Criminals in China play MMORPGs all night long.

[Terralthra]

Blizzard does a lot about this.

[Broomstick]

While I don't like it, in South Korea, RMT is valid and acceptable. I expect to see more "cash-shop" based MMORPGs being released from Korea to account for this. Companies from China and Japan have already been using cash shop systems, but I'm not so sure about Amercian or European ones.

RMT is perfectly legal in the US but it's the intellectual property holder who sets the rules. For example, World of Warcraft bans gold-farming, but you can purchase both vanity pets and actual game mounts from Blizzard with real money if you so desire (in fact, they've offered vanity pets not only for their own profit but as a fund-raiser for charity and Japan quake/tsunami relief). It's Blizzard's call if they want to sell in-game gold for real money or not, and they say not. I think it was Ultima on-line which sold in-game currency but then had separate servers for those utilizing RMT and those not doing so (but my memory isn't perfect on that, so if someone else has better recollection please correct any errors).

Again - nothing prevents RMT in the US other than the decision of the intellectual property holder. But if the IPH decides against it they most certainly can haul people into court over it.

Blizzard routinely bans accounts involved in gold-farming, gold-trading, leveling services, and so forth. They have hauled people into actual court over this, the most recent case that comes to mind being the Glider bot. The initial decision was in Blizzard's favor and said Glider had to pay Blizzard 6 million USD, the case is now currently winding through the appeals process. So yes, Blizzard does do something about these things, but court cases are costly and they're allowed to pick and choose which ones they pursue.

[HeadCreeps]

Again - nothing prevents RMT in the US other than the decision of the intellectual property holder. But if the IPH decides against it they most certainly can haul people into court over it.

Indeed. This was not in question.

There is legal precedence in South Korea for their court system to side with the RMT participants. Given that South Korea produces a large number of the popular MMORPGs not named World of Warcraft, this has a likely effect on the future of MMORPGs produced in the region, and thereby worldwide when said titles reach other shores. There is already a strong trend toward cash shop-based business models, and such a court ruling will only make cash shop BMs far more prevalent.

South Korean titles over the years have included Maple Story, Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Ragnarok Online, Vindictus, and quite a few titles which were unsuccessful in the English speaking community but which experienced success in Asian countries.

Thank you for posting that part about the Glider court case, as I was not aware of that.

[mr friendly guy]

As much as I like to discuss the topic of gold farming which I have certainly learnt more about this phenomenum from people like Headcreeps and Broomstick, I just can't help bringing this up from memory lane

And yes, China going "Fuck the rest of you, I've got mine!" IS evil. It's textbook sociopathy.

The topic, on China cutting down rare earth exports. Naturally he was too God damn lazy to do a bit of research on the topic since anyone perusing CNN months before could tell you why they needed to do it. But I find it soooo amusing that when China cuts down imports, he calls their government sociopaths, but now he wants to boycott them when they want to sell stuff. Damn if you do, damn if you don't.

Maybe since you are so keen to show your high moral standing you might want to encourage people to not go to America for the torture of detainees, executing mentally ill people, high prison population etc stop using high tech electronic gizmos using REE sourced from Chinese mines. In which case when can we expect you not to use a computer and be spared your oh soooo thoughtful insights into the world economy. Sometime soon, I hope.

But you and I both know its easy to tell someone to not to travel to China when you aren't planning to anyway (hey, can you even afford a plane ticket? ), buts it much harder to boycott Chinese goods when its YOU who will be inconvenienced. I eagerly await your attempt to dodge the question, change the topic etc demonstration that you can walk the walk, in addition to just talk the talk.

[White Haven]

...Go go half-incoherent off-topic vindictive ranting based on a nine month old post on a barely-related topic?

You're better than that, Friendly.

[mr friendly guy]

Come on mate. If I accuse him to applying a double standard I am expected to at least provide evidence as per the board's rules. If I do so via a link I get accused of being vindictive.

The article raises numerous points of discussion including the nature of gold farming, how it affects MMORPGs and how shit the prison system is in China etc. However if a poster wants to extend it to advising others to boycott China it opens up another avenue of discussion. In this case its perfectly fair to mention a blatantly obvious double standard he applies (ie when China wants to sell we should not buy, but when they don't want to sell its EVIL) and frankly he should at least be able to demonstrate an ability to do what he advocates others should do.

[Eulogy]

There's a big difference between not selling minerals that modern industry NEEDS, and selling mere ones and zeroes. Not even sensitive customer information, WoW gold is literally make-believe currency in a make-believe world that they sell for real money, and people who buy them are idiots, lazy, or both.

Besides, do you not realize why Chinese goods are frowned upon? Natural mined resources at least are hard to screw up (unless they do so deliberately, but why?). Besides, a shit prison is still a shit prison, and a dead miner is still a dead miner.

[mr friendly guy]

There's a big difference between not selling minerals that modern industry NEEDS, and selling mere ones and zeroes. Not even sensitive customer information, WoW gold is literally make-believe currency in a make-believe world that they sell for real money, and people who buy them are idiots, lazy, or both.

In other words we should only boycott Chinese goods that you won't ever buy, but which someone else would. I guess it helps if you consider those other people, are idiots, lazy or both. How does this refute my point that its easy for you to call for a boycott when you aren't the one making sacrifices?

Besides, do you not realize why Chinese goods are frowned upon? Natural mined resources at least are hard to screw up (unless they do so deliberately, but why?).

I am going to hazard a guess that make believe currency from WoW is just as make believe and just as good (for game purposes) no matter which gold farmer you got it from. Ergo your point is not relevant to this particular discussion.

Besides, a shit prison is still a shit prison, and a dead miner is still a dead miner.

And if you stuck to this line, I would have agreed with you 100%. Although I must confess, if they didn't have enforceable quotas, punishment for failing these quotas, jailing them for questionable crimes and prisoners volunteer to play to earn the state money, I most probably wouldn't get too worked up over it. Because its just another method (like labour) for prisoners to pay back society.

[Purple]

The main problem with gold farming is not so much that farmer bots take up hunting grounds (yes, it exists but it's not that much). The problem is that gold farming can seriously upset the gameplay balance of the player market. And that is the real killer.

The problem is the way the game economies usually work. In most PC games MMO's included the amount of gold in the world is not limited but simply increases with each drop. At the same time the gold you get from individual beasts and quests is fixed and set at some arbitrary number by the game designers. These numbers are (in my experience) often perfectly balanced to ensure the player can have money to pay for high quality gear and equipment on the player to player market. The problem starts when you have too many bots gathering and selling massive amounts of gold to players the game ends up locked in a true case of runaway inflation.

I have seen it happen in the game Silkroad Online some years back. In essence, the supply of gold became such that the price of gold for real money became affordable to just about anyone. You could get 10 million gold for as little as a few dollars. What this meant was that those with a lot of real money to spend (read $10 as a lot) could within a few minutes get the amount of gold that normal players needed months of gameplay to get. As such, they could outbid any trade offer on magical and otherwise quality items on the player market. In the end, in order to get any equipment better than the stock gear you buy at the NPC vendors you had to either go hunting for boss monsters or pay up for gold. And you could not go hunting for boss monsters becouse you could not get high quality equipment or join parties that had it since they only accept well equipped members.

It is fascinating if terrifying to see the laws of economics at work like that.