Posts Tagged ‘real-money-trading’

Where do you stand on RMT?

16 May 2012 | 7 Comments » | Mike

We were told by developers and publishers over the years that real-money-trading was a scourge on online gaming and ruined the experience for everyone. Rules were added to the term and conditions for just about every game to make sure that everyone knew it was not allowed and wouldn’t be tolerated. Those that did not heed the warning would risk their account being banned forever.

It seems that in the end, money rules and no one really cares whether or not real-money-trading ruins games or not.  Sony Online Entertainment was the first to allow item and account selling for Everquest and Everquest 2, but shut-down the service in early 2008. Probably because of the enormous fees they charged and sellers decided the blackmarket was better for them.

Yesterday Diablo 3 launched with it’s own RMT auction house, even though Blizzard has been railing against RMT for years. It seems the real issue wasn’t that it ruined their games, but they weren’t getting a cut of the cash.

Blizzard has been adamant about their game accounts, stating time and time again, that they are the owners of the accounts and not the players, but by allowing players to buy and sell accounts to each other, isn’t Blizzard indirectly conceding they really aren’t the owners?

What Blizzard is trying to get away with here is renting you an online account, while making you pay for the game. If I paid for the game and the game requires me to make an online account to use it, then you can’t say I don’t own that account.  Otherwise I cannot gain access to the game which I paid for.

Having said that, it would be reasonable to say that since I purchased the game, and the game requires an online account, then I own that online account. Going a step further, I should then be able to sell my account to anyone I want without using Blizzard’s auction system.

Where do you guys stand in the new RMT world? Is what’s good for the goose, good for the gander? Does Blizzard have any leg to stand on when it comes to RMT and players selling their accounts and items privately? Or do you believe that RMT still ruins games?

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions Explained: RMT Included

20 March 2012 | No Comments » | Mike


Today ArenaNet revealed more details about Guild Wars 2‘s microtransaction item-store, revealing that it will allow players to participate in real-money-trading (RMT).

The basic system works on three currencies: gold, gems, and karma. The karma currency is not trade-able, and is only used for unique in-game rewards. However, the gold and gems currencies can be traded freely; with gems being purchasable with real money, and are the only accepted currency in the item-store.  This works similar to EVE Online‘s PLEX system, but goes a bit further.

With EVE‘s system, PLEX can only be used for one thing: to add game-time to your account. Players can purchase extra PLEX, and sell it in-game to players, who can then purchase it with in-game credits. This gives players a way to play EVE Online free, if they’re good at making money in-game.

Guild Wars 2 system is similar, but instead of one purchasable item, it gives players an entire item-store to buy things with.  This also creates a dynamic between the two currencies, as gold will always fluctuate in value, while gems will not. The reason being, that the price of items in the item-store are a lot more consistent than items sold in-game by other players.

This system then creates a sub-market that will actually allow players to make, potentially, huge profits by constantly trading gold for gems. When the value of gold is high, trade it all for gems. As the value drops, trade your gems back to gold, and depending on the fluctuation, you’ll get more gold back then what you started with.

The good news is that the item-store will only sell cosmetic items and items to speed up certain in-game processes; most likely EXP boosts and things of that nature. ArenaNet made the following statement about selling items that give players any sort of advantage,

But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time

The reasoning behind this move is to prevent gold farmers from ruining the game as they’ve done with other MMORPGs. By allowing the players themselves to buy and sell gold, it destroys the RMT blackmarket.

As far as I’m concerned, ArenaNet can do no wrong. The system sounds great, and I’m even more excited for GW2; if that’s even possible.

Blizzard Jumping onto the Free-to play Bandwagon?

23 February 2012 | No Comments » | Mike

Develop Online is reporting that Blizzard is planning on entering the free-to-play market with an unannounced game, but they fail to mention where they came up with this information.

Blizzard Entertainment is the next major games studio to embrace free-to-play and will apply the model in an upcoming, as yet unannounced game, Develop understands.

After Diablo 3, Blizzard’s next game, Blizzard DOTA, is a very good candidate for going F2P, seeing as every DOTA clone to-date uses that model; however, it’s not an unannounced game. This leaves, of course, Blizzard’s secret MMORPG: “Project Titan”. Although, with the Blizzard name behind it, I would see no reason as to why they wouldn’t stick with a subscription model. This could be accredited to Blizzard plans to expand their RMT (real-money-trading) market, and plans on turning “Project Titan” into something similar to D3.

Blizzard COO Paul Sams previously mentioned at BlizzCon 2011 that the possibility is there for a F2P game, stating:

“It certainly is possible, if we find ourselves in that circumstance, or if we come up with a game where we think that’s the right business model, the most appropriate for players to experience it,

We don’t have any opposition to the concept, it’s just that at this point we haven’t decided to make a game where that is the model. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t.”

So while it’s probably very likely that Blizzard will enter the F2P market within the next few years, your guess is as good as mine to which game will be their first.