Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating? 543
Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?
There is a third option (Score:5, Insightful)
I vote for the third option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is a third option (Score:5, Informative)
I have to agree.
I bought "gold" for City of Heroes twice, both times spending like 20 or 30 USD. This was while I was in my fullblown addiction phase. I've since kicked the habit entirely.
Anyway, my reasons were mostly to correct pas mistakes. I would normally play characters I'd created since the game came out a while ago, and eventually wanted to fix a bunch of my newbie mistakes. Ie, designing a costume that didnt suck nd re-outfitting him with the correct enhancements.
Looking back at it, I can't believe how stupid it was. It wasn't a lot of money and did make things a little easier/nicer for a while. But it was stupid.
As for cheating... there's not a whole lot to get in CoH. I mean, if someone from WoW used bought gold to buy a rare mount or something I could sort of see it as cheating. But in CoH, where you're limited to costumes and enhancements, there's not much benefit.
Re:There is a third option (Score:2, Informative)
In CoH:
The main methods of hoarding gold/influence in CoH is by herding large amount of mobs, or going on Task Forces (usually 4-6 hour quests that can't be "paused").
If you have an upper level character, the gold/i
Re:There is a third option (Score:5, Insightful)
Which Is It, Inflation or Deflation (Score:5, Insightful)
You appear to be thinking that people buying gold won't spend that gold on raw materials in order to raise their profession skills. At level 42 in WoW, I decided to learn cooking. It took me a great deal of cash to get all the materials to level my cooking skill up, but I got to 250/300 in about two evenings. Now, I used a great deal of my own cash to do that. But, I could have just as easily gone out and bought gold farmer cash to do it as well.
Even so, you can't both blame inflation and deflation on the same group of people. That seriously makes no sense.
The fact is that you have no idea how these gold farmers are making money. The likely thing is they're using multiple means of getting gold. Sure, they could be overfarming, driving down the price. The problem with that though is once the prices are down, they make no money from overfarming. So, like everyone else, it is in their best interest not to overfarm. Further, economies on servers tend to improve over time as players level up. That would suggest that a bad economy has nothing to do with gold farmers and everything to do with the number of higher-level players overall.
You also have no idea how many of these gold farmers exist on the server at any given point. Given the thousands of players on each server, a few gold farmers are not likely to affect the economy on a long-term basis. Gold farmers only become a problem should their numbers become high enough to overwhelm the balance of the server. And since these people are presumably selling their gold all the time, that means they actually have less influence than regular player characters of the same level.
Re:Which Is It, Inflation or Deflation (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, you can, because these are different items.
In an MMO I'm playing, exactly this sort of thing is happening. There are so many woodcutters that even if it weren't for the people doing it with bots, the price of wood would still be ridiculously low. There are higher-level items that have inflated out of control, into the tens of millions of coins, and I've even noticed a change in the price o
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the price is lowered because the raw materials are oversupplied (so a decent skinner can't make money) and then the prices are inflated because of lots of "extra" gold being thrown around (so a decent skinner can make money).
Tell me how that works out to be anything but a draw.
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
I have two level 60's.
Once you get there you can get 50g a day with just an hour or two of effort.
How? Farming in Tyr's hand? Good luck, 50G will take you awhile, a lot longer than an hour or two of effort. I suppose you could run the low end dungeons (ie UBRS and below) roll on BoE's and sell them, but that is shaky at best, and you will be lucky to get done with that inside of 2 hours if you go with a pickup group. Of course this does vary by class, and
Re:There is a third option (Score:4, Insightful)
In my case, I'd rather spend $50 a week to have some service come to my place and do all the crap stuff around here like vacuum, dust, wash windows, clean the bathroom and so on. Sure, I suppose I could spend the time to do those tasks myself, but I'd rather spend the money and have the time I would spend cleaning to do pretty much anything else. Is this stupid for me to do? If it is, then hell, I'm glad to be a dumbass.
In the case of buying gold, if someone doesn't enjoy one particular aspect of a game (the grinding for money part) but they do like what the grinding can get them (access to good stuff) then why is it stupid to have someone else do the scut work so they can then enjoy the benefits?
How is the WoW scenario any different from the cleaning person scenario? How is it different than *any* task that a person *could* do for themselves, but simply doesn't enjoy, and doesn't feel is an effective use of their time, so they hire someone else?
I've never bought items in a game with real money, and I probably never will - the kinds of games that require grinding and encourage gold farming by their very mechanics simply don't appeal to me - but I certainly don't find it any dumber than any other activity in which people trade money for avoidance of boring labor.
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
I never bought gold in any MMOG but I can understand why people do. It's a shortcut. Getting gold/platinum/credit in any of these games is beyond easy, all you need is to have a pulse and be able to click 2-3 keys in a sequence on your keyboard. A monkey can do it. However, it's beyond boring and getting large ammounts can take quite a lot of time.
It reminds me of Collectible Card Games. You could haggle and trade with other players for the cards you needed or simply shell out that 50$ for
It's Pretty Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
It's clear buying gold is not within the spirit or the intent of the game.
Conclusion:it's cheating.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:2)
Conclusion: Shit happens.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
As a GAME, the point is to be fun. If people like some aspects of the game but have found a way to get around the money treadmill does that necessarily affect you? Sure, there's the whole issue of more money entering the economy, but if someone bought the money from someone else, the money was already in the economy, it's just changed hands.
One of the reasons I don't, and won't, play MMORPGs is because of that extended treadmill experience.
I say that something is cheating if it is synonymous with something that is illegal or is simply blatantly against the rules. If Blizzard has declared that it is against the rules and transgressors will be punished, that's great. That is enough to make it cheating. It's Blizzard's world and they make the rules. However, if this is a gray area where they've not said much, it's not cheating unless it somehow operates completely outside of the game's mechanics, as in generating money from thin air or something.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:2)
I've been on the phone with people in my party before. Other people use their internet connections to hold party conversations. Those conversations are "outside the game". Are those conversations cheating? I hardly think so.
Further, some people use outside mods to customize their WoW experience. Blizzard openly allows people to
My opinion? Glad you asked! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't Enforce. Co-Opt! (Work Smarter not Harder) (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of gamers get on their moral soap-boxes about cheating and gaming ethics, and call for the devs to come up with more enforcement. I think that's just like the "War on Drugs" mentality. It's a losing game, because you are opposing market forces. Instead, get the market forces on your side. Heck, as a MMORPG game dev, you control the fabric of reality itself. If you can't think of a trick to co-opt "cheaters" then shame on you!
I play Eve-Online, and it's come up that the "Macro Miners" are ruining things for legitimate miners. Macro-miners are mostly Russian guys who use macros to run Eve automatically and mine-out whole systems so that they can sell in-game money on eBay.
But while it really sucks to be a competitor to these guys in mining, it's *great* for piracy. The unattended miners are full of valuable ore, and mostly unable to defend themselves. (And if they do defend themselves, they do it poorly, and this allows you to destroy them *legally*!)
So don't try and enforce a ban on macro-mining and other MMORPG "cheats." Instead co-opt them. In Eve, you could change the game dynamic so that the Macro-Miners would be even more attractive targets for pirates. Put a time limit on NPC corporation membership, and legit corps could even declare war on them without being pirates. (So if you're a mining corp, you could just declare war on these guys and take their ore!) Furthermore, if you put time constraints on refining, the macro-miners would be forced to sell material to other players to refine their excess, which would further contribute to the economy of Eve-Online.
And we thought of all this in about 15 minutes flat. I'm quite sure that other tricks could be thought of for WoW and other MMORPGs that would have similar effects.
Re:Don't Enforce. Co-Opt! (Work Smarter not Harder (Score:3, Informative)
While that is pretty neat, it's actually a heck of a lot easier
void create()
{
call_out("death",30);
}
death()
{
remove();
}
Think of the Economy! (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Keeps them in buisness
b) Screws with the game economy even more, and
c) is against most, if not all EULA's
Re:Think of the Economy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ours drive prices
In fact, driving prices up is better for them. You have more incentive to buy gold as you'll never make enough to get the items you want otherwise.
If you walk to talk about screwing the economy, talk to Blizzard. Increasing red dragonscales drop rate and quest XP at 60 -> gold is going to be a nice shock when 1.10 hits. I'm happy I got to resell the red scales I'd been picking up on the cheap (min bid or underpriced for the win) hopeing to put together a red DS suit before the price drop hits.
Re:Think of the Economy! (Score:2)
However, as there are a limited number of places from which to acquire these high-end items, it also makes sense to farm lower-end stuff--after all, it's
Re:Think of the Economy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh stop, please.
I'm a casual player who just got back into the game a few weeks ago after a few months off. I started a new character on a new server and am at level 25. I spend most of my time screwing off, and I'm sitting on about 30g and have a full set of 16 slot bags. WoW is surprisingly like real life, where if you put some thought into managing money, you'll have plenty.
A Diamond Joe Quimby moment... (Score:5, Funny)
It can be two things!
Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I have another take on it. Note that I do not, nor will I ever purchase gold. But as a working professional, I don't have the same time to devote to the game that high-school and college students do. I don't want gaming to become a 9-5 job just to have fun. I only have a few hours on the weekends to play. I will never be abel to effectively tradeskill. I will level once every two weeks, if that.
For some, buying gold is an efficient way to obtain materials for tradeskilling that would otherwise require hours of dedicated playing; time that many people (like me) just don't have. Even now, I'm looking at the mats required for weaponsmithing, and all I can do is throw up my hands and say, "I don't have time to do this." I don't know anymore. I wish Blizzard would make the game funner for impatient people who can't devote their life to the game.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. That's where I completely agree.
The problem is that it's not your fault. It's a game-design fault. Why does the game require ridiculous amounts of game time?
EVE Online - while I only played it shortly - appears to have one big part of the problem solved: Skills increase through automatic training that depends on only one factor: Real time passed. Whether you're online playing or offline sleeping/working/whatever doesn't matter. You gain x experience points per hour.
A good game should reward good playing, not more playing.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:2)
If it too no time at all then Blizzard wouldn't be able to sell more game-time.
Making things take a long time to do is ultimately their aim.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:2)
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Informative)
Well, EVE has it's own problem...that those who started when it went live are so far ahead of someone starting today that it's not even competitive.
Not entirely true. They have a lot more options available to them when they go to play, but after two months you can be an effective, hard-hitting player. You'll be limited to one race's ships, and you probably won't be flying any of the specialized craft, but you can make a difference in PvP as well as tackle the high-end NPC content.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't comment on other MMORPGs, but World of Warcraft does reward good playing. It also rewards more playing by design, but everyone seems to assume that grinding and tradeskills are the only way to make money, and that money is the only way to be rewarded.
Good players are far more likely to:
Roleplayi
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, in a way. This is why I find the Station Exchange [sony.com] somewhat offensive. What's Sony's solution to their poor game design that makes progress a slow, boring, repetitive grind? Have people to pay them more money to mitigate the unpleasant aspects of the game resulting from their design failures, of course. Maybe I'm just jealous that I haven't figured out a way to earn mon
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, what? For those who know what' they are doing they can make cash without grinding so what's the problem?
Wh
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Interesting)
Another area where iTunes is a lot better then allofMp3 in it's buisness practice since all tracks downloaded are DRM locked to a single person which precludes a LOT of other
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:2)
Why would this be unfair? It's not like gold farmers refuse to sell to gamers who play for a long time.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
I do wish more MMOs came with a Newgame+ feature, so when you max out one character and roll and alt, they gain levels twice as fast or have some out of the gate bonus. It can be disheartning to switch from your giant monster slaying tweaked out superchar to some level 1 that has to kill bugs and rats with his one skill.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheating (Score:2, Insightful)
Spending $60 on game gold. That's 2x what I paid for the game itself. I could buy 3-4 DVDs for that much, or another 4 months playtime on WoW. What a ridiculous waste of money.
Re:Cheating (Score:2)
It just depends on your outlook.
How long in game time would it take to make/earn the amount of gold purchased? Paying to shortcut that that might be a brilliant use of money for some.
Depends on what value you place on your time (Score:3, Insightful)
You use the resources you have: some people have time, some people have money.
If your time is more valuable to you then your money, you will use your money to minimize the time you have to spend in game. It is an utterly ridiculous waste to time to spend hours and hours grinding away in a videogame when you do not have to.
Its called "grinding" for a reason; and its not because it is fun (in this case :)).
Examine both sides of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, having gotten that out of the way. Consider: how long would it take you to farm the mats for... let's pick a couple things I'm looking at recently: the devilsaur set and/or volcanic and/or stormshroud. Fairly expensive: one person is selling stormshoud for about 130/150 a pop per peice on my server.
Now, I can make good money on the AH, but making that much... that'd take a lot of time. Most people don't even know making money like that on the AH is possible, but reguardless. How much time would it take farming ore, or "farming" the AH to make that much?
Right. Now from the article, 500 gold is what, $60? (I think it is less on my server from in-game spam I get from time to time but who knows.) If I wanted to do some work consulting, or even some overtime, how long would it take me to earn $60?
Heck of a lot less time than it'd take in game that's for sure! In fact, for them it may be a net gain. Spend a couple hours working on cleaning viruses off computers, spend some of that cash on virtual gold, powerlevel up whatever skill you want. Now you have some leftover real cash, leftover virtual cash, met the goal you were pursuing in the game and took less time to do it than you would have just grinding in game.
That's why people do it. It makes economic sense to them. It doesn't matter if they could buy another game: this is the game they want to play.
Clearly cheating... (Score:2, Insightful)
The main problem most MMORPG players have with these gold selling antics is that it ruins the economy of the realms. The gold farmers come and either legitimately farm gold, or more commonly use bots to automate the farming (also against the TOS) 'generating' ex
play? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, somewhere, this meme got into the MMORPG world that players have to "earn" their stuff, preferably through repetitive tasks.
Unfortunately, somehow it works. We all play along and accept it as normal, pretty much like computer crashes (try telling any admin of a 1970s mainframe that regular computer crashes are nothing special).
Yes, it is a shortcut. It most definitely beats having to do the same nonsense another 100 times. It is probably cheaper, as well (i.e. you earn more money in the time you saved than it costs you).
But damn, it should make you re-check your priorities and ask yourself if you're sure you want to sink more money into that game, and why. And whether you're ready to do it again, and again, as it's unlikely that phase of the game was unique.
Yes and no. Mostly no (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really what gets people addicted, not the later grind for resources. _This_ is what MMORPG gamers really want, and unsurprisingly most MMORPG players went to the game which gave them more of this in the beginning. You'll notice the majority isn't on the games which give you the repetitive grind and (near)impossibility to solo from the start. So that blaming it on MMORPG players and some meme is missing the point by a mile.
But unfortunately that only works that way at the lower levels.
The problem again isn't that MMORPG players start demanding something else, but that the MMORPG publisher only has so much funds for game content. And that content has to last you for about 6 months, which is what an average gamer needs to get past the "but I'll lose my online 'friends' and my uber-character if I quit!" phase. Some need less, some stay there for 5 years, but when you turn it all into a statistic, 6 months is sorta where the bathtub curve starts going up one way or the other. So the developper has to stretch that content somehow over 6 months.
And currently the formula is to give you more of it up-front when you join, so they get you addicted, and very very slowly give you less and less from there. Until at the end-game it has already crawled to a start and you need to farm one dungeon daily for months, just so you can enter the next one. At that point, any new content or rewards you're getting is in dilluted to homoepathic doses.
However at that point they're not counting on you actually having fun either. They just count that you're well into the "but I'll lose my online 'friends' and my uber-character if I quit!" phase and busy rationalizing it, so you don't need more than a vague shaddow of a carrot dangled in front of you to stay there. At that point, the rewards and earnings are so dilluted and improbable that they just serve to give you some material to rationalize about, not something that's what MMORPG players as a whole love.
So basically even at this point, blaming MMORPG players and their memes is IMHO missing the whole point by a mile. That isn't what the MMORPG players themselves been asking for, it's just the final act of a cruel scam they've been gradually guided into. And no matter how some may rationalize it as being the meat of the game (humans are damn good at rationalizing taking crap), here's the reality check: that's not what got them addicted to the game during the first 30-40 levels. And they're not in other games which gave them that "meat" up-front, from level 1, either. So don't tell me that their whole personality did an 180 degree turn when reaching level 60, and they suddenly started actually wanting to grind for weeks even for a token reward.
Yes, it should make everyone rethink their priorities, and in truth it _eventually_ does. That's why people do eventually leave.
Re:Yes and no. Mostly no (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm level 60. When I want to play, I either go
a) Kill things or players that are challenging for fun.
b) Complete quests that sound interesting (or maybe have a neat item).
or
c) Grab a couple guildmates and run an instance, which for the most part is fun and challenging, and possibly gets me some loot.
None of these require that I buy gold, grind e
Depends (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Linden has pretty much figured out the second step on the road to Profit!!!, but since it's at the expense of pretty much everyone who otherwise might be interested in the game, I also dare say that they won't be able to continue with this forever.
But then, maybe that's not what they want to do, anyway - a few millions right here and now are nice enough already, right?
Re:Depends (Score:2)
Re:Depends (Score:2)
The only 'object' of second life is to buy virtual things. There is no *amazing* breakthrough in commercial video gaming.
The engine is old, the graphics and models are tired, and it sucks an AMAZING amount of bandwith.
And guess what
25 mins into my first (and only) experience with Second life, I 'bought' a tshirt with my 'allowence' money.
It has the ability to ruin the game (Score:5, Insightful)
It does affect me in a MMORPG.
Now, sure, you have an item I don't. That's not the problem. It's also no problem if you're just a lucky bastard who decides to sell his once in a lifetime find on EBay.
The problem starts with commercial farming.
Worst problem are non-instanced encounters. Commercial and organized farmers can and do monopolize important spawns. They do have the key equipment, they do know where to be when and they do know how to cooperate. In other words, as a normal vanilla player with a normal vanilla guild (if any), you have NO chance to get that item into your hands.
Unless you pay for it.
Now, this problem can be remedied with instances. Go there with your guild and eventually you can have the item, too. No farming guild can keep you from getting it.
Another problem with farmers: Inflation. When a ton of money is pumped into the system, prices go up. I buy XXX money for YY$. So I have XXX. Would take me 2 weeks to get, and if I had to invest the time, I'd probably think twice. But who cares? 200 for a sword worth 20? That's about 3 bucks, one pack of cigs less and I can do it. Mine!
Over time, the only people able to afford certain items will be those that farm like crazy or those buying money from farmers. You, the ordinary player who doesn't want or can't spend real money for virtual cash, you're out of the loop.
Re:It has the ability to ruin the game (Score:2)
On the other hand, crystal prices were up. They went up 70% in the time I played the game.
It wasn't the main reason I stopped playing, but it was #2 or #3.
In WoW, the farmers are getting out of hand. It used to be one or two here and there, and
Neither (Score:2, Insightful)
It's neither. It's just simple economics. The MMO world currency has real value to the players. So it is exchanged for real money. That's the whole idea behind currency, after all.
It doesn't matter if you don't think it's fair. A M:TG player can build a deck by buying each card individually -- nobody says they should be forced to buy booster packs until they uncover all the individual cards they want.
It doesn't matter if you think that the MMO gold is jus
Re:Neither (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Neither (Score:2)
Says you. So play a game where the designer encourages rather than discourages real-world trade in items. They've been designed so that in-game mechanics make the game balanced taking into account the influence of real-world trade.
On the other hand, for various reasons I consider legitimate and important, I would rather play a game where I know that real-world wealth has no effect on status in-game. A large proportion of MMORPG players share my desire. Thus, Blizzard and other designers have opted to disco
Re:Neither (Score:2)
Re:Neither (Score:2)
It's a game, with established rules. It's not Real Life, hell, most of them aren't even Second Life
Next time I sit down and play Risk, would it be OK for me to pay cash to one of the players to not attack me, or to give me some of his armies/cards? Is that cheating, or not?
Most MMORPGs are intended to have everyone on equal footing, and to let differences in how people play the game define the success of their character. Gold-buying circumvents this,
Neither... (Score:2)
The saying "More money than brains" really can apply to this..
If you need to spend extra cash to have fun (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that MMORPGs are huge time sinks, and lots of people don't have the time to spend on them. If you can have fun playing, then I suggest that you just settle for never being rich, and never having the very best items. If you can't have fun without being rich and having the best loot, may I suggest another genre?
Re:If you need to spend extra cash to have fun (Score:2, Insightful)
The irony of this statement is killing me.
Re:If you need to spend extra cash to have fun (Score:2)
The level 10 boars part seems just odd to me. It takes about two evenings (maybe six-eight hours) to get get to level 10 for a completely new player. That can't be enough time for someone to get frustrated, yet be so obsessed with the game he wants to buy gold. A
The gold-buying concept applied to other games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having "family game night" with the kids? Slip the wife a little hair-salon money in exchange for having your Candyland character halfway up the board before the game even starts! Your children might end up hating you, but victory will be yours at all costs!!
Playing in a competitive chess tournament? How about for a small extra fee you could buy yourself a few extra pawns, and maybe a spare queen or two? Who couldn't use a few extras, just in case?
Don't feel like doing your homework? Simply hand in an empty paper with a cheque taped to the back and see if teacher won't leave the red marker in the desk drawer that day.
Super Bowl time again? Whichever team is the first to pay for that big urban renewal project in the hosting city gets 10 bonus happy lucky points before the game even starts!
What about that grandest of all competitions, the Olympics? Have a big ice-skating competition coming up but you're getting cold feet? Why not pay your bodyguard to make sure the competion really "breaks a leg", if you get my drift.
Lionel Hutz says... (Score:2)
This is a very similar case to the recent Valve vs. Subway shenanegans where an ad agency showed virtual billboards in Counterstrike games. Valve sued them and won very easily.
Gold farmers are LUCKY to simply be banned from the game. They could be sued (if they reside in the same country as Blizzard, I suppose).
The obvious response (Score:2)
If I want to play in a world where the rich kids get all the cool toys without putting in any effort... I'll go outside.
Buying Gold Sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheating. Let's examine the primary arguments that attempt to legitimize the practice of buying gold rather than earning it in-game:
"I don't have time in real life to spend hours doing repetitive stuff to earn gold."
Sounds like impatient instant-gratification whining. There are lots of fun and non-repetitive ways to earn gold in most MMORPGs -- try to be imaginative (in WoW, try playing the Auction House or using roleplaying to sell goods or services). I have a full-time job as an engineer, a girlfriend
No more boar-skinning? (Score:5, Funny)
But, but...
It was for the boar-skinning that I signed up!
Nothing beats sitting in the comfort of my mom's basement, skinning virtual boar! Every day, I thank God that I live in an age when the delights of boar-skinning can be achieved so readily.
Real-world tax implications? (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRS doesn't distinguish between "income" due to hobby and "income" due to work. If you make quilts for fun, but you sell them because you don't have room for any more quilts in the house, the money you get for the quilts is still considered income.
If you do something, and someone gives you an item with value (for example, a plumber fixes a painter's toilet, and is given a painting) the value of that painting at the time of the exchange is considered income.
If you play a game and get in-game "e-gold", and that e-gold has value outside the game (as it does in this case) then the IRS may well consider the e-gold taxable income in the amount it could be sold for in real world money - whether you actually ever sell it or not.
The NPR correspondent made a number of phone calls to the IRS, and the consensus was that the e-gold was likely taxable income. They suggested he file as if it were, and see what happens. He ended the piece saying that it wasn't going to be him who brought this issue to the IRS's attention in writing, and left it at that.
Re:Real-world tax implications? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it does, but both are taxed. If you claim "hobby income" you can deduct "hobby losses", but "hobby losses" can never exceed "hobby income", unlike business losses which can exceed income and reduce your tax bill.
Because of this, very few people use the hobby income rules, instead opting to just treat their hobby as a business if it is enough income that they are afraid the IRS might catch on.
IANATL (tax advisor), bu
Re:Real-world tax implications? (Score:2)
So, if I'm playing Monopoly, and I slip the banker five US dollars for $2000 in monopoly money, are all monopoly transactions thereafter taxable?
Hell, you can buy a stack o
Re:Real-world tax implications? (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this different from making a quilt and not selling it? Clearly, if you sell game gold, it is taxable income. But game gold (like a quilt) is not taxable until you sell it.
I guess it might be "inventory" - I don't know what the rules are for that.
Now whether it is earned income or capital gains may be trickier, perhaps depending on how you acquired it.
Neither cheating nor shortcut (Score:2)
What's the solution? The Second Life folks seem to have a good one but I suspect it's not readily transportable to other types of worlds. Perhaps the solution for other types of worlds is to base the advan
time IS money (Score:2)
How is money any different? If someone wants to allocate more money (resources) to the game how is that any different from them allocating more time?
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Re:time IS money (Score:2)
If someone wants to allocate more money (resources) to the game how is that any different from them allocating more time?
Because time spent playing (by the player, in real life) equals time spent by the character -- thus, the character is actually doing something to earn his or her money or items. Money spent in real life to buy gold or items is disjoint from the game (what did your character do to earn that gold or item?).
Re:time IS money (Score:2)
The player either spent time playing the game or spent money buying gold. The availability of time to play WoW is just as disjoint from the game as the amount of real world USD available to buy virtual gold. One of the main reasons I don't play on-line RPGs is precisely this: it's obnoxious to me that I
Re:time IS money (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I'm smarter and a better gamer, even if I have more talent for the game it doesn't matter: the game gives preferential skills/stats/etc to people with an extreme excess of time on their hands (or no time management skills).
This is where most of the arguments in this thread fail. Yes, ceteris paribus, spending more time equals better character stats and better items. However:
Timesaver, definately (Score:2)
One thing to keep in mind about gold sellers is that, even if you're repeatedly doing end-game content in a raiding guild.... you're usually NOT making much money.
Raiding in WoW costs money. Repair bills (especially while learning), consumables (the 2hour flasks cost quite a bit in mats, everyone needs stacks of greater fire prot and greater healing for MC, stacks upon stacks of mana pots for all the casters, etc, etc), not to mention the various miscellanious class costs (candles & other reagents, fo
It's just a way to get started for the friendless. (Score:2)
Cheating is defined... (Score:2)
Is buying gold banned in the EULA? Did you agree not to buy gold when you installed/logged on/set up a user account? If so, it's cheating.
Personally, I think people who buy gold are short-changing themselves of the full game experience. And if the game is too arduous, or too boring for them without buying gold, then they should be playing a different game, which might lead to more MMORPGs without the grind.
Gold-buying kills game economics for those who don't buy gold. It t
Shortcutting IS cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's both (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying gold is a fairly cheap entertainment investment. A stereotypical MMO gamer may pay $15/month for a single account and play about 20 hours per week. That works out to about $0.50 for a three hour play session. Compare that to $10 for bowling, $10 for a movie, $15 for dinner, $30-50 for a play, $50 for a sports ticket and it's easy to see why many gamers feel that MMO's provide very cheap entertainment. Spending $50 on gold every now and then still leaves them on the low side of recreational spending.
Most importantly, the argument that bought achievements mean less than earned achievements remains too weak to alter public behavior. A store bought rug certainly carries less "meaning" than a rug you made yourself, yet most people are unwilling to devote the time and effort to weaving their own rugs. Rug weaving is arguably more interesting than gold farming (some people choose it as a hobby in itself), yet most people still prefer to avoid the issue by purchasing one themselves. In the end, if we ignore the "cheating" aspect of gold purchasing, it is no different than paying a neighborhood kid to mow your lawn for you.
Gold purchasing is here to stay... as long as there are MMO gamers willing to deal in US dollars to acquire things they want. Because developers are paying attention to this it's probably only a matter of time before we see more systems like Sony's marketplace crop up. After all, why should companies let the gold farmers capture profit that they could be earning themselves? Beyond that, I wouldn't be surprised if it was only a matter of time until western MMO's are completely converted to the Free-To-Play microtransation models popular in asian MMO's. It doesn't take much imagination to invision a Star Wars Galaxies 2 where your character account is linked to a checking account, and you have the option to buy things from NPC vendors for either ingame credits, or out of game dollars - say $50 for 5 premium pearls and a unique hologram.
Re:It's both (Score:2)
Heh (Score:2)
Personally, I prefer the answer, "Find a new guild."
Cheating horrid game design. (Score:2)
WOW was close to getting it right with Bind on pickup items, yet many great items are not this way leading to a market. Since most of these items are random drops (world drops - % chance off anything in level range) it rewards those who have the most time to spend in the game.
Compare the cost to buy gold versus the time you would have to invest and for many people becomes a no
...or just bloody stupid (Score:2)
So many MMORPG players seem to be able to produce these kind of almost convincing, hand-waving pseudo-explanations that almost justify why buying gold is OK: I think they are mostly trying to convince themselves.
Could someone equate (Score:2)
Cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought up a cool item (a lightning sword or something) and said, "Cool! I'll write it up and use it in our next session!" He got really mad, and said you can't just make stuff up and start to use it. You have to go on a quest, win it through serious effort and struggle.
I reminded him that it's all make-believe anyway, and why couldn't I just magically get this? He insisted it wasn't the same, that it wasn't right. If I had obtained it through a big quest worthy of such an item, that would be OK, but just suddenly having it wasn't. I suggested that I make up some long story about a tremendous quest that I had gamed with another group, which culminated in me having the item. "Not the same!", he insisted.
I was irritated at the time, because I really wanted the cool item, but now, I see that he was right. If you don't play by the rules, then the game is no challenge, and if you aren't playing for the challenge, to test your skill and creativity and endurance, then you are just there for the scenery, a tourist watching a movie.
Ignoring the rules makes any game go faster, and let's you score better, but so what? Your drive off the tee goes into the rough? Pick up the ball and carry it to the hole... hole in one! It's fourth and 16 on your own 9 yard line? Give yourself twelve extra downs in the possession... touchdown! You're only 18 miles into the marathon, and your legs are giving out? Take a shortcut through central park... first place!
If you don't want to actually play the game, why pretend to be a player?
Hm, news? (Score:2)
Look, wherever 2 people are competing, the playing field is NEVER precisely even.
Person A might be unemployed and living at mom & dad's, so he can spend 12 hours a day 'perfecting' his game, and farming 000's of trashmobs for phat lewt drops; player B might have to work 60 hours a week, and use the game as relaxing escapism.
The only problem comes when B feels he should/needs to compete with A. He ca
The choice for players is simple. (Score:4, Funny)
Option 1 - Do the in-game "work" to earn the rewards.>
Result - No time for a date.
Option 2 - Buy the gold instead.br> Result - No money for a date.
Option 3 - Realize WoW is a time sucking click-sink. Result - Time and money for a date.
Of course it is cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
Monopoly
Axis & Allies
Checkers
Chess
Imagine being able to bring use real cash to buy extra game money or pieces.
Hmm. I need some $300 dollars more to buy that hotel on boardwalk- okay, I'll just put down $3.00 of real money to buy $3000 game money. Wow- this is so much fun- this game of monopoly is so much faster and I'm much more likely to win since I have $100 in my pocket and you only have $20.
Unless the game itself explicitly allows you to buy items with cash, then buying gold this way is cheating.
---
It can't be stopped tho. So any game that has a market means that normal people are playing in a game where people are rampantly cheating all around them. And the games are fundamentally unfair in several ways:
1) If you don't have to work... you win.
2) If you can log on just an hour earlier than the majority of the players.. you win if critical content is not instanced.
3) If you start the game with a group of friends from a previous game- you have a huge advantage.
These are advantages but they are not cheating. Buying gold and equipment with real world money means you are not playing the game (unless the games rules explicitly allow you to purchase items with real cash in game).
Bad Investment (Score:4, Funny)
"I bought gold last week. You're reading the Business section, so that may not sound unusual. However, the purchase wasn't for my investment portfolio. And I'm not talking about real gold, either. But I did plunk down $60 of cold, hard cash in return for 500 virtual gold pieces for World of Warcraft, Blizzard's best-selling massively multiplayer online (MMO) adventure game."
Given that you can get 1000 gold for less than $60 now in WoW, I'd say he didn't make a very good investment. I'd hate to see his real portfolio.
If they say it is cheating, it is cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the company that runs the game says it is cheating, it IS cheating. they make the rules
If the company that develops the game says it isn't cheating, then its not and have at it. Though, paying real world money to get virtual money that is worthless is, in my opinion, stupid.
braindead (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it this way:
1) You pay a monthly subscription fee to play the game.
2) You find aspects of the game so awful you'll pay other people real money to releive you of the burden of actually playing the game.
Meanwhile, this encourages true no-lifers and/or impoverished asians to try to make a real world income by satisfying your desire not to have to play the game you subscribe to. Which floods the game with piles of greedy morons who make the game less enjoyable for those who do actually enjoy playing it.
Here's a suggestion: Cancel your subscription and play something you actually look forward to playing. There are surely more satisfying uses of your time.
Why are you playing a game that's 80% treadmill if you hate the treadmill? The Mmog is a complete package - and you hate most of it. To get to the bits you like, your character has to slog through the bits you don't - paying someone else to do it is ridiculous.
You wouldn't sign up to a book club (where you read a book and meet to talk about it) if you hated the books they chose most of the time. And what you're doing is even dumber, you're paying someone else to read the books for you, just so you can stay in the book club.
It's all about time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the kicker.
It's a game I enjoy playing!
I like to be happy. I like to smile. I like to do things I enjoy.
I don't like to be overly frustrated with tedious tasks. I don't like to get smacked down by people who can sit at home all day and farm eq/gold. I don't care for it, it makes my 14$ a month pointless.
I enjoy playing WoW, I just don't have tons of time for it. I understand that the people at blizzard cannot make a game that suits everyones schedule. I don't hold this aganist them, and I think it's probably better that it takes a long time to do these events. (The end level stuff can't be bought in the Auction House for the most part, so buying gold only really helps you level to 60 and buy mounts OR help you make more money on top of it.. so really gameplay at the end is about the same)If these raids and such at the end didn't take time and strategy it would degrade the gameplay. Even if you're wearing epic equipment for some of the last raids.. if someone slips, you all die. It should be hard, it should take a long time. I don't refute that at all. But i'll be buying my time back from a chinese sweatshop TYVM. So while you guys are whining ingame and skinning boars. I'll logon, waste some time raiding or playing battlegrounds with my great eq. Have a GREAT time.. then just go hangout with my friends, family, whatever i feel like doing in my free time. time i BOUGHT..
One guy compared spending money on WoW gold to hiring a cleaning service. I agree with him wholeheartedly. He got well.. flamed for it.. since it's a game? as if we don't understand what we're spending money on? I know what i'm spending money on, i made a concious effort to spend it. I've enjoyed it immensely when logged on. I bet he did too. So why flame him for that? It's a service. We're just buying a service. When i look at money vs time in my life, i'd rather drop the 60$ than take the time away from other things i like to do.
So if i'm so strapped for time, maybe i shouldn't play?
The thing is i WANT to play and i don't feel like any smartmouth answer like "you should just not play" fixes anything...
None of us have THAT much time here anyway. Do what makes you laugh, do what you enjoy, and don't let hateful whiney people take away your time. If there's a market for this service use it if you want too, depends what doing the things you enjoy (all of them) is worth to you.
Personally i want to do as much as i can. So look, selfish me buys gold.. and has a GREAT time! Then logs off, and still has a great one in RL.
Cheers,
=D
Not So Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
-- I have a 6mbit cable connection, which is really going to allow me to advance in the game much faster than players limited to a modem or crappy DSL connection. Believe me, there are plenty of players out there using modem connections, I've played with them, and I can literally run circles around them while they die over and over, which ends up costing them serious money and time.
-- Having a slower video card doesn't handicap you as much, but does to some extent. You have more control over your video settings to even things out than when it comes to your connection, but it certainly helps to have a top-of-the-line video card that allows me to easily zoom out and see farther away than other players.
-- Getting a guild together made up of high level Real-Life friends gives you a HUGE advantage over other solo players like me. Sure, you can just make the friends online, but it's a lot easier if you already have a group of level 60 geeks (especially family members) waiting to help you almost any time you want. I've been seriously left in the dust because of this many times, ESPECIALLY when it comes to WoW objectives that are mostly based on gold (epic mount, mount, etc.). I've seen players in a guild who would literally give 100-500 gold to members based solely on the fact they are Real-Life family members. Is nepotism any less cheating than buying gold from a gold farmer? I don't think so.
I think the first and especially third points are, by far, the most common way that a random level 1 player can get to level 60 in a couple of weeks. I've moved up a couple of high-end levels (mid to high 50's) in an hour or so each just by tagging along with level 60's who were just bored and wanted to show me how much butt they could kick.
I also think that the fact that getting a big gold hand-out from a family member or simply buying it with real world money shows there are serious flaws in the gameplay of WoW itself. Anything that costs a huge amount of gold or has ridiculous drop percentages is just Blizzard's way of telling you, "Hey, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel in content here, so just bite the bullet and start grindin'!".
Grinding is a substitute for good game content, and WoW has been (and still is) lacking a lot of good game content in the high levels (level 40+) for a long time.
Not to mention how many high level quests are so bugged that you have to wait weeks to do them. Some of the quests allow you to make stupid mistakes that can easily be solved with a bunch of gold, which encourages more gold begging/buying. Many high level quests are blatant in how they expect you to grind or waste huge amounts of time gathering crap to complete the quest. Most people just buy the crap to complete the quest in a few minutes.
The real problem with WoW is that they set up the content so that you can easily advance by cheating. Then they're surprised when people actually do cheat?!?!?
Give me a break, Blizzard, come up with more/better/less buggy content, then you can complain more about cheating (which is probably why you don't hear Blizzard complaining too much about it).
Oh and, in the meantime, if you're going to crack down on cheaters who buy gold from gold farmers, why don't you just start regulating/restricting all sales/transfers/trades of 100 gold or more in the game? Then you'll stop ALL the B.S....
Err - ripped off? (Score:5, Funny)
The ad banner just beneath his article :
1000 gold for $34.99
nuff said
Re:Three Things (Score:2)
Re:Three Things (Score:2)
Re:Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo.
I'd go a step farther and say it's a sign of bad game design. If you, as a player, find yourself seriously thinking about paying someone else to play the game for you, that means that the game has stopped being a game and started being a chore. If I enjoy something, I'm not going to pay someone else to go enjoy it for me. But if it bores me, then I might be willing to pay someone to do it so I don't have to.
Is gold buying cheating? Almost certainly, in the same way that slipping someone $5 real world currency for Boardwalk would be cheating in Monopoly. There are rules that you're supposed to follow, and buying gold is breaking them.
But it's also a time saver. Instead of having to camp some stupid mob for hours on end to get your Jujitsu Gi, you instead pay someone to camp some stupid mob for hours on end, thereby skipping the boring part.
When a game has people willing to pay good money not to have to play the boring parts, that's a sign that the game has problems. Gold buying is both cheating and a time saver - and a sign of poor game design.
Re:The problem (Score:2)
Anyone could easily offer a service where I go on quests for a player in order to gain level (at least I presume so. Don't play MMOs), but nobody would bother because it would be taking away their fun.
This exact service is for sale. [ige.com] That's a statement for how much dedicated effort is required--the highest level the game affords can be acquired in 18-21 days of (presumably) 24/7 play, for a mere $300.
If I were to offer such a service, I just couldn't compete; I can't afford to earn only $300 in three wee
Re:The problem (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know?