also about the illegal circuit that evolved around it.). I certainly find it interesting matter. This article is a missed opportunity to me. It's still a great read in some areas.


'But they did it too" didn't work for you when you and your friends got busted stealing in the candy store so what on earth makes you think it'd work in a debate about having shitty morals?''

You missed my point. I insinuated that you can't claim to have these morals if you do not act accordingly. I'm just as much a thief as you, yet you deny it.

Hi 'not my real name' ;)

I'd just like to say that this was the INTRODUCTION to a series of *four* articles. That means another article is coming this week; and another the next week; and another the next week.

I appreciate your comments, but it'd be good to see them after the series has finished. Sometimes it's harder than people realise to magic up long, detailed pieces, instantly, for the masses :)

cheers, and please do keep reading.

NR

Like anything else with a "Made in China" label in your household. If you look around, I am sure you can find quite some items that were manufactured under the same conditions which you complain about when it comes to gold farming.

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I'm sure you could too. But just because I may or may not have made some less-ethical purchases in the past, that doesn't mean you should support every non-ethical sweatshop you can find.

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No, the person buying gold to cheat and show off in front of you is not ruining the game. It is you fooling yourself into attributing any value to virtual vanity items, who is ruining the game. Think about it.

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*Sigh*

I couldn't give a shit about anybody buying vanity items and "showing off" in front of me. The problem is that it's not limited to that and if you actually played any MMOs you'd understand how gold selling unbalances the economy and causes hyperinflation, which leads to the gold you purchase becoming worthless.

It's a vicious circle - people can't be bothered to put in the effort to earn the cash they need to buy an item, so they buy gold from a farmer, which devalues the gold meaning the item price goes up and we're back to square one.

It's not just the time saver aspect of buying items that drives players, it's the inability of 'gimped' players to find teams to level with, too. The pressure to have the best, or at least be garbed and equipped acceptably for your level range is huge, especially in older, established MMORPGs.

I don't buy items, gold, or services for real money, therefore, I find progression infinitely more difficult than those who I know do buy these things. Luckily, the MMORPG I play, Anarchy Online, is familiar to me from past experience, when I returned to the game after being away for over a year, without bothering to reactivate an old account, as I wanted to 'start fresh' in the game on a different server, I at least knew how to make ingame currency. That said, I will NEVER start this game 'fresh' again. Too much grind, and too few opportunities to get into good teams when you not only don't know anyone on the server, but you also have substandard equipment and items, and by substandard, I mean equipment and items a character of your level actually can obtain without help from higher level players.

The best things about Anarchy Online actually make resisting those gold buying shortcuts harder. Characters are twinkable from level one, so with creativity and ingame resources, a player can take a character far beyond others of her level. Unfortunately, the twinking becomes expected, and as I said before, obtaining twinking items, higher level weapons, rare items, and so on, requires assistance from characters higher level than the character being twinked. Which of course is impossible for new players who don't have friends already in the game!

To people saying gold farming is inflationary; there's a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Firstly, if someone "farms" gold, they are often farming items such as mithril bars, nethers, etc, this increases the supply of these items as they are sold to generate gold.

Moreover, the gold is not "injected" in a pure sense into the economy. Remember, the farmers use real play time to "earn" the gold as it were. This gold is then *NOT immediatly spent*, but is transfered to the gold sellers who "re-distribute" the gold. Thus, no more gold is generated than if the "farmers" spent the gold on their own characters.

If you think about it more, where does the farmers gold come from? Often from selling bars etc, thus the gold of person A is **transfered** to the gold farmer, and then again **transfered** to whoever buys it; the only real increase in the money supply comes from cash gold drops and quests, which any mmo player will tell you are usually quite nominal.

Gold farmers do however, increase the supply of goods available in the auction house; this is anti inflationary, and in fact increases the total net "wealth" in terms goods on the server.Gold is afterall only a claim on goods that people want, what good is 10,000 gold when there is no wealth in terms of herbs, bars etc in the economy. Farmers in fact are increasing the real wealth and capital goods (bars, herbs, desireable item drops) on a server.

It is alwasy better to be on high population server, with many farmers, these servers will be wealthy in a true sense. The worst time to be on a server is when "captial wealth" is low. On low population servers, and on game launch you often find ridiculous prices until hopefully farmers move in to increase the stock of capital goods and the velocity of money.

MMO Devs who tirade against the farmers with their simplistic so called "inflationary" arguments are doing nothing than protecting their time based/grind subscription based business models.

First, gold farmers do not play the game in a way anyone would play for enjoyment (except perhaps those suffering from severe OCD). Gold farmers can and do glut the market with gold that otherwise would never exist by killing the same mobs over and over, twelve hours every day, to obtain gold directly from the mobs, so it is not just 'changing hands' from farmers to players and back. Also, many farmers use bots to obtain gold this way, further distancing their contribution to the game economy from anything intended by designers or rivaled by players.

Second, gold farmers hurt the game by camping mobs relentlessly, often using timers to return again and again for a spawned boss that drops a coveted item, thereby denying players the opportunity to kill that mob and obtain that item. Usually, even if a player is there first, the gold farmer (bot or otherwise) will simply outdamage the regular player and take the loot that drops.

Third, farmers are not stupid, they know very well that glutting the market with certain items will drive prices down. They are perfectly capable of hoarding and doling out the items they farm to maintain high prices.

With prices high, a glut of gold farmed outside expected game mechanics and ability to buy that gold with real money, and the inability of players to farm their own items, thanks to the constant camping by gold farmers of loot dropping mobs, is it any wonder the result is inflation, demand for gold bought with real money, and a community of disgusted players?

Then there are services. Yes, you can pay someone real money to outfit your character, you can also pay someone to play your character, or to haul your character along in a team while you sit and watch on follow mode as the xp racks up. This contributes to hoardes of endgame players who have no idea how to actually PLAY their characters. Which gives other players the choice of paying for endgame services teams to level, or teaming with incompetents who get the entire team killed over and over.

Nevertheless, those who buy from gold farmers, then turn around, equip their characters well, and learn to play them competently are also a problem, because other players, who have not taken that shortcut, are less in demand for teams. Poorly equipped players are considered leeches, taking xp from the team while contributing less than their fair share. Which is all well and good, until you realize that the 'fair share' of heals, damage, and so on dealt out by each player is judged based on damage, heals, and so on, done by other players in the team or players teammates have teamed with in the past. So a competent player who does her best to equip a character appropriately but cannot afford the very best of everything because she does not buy gold with real money is a leech compared to a player who does buy gold with real money and therefore can equip a character with the very best items from start to finish.