Wow...some days I don't even make it all the way through the 'MMORPG News and Blogs' Favourites folder to the end before seeing something bizzare enough to start ranting about immediately:
SOE: Station Exchange
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! SOE had always been pretty steadfast in their policing of Ebay virtual trades, so it's odd that they've decided that suddenly it's okay, and are setting up their own system to facilitate it. I can hear the IGE screams already, as two of what must be their most lucrative avenues suddenly dry up.
Just for any Outsiders that may visit, basically the deal is: You buy an online game, pay the monthly fees, and play obsessively, gathering imaginary items, imaginary money, and increase your imaginary character's imaginary power as you go. You then sell these database bytes on a remote server somewhere, to people who can't be bothered/don't have time to sort it out for themselves, for Real Money. A bit like buying a Surrogate Mother. Private deals happen a lot on Ebay, and some people, like these IGE monkeys actually make a primary living out of it.
The Q&A on the above SOE page has a number of valid points, but I wonder if it's mostly a direct attempt to hurt professional traders. My own objections to the whole thing are difficult to place. Partly, it is jealousy; I can't afford to throw away $300 on a Level 200 Anarchy Online Character, (and don't have the time or drive to raise Leve 200 characters of my own to sell) and why should rich people be able to circumvent the grind it takes to get there?
Partly, it's an erosion of game immersion. I'm not an Equity Card carrying 'forsooth' roleplayer by any stretch, but it gets harder and harder to escape from reality in these games when everyone talks 'ghetto' and uses global chat to Bash Bush, discuss the finer points of Mountain Dew and so on.
Also, although these games often seem like work, adding this actual link to real money transforms the feel of the game in some impreceptible way, and definitely provides an incentive to powergame, and ultimately exploit. (Indeed, with this link, exploits actually become a criminal act in some ways.) It's hard enough to find players who want to leave the 'Critical Path' and try something new already.
(Critical Path: In every online game, within a month of release, the world is totally disassembled to it's component numbers, and the most time-efficient way to get a character to the top level is meticulously analysed and documented. Usually it involves the least risk, least adventure and often least fun. Within three months, ALL players know where this is, and how to do it, and beyond that time, you'll be hard pressed to find any players going anywhere else, or doing anything else. Most of the rest of the game world will fall into abandoned disuse. And then WE blame the Devs for 'The Grind' and 'The Treadmill'! Ha!)
Mostly though, while finding it somewhat distasteful, real-world buying and selling doesn't actually affect me on a day-to-day basis. What it does to a game's economy and world in the longer term is for wiser minds then mine to study, but maybe SOE are right to do this. If it's going to happen anyway, 'legalising' and regulating it may be the best way to protect the integrity of the game and protect hapless players from in-game con-men. And anyway, most people polled about the idea respond with either 'Don't Care', or 'YES!!11!!1lol~~ keke ^_^'. I guess that settles that.
What will be interesting is just how 'nominal' is this 'nominal listing fee', and is that 'pp' or 'USD'?
/movelog add (AGAIN!)