It isn't so much as it being bad to buy gold. It's the way they go about doing it. If the problem wereto really go away, WOW should just have programmed a way for the developers and programmers maintaining the MMO to spawn and sell gold, thus opening up another way for Blizzard, and any other MMO company to make money. Many of these types of games only really require time and money. So, if i have extra money, but little time, why not buy the gold? It balances out in the end, with some people having no extra money, but plenty of time. WOW and other MMO's should just have a a system in place to sell it themselves.

Does anyone ever read EULAs anymore anyway? I can't really remember taking half of the EULAs serious, either way.

Either way, I'm surprised that some companies don't just do this themselves, and work the game mechanics to make damn well sure that the game doesn't get unbalanced from "bought" items, gold, and experience.

The problem is not the farming per se... it's the anti-social behavior that goes along with the farming -- kill stealing, monopolizing spawns, etc. If you're the guy out there playing the game for fun and you can't complete a mission/quest because some farmer is hogging the encounter to drum up cash... that's when it becomes an issue that effects everyone.

Obviously individual games have instituted different ways of dealing with this, but none of them seem to be foolproof.

Okay, unless you played FFXI from launch, do not talk about gold farming. The economy in that game is now so horrendously screwed by gil sellers that it will never recover, even if they stop selling gold.

Heh Sordino, I see your point and feel your pain, but I actually blame the game designers for this. Always I hear from the designers and creators of MMOs at conferences like GDC "well, we didn't design the game with gold farmers in mind", or something similar.

I think that is just BAD game design and it is the job of the designers to create an in-game economy which can handle large influxes of currency as they are just naive if they think that their game wouldn't be targeted by farmers. All MMOs are targeted by farmers and game designers need to take this into account when they create their game instead of endlessly complain that "things would be fine if nobody did this".

What these companies should be doing is instead of having game designers create these in-game economies they should hire economics and people who are experts in this field to design their economies. That is the real issue, many of these MMOs are designing their economies as they would function in a "perfect" environment, or as they would work in a single-player game. But the second they release their MMO into the global market they are subject to the economic factors found in the "real world" and their fantasy perfect economic environments no longer exist.

Game companies complaining that "it's not their fault" need to grow up and realize that they are no longer playing in a sandbox and that their MMOs need to withstand a real world economic environment.

Welcome to our Brave New World.

This is such a complex issue on so many levels.
It's not just a simple matter of who owns the virtual gold, it's a cultural and philosophical dilemma.
here in the West it's easy to talk about the morality of goldfarming, but I suspect the people in second world countries who have found a way to tap into all the wealth we throw around see it differently.

Let's face it, if you had their lifestyle and were able to make money from a game, selling pretend money to rich westerners, wouldn't you do it as well?

The people who boasted about games with six billion potential players may not have thought through all the ramifications.

Steve, how would an ecomomist prevent gold farming? There is no way any economist would be able to stop this problem just by know or studying economic theories. It is just not possible. Before you answer this question, take into consideration the following points:

1. no possible way of stoping people from collecting more gold than what they need to collect.
2. no possible way of stoping people from overpricing a rare item that drop for them.
3. no possible way of preventing people paying so much gold for an over priced item nor preventing them from getting the gold because of what in #1 can do for them with their over collected gold.

There is only one way to do things agains gold farmers and it's by regulating, and it does not require an economist. Let people collect all the gold they can collect, but program into the system what the maximum of an item will be. So, if a vendor would sell that item for 5g, then at the AH or from the trade window, all players could sell that for 5g, or the maximum of 10g for being so lucky of getting that rare drop that no vendor sells.

To me, this already seem implausible, because the dictating part from the devs themselves would make the game less free. I have an idea for controling this problem from an angle that prevents the need for anyone to farm gold and hope to develop it, but targeting the gold farmers themselves begins the process of mom and dad helping you play them game under their direct protection, when it should be those with the gold who should wisen up and learn economics themselves. We practice economics everyday when we go to the store and what-not, but this is not applied in the game by the majority, and while some may practice it, they lose the chance of not having what they wanted because of another player wreckless participation in the MMO ecomomics.

At an auction, no one can prevent anyone from biding on a car, hat, art, etc., if they have the money to keep out bidding the rest of the people who want it as well.

Darkfall, a full PvP, completely open loot game will be nearly ungoldfarmable.

http://www.darkfallonline.com/

it all comes down to wether it bothers you that kids make your clothing in another country... if it doesnt bother you, you probably dont care how or where the gold comes from that you buy as long as its there.

I love how people say its not a bad thing, it ruins economies and there is proof! look at the oldest mmos out there with the longest running econmies... youll see everything is massively inflated, now if everyone buys gold this isnt a problem.

but everyone doesnt and that is the problem.

I don't really like the "I have a busy real life I dont have the time to do this" argument. If you play piano but dont have the time to learn... is it ok to hire someone to do your recitals?

If your hobby is mmo's then youll play with that toy in the method it was intended. If your just a casualist that has no respect for the rules... then dont pretend to care about mmo's, its just a competition to you to have the best stuff, and your buying the win.

I remember conversations on the forums about the legalities of roms and emulators, and how steve was very against it. But has no problem breaking eulas. You can argue the laws and say i found a loophole... but realize even us laws dont make total sense, that doesnt make it any less of something to follow if your a citizen.

The question is, do you respect mmos or are you just waving around a cyber weine in your phat ill gotten loots?

Roms and emulators are illegal according to Federal copyright law. Game EULA are not Federal law. That is the difference. Breaking a game's EULA, many of which have completely illegal and non-enforceable language in them, is a different matter. If I feel that an EULA has illegal language then I will break it (keep in mind that have written hundreds of these myself and I still have a lawyer on retainer who helped me write many of these, so I know which sections are total BS).

As for the "hiring someone to play the piano during your recitals", that is apples and oranges. Playing the piano is a skill, playing WoW is a recreational game. If I want to skip to the end of a book I am reading, I can do that. If I want to skip to the end of a DVD movie, I can do that. If to skip ahead to the end of a game, I should be able to do that as well. Most games have "cheat codes" to allow you to do this. Most MMOs don't allow this, hence the appearance of farmers, they are providing a service that people WANT.

The thing is MMOs can design their games so that farmers have little to no influence within the game. Guild Wars does a great job at making the 3rd party MMO market nearly non-existent. Since you can start the game as level 20 (the highest level) with a fully decked out character, and the in-game economy is based upon worldwide supply and demand, farmers have nearly no influence on this game. And this game has more than a million users worldwide.

It is possible to design an MMO that can balance all of these factors, but the MMO designers need to realize that their game will be influenced by outside economic factors.

RE: Auz's comment

1. Why coulden't there be a way to stop people from collecting too much gold (just look at a recent zelda game - you are capped at a certain ammount of rubies until you get a larger wallet, preventing you from buying certain items).

2. every item in Wow for instance has a certain cost from merchants and sell to merchants value (about 1/4 of buy to sell i think) why not just cap selling items to that same limit (or at most 2x it)

3. again there are fixed prices for almost all items to merchants already set - just use them.

also why couldn't there just be taxes on income like in the "real world" so if you make 2g a month you pay 20s in tax but if you make 2000g a month there is 1000g in tax (just 1 idea)
also make picking up items that are say 5-10 levels above your own impossible to trade for or pick up and every point you made seems to be made mute

sorry for my horrible spelling

Jon

Jon

1- if you collect X amount of gold and can't have Y amount on you, you have banks for what ever you can't carry with you. MMO have to allow you to hold as much gold as possible, if it's in the RPG path. When it comes to collecting things from gold to weapons and other kinds of items or just raw goods, MMORPG must allow you to hold everything you find to some extent that is manageable by a single individual. It is the purpose of rpg to build riches besides power, and having lots of gold is one way. The problem presented by Steve is that those with such riches in the game can make it a real life fortune (or at least allow someone to have money for school or daily food and care), and although we dont need to care who makes money out of virtual money, it upsets the in-game economy, while game company like blizz feels cheated out of money too.

2. your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd point tackle the example I used as an explication of the problem presented by Steve, and I refuted them myself... hope you are not try to refute on top of my own refuting- will take it as you showing an alternate refutation to my own.

3. take this #1 as a reason why I can't meet your argument, as a game such as Zelda is out of context with the gold problems that occur in MMO.

People are asking why the companies don't do it directly but Sony does on their Exchange:

http://stationexchange.station.sony.com/

Well I guess it's a little different because they don't sell the items directly. They allow in-game items and coin to be auctioned for cash - and then they take a cut.

Yeah, except the way Sony's system works is that you can only purchase stuff on a certain server. And most people who play on that server buy stuff, so it doesn't matter.

It wouldn't nearly be such a problem is NPC's weren't giving money away. What's happening now is that more and more gold is pumped in the system that people trade to real life cash. This causes a serious inflation that is speeding up very fast. It's a vicious circle. Gold loses it's worth becasue there is too much gold so to counter this, people get even more gold which is worth just a little less.

Blizz really needs to fix their economical problems by not giving any gold away.

Now there is the arguement that time = gold, but gold is't time. Thus people are putting more and more time into the game in order to get enough gold for their stuff.

It's like a country that continues to print money to counter their inflation.

Farmers wouldn't hurt is there was nothing to farm...

Blizz (and other devs with the same problems) needs to look at this problem very seriously and do something about it!

RE: P4p3Rc1iP

I agree with your observation, son of R2D2 and 3CPO, but it would not be a realistic experience to have an NPC human who is a thief not drop some monetary loot for you. Controling that is to automatically take away casual happenings that should be expected. For while you are role-playing, you should expect to find monies and other things from NPC during your adventures. Else you are role-playing in a field empty of probable things that may happen in real life.

You state that farmer wouldn't hurt if there was nothing to farm. Everyone farms, but the concern here is on those that exploit farming for real money. I've thought of several solutions for this problem, but my favorite is one that came to mind in a comical way:

1. farmer surveys an area to farm.

2. everyone around the area of this farmer is going to know what that he is a farmer.

3. besides gamers, there should be NPC bandits who also become aware of any farmers in the area (the fatter the purse the louder the noise in the field).

4. once the game's A.I. marks the farmer as a target who has lots of gold on him, NPCs will attack him, and...

5. any player in the area is alerted to the fact that there is a farmer on the run.

6. the farmer glows with a gold light all over him, flashing, some NPC wizard thief curses him with this light.

7. once he is killed NPC bandits loot back the gold, or

8. if players caught the farmer before the NPCs then he gets a share of the loot, but to the minimal, else if he accepts it all NPC will hear the sound of the coins in his purse and mark him as well.

With so much to deal with, which puts you at risk of losing more than what you farmed, farming will be avoided or at least controled enough to delay extreme farming.

Gold sellers are fine, ppl need cash in game, but have a life, or a job, get use to it.. life isnt fair, nor are games, or else we'd all be as boring and annoying as polliticians.

Steve its just a simple fact that the company doesn't want people to sell gold or buy gold because of these reasons

1. Gold farming gives a extremely unfair advantage to those of us who don't have loads of cash.

2. The Company that makes the MMO gets no credit for the selling of the gold which is a game they made.

3. Gold farming ALWAYS results in a extremly broken economy for everyone since one rich kid could just buy out everything.

4. Gold farming removes the immersion factor of a MMO

5. Gold farming can give a unfair advantage to newbs

6. The company who made the game should have full rights to whatever goes on in that game.

7. Gold farmers themselves also ruin the immersion factor of the game and can be just annoying and rude.

8.Gold farmers give players the excuse of being lazy in the game since they can just buy gold

9. Gold farmer advertisements in magazines and websites give no money to the company that actualy made the game

10.MOST IMPORTANTLY. Gold farmers often use Hacks/trainers to level there characters and gain a unfair advantage. Gold farmers have also been known to hack other peoples accounts and sell there stuff/character to increase there profit, to them its just a way tomake money not a game.

Steve Although I do enjoy your podcasts I am realy dissapointed that you support the gold farming industry. You being a gamer should have respect to the majority of the player base community.

Actually perhaps I should slightly restate my position on this.

I am against farmers who employ hacks/trainers and just run their characters 24/7 (which I realize is how most of these companies make their money).

But I am FOR the ability for people to resell their items, gold, and other in-game items for real money. Perhaps that is a small distinction, but if people/companies play the game and wish to sell their loot for real money, I believe this should be allowed.

Believe me, this is a tricky one even for me. I hear you about going against the majority of the player base community. And I see and understand that concern. But I also see the point of view that people SHOULD have the ability to sell their in-game loot.

Right now most of these game companies are combating this problem by refusing to allow players to "own" any of their character's possessions, of which I have a HUGE problem with. It will be interesting when a case goes to court which involves these issues and we can get a definitive ruling as to who actually "owns" a MMO character and loot. The paying customer or the game publisher.

I agree with Gaming Steve. Those of us who can't play forever can't make the large amounts of gold you need for an epic mount.

Personally, despite my free market beliefs, I wonder what would happen if the WoW instituted price controls in the Auction House. I don't like it when I see a ring going for 1800 Gold.

Does it go for that much because people are already buying gold, or are they buying gold because they see items going for that high a price?

The Golden Rule:
Those who have the gold make the rules.

Ive never played WOW and never will. "Just say no".
I'll never play any game that lets you improve your in-game status by spending real-world money. Blasphemy. Games should be entirely dependant on how well you play them. Not on how rich you are OR on how much free time you have for repetitive chores.

A good game rewards good playing, not time or money spent.
and yes, I know you still have to have SOME skills to make it in WOW. But if you just BUY all the best stuff, it's says a lot about the game and about you as a gamer.

Goldminers are smart and I have nothing against them. Taking advantage of wealthy people who have nothing better to spend their money on. Providing a valuable service, and no one gets hurt.

Except the people who actually want to earn their way get undermined by the rich brats next door who can just buy their way to the top. I really don't see the fun in that. That's just my opinion.

No offense to people who have bought gold, I understand WOW is a disease. The 1st step is to admit it. ;) peace

Problem is that the game's economy suffer to the point that everyone will have to go out and buy gold for real money.

- people want to buy things they don't have money for by buying from gold farmers

- the items demand increase so the prices increases

- less and less people will be able to afford the items

- most of these people will go out to buy gold increasing the number of persons already doing it

- item's demand (and prices) will increase more

- etc...

BTW, an Epic mount is really *supposed* to be hard to get... if all it took was some amount of money Blizzard would not have bothered with regular and epic mount i guess...

I'm not a big fan of gold farmers but I do have to take issue with some of the comments along the lines of "they're ruining the game for the rest of us who want to play by the rules."

I should state that I'm not playing for end-game content at the moment, so take my next comment with that in mind, but, my gameplay is not being ruined by gold farmers. I don't have all purples and blues, only two blues and all the rest greens. I'd love to buy a full blue kit but I can't afford it. That's likely due in part to farmers. Bummer. I'm still having a great time playing.

Yeah, I've had to camp out at certain areas for a bit longer waiting for respawns but, y'know what, once the mobs respawned, I farmed them all for myself.

We all do it and those of us who keep playing, are still having fun.

"If I want to skip to the end of a book I am reading, I can do that. If I want to skip to the end of a DVD movie, I can do that. If to skip ahead to the end of a game, I should be able to do that as well. Most games have "cheat codes" to allow you to do this. Most MMOs don't allow this, hence the appearance of farmers, they are providing a service that people WANT."

Then again, you don't read the same book with thousands of other people. You don't watch the DVD movie with thousands of other people. You don't play most games with thousands of other people. But you do when speaking of MMOs.

On top of that, you're forgetting that enjoyment in most games is based on achievement. You don't "skip" to having a good highscore in Tetris.

And who are you going to complain to, when your überelite items end up getting deleted e.g. say...they were completely unbalanced and buggy and nothing else couldn't have been done except removing them?

WoW isn't that screwed up, because it's quite gold is quite easy to come by on your own. You don't need to search for it per se, since most of the time, you get enough of it just by questing (not so for epic equipment, but...). Another good thing is that most good stuff is soulbound. If you pick it up, it's useless to anyone but you.

"Let's face it, if you had their lifestyle and were able to make money from a game, selling pretend money to rich westerners, wouldn't you do it as well?"

I would, but that's part of the reason why I'm strongly against buying virtual things. Apparently most people would gladly have themselves seen as fools that buy pretend money.

What's the need for an epic item anyway, if you know you're never going to play far enough to use it?

eesh, Steve, you really stirred up the anthill with this one(but you knew it'd happen ;)

As for me, I've never bought gold, mainly because gold is so ridiculously easy to get in WoW. Time however, I don't have enough of. Getting to level 60 by myself is an impossibility, so I payed a friend to level me from 30 to 55. So I still had time to develop my skills with the character, and make it my own, but I didn't have to go through that whole grind(again). For the record, this was on a new character, I have already gotten one to 40 before this. So really this is an avoidance of all the crap that I've done before, rather than the desire to get to the end without putting in my due.

another thing, at what point does this cease being entertainment and start being capital?

Sami, right on. If games are supposed to be about escape and recreation, why am I sitting down playing a game where I have to be concerned with real-world things like money and finance? Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about Sim City, or some economics simulator - in those cases, economics are obviously the core of the game experience.

However, if I'm playing a game called 'World of Warcraft' or 'Final Fantasy N' and issues of economic equilibrium are spoiling the game, then maybe, just maybe, serious game design flaws are to blame. Maybe the games should have been called 'World of Goldcraft', or 'Final Cash Machine XII'. Are human beings so mundane that even in our *fantasies* we induce mass boredom? (heh).

I think it goes back to what Steve was saying re: game design. Although an economy can be important, and even a game virtue (in so far as providing a vehicle for exchange between players), it seems like game designers have been lazy in letting the game experience remain just at that.

On a related note, I totally understand people paying real money for in-game money. Hording, mining, etc. are BORING activities, and it is inevitable that people will try to get out of it. A niggling thought, however - what is the in-game 'metaphor' for a real-world transaction?

I mean, what is your Orc thinking, right, when he sees the trust-fund Orc with the flashy car? Is he thinking, "Well. He's just got it all, innit? Nothing I can do." Or is he thinking 'I'm going to start a revolution here!"

I have a family, a full time job and a life, yet I play games like World of Warcraft and would never consider spending my real world money on advancing in a game. It just doesn't make any sense, to me.

What I fail to see is the motive, the point, the enjoyment. Take the Epic Mount example given. I either have an Epic Mount or i do not. If I have one, I can travel faster. It also looks good, but it is hardly anything special because everyone at my level will have one eventually. If I pay real-world money to get the in-game money to buy the mount, then I have gone from no mount to having a mount with zero effort. So now I can travel faster. Whoop-de-doo. It is my opinion that the only real fun to be had from having an Epic Mount is the sense of accomplishment derived from EARNING the darn money to buy it. Once you have it: who cares?

You play the game to have fun, right? By buying gold you are basically paying someone else to play part of the game for you. At what point are you no longer playing the game? Why did you even buy the game if you are not playing it?

I have been playing computer games since Pong, and what I found a long time ago is that 'finishing' a game tends to be anti-climactic. I always end up thinking "Well, that's that. What now?" When I think back to games I had fun playing, I never think "Remember when I finished game XYZ, that was awesome." No, I always remember specific in-game encounters or situations, usually where I came out on top despite the odds. MMORPGs are no different. I would think that coming out on top in PvP because you paid $300 real-world money for gold to buy the best of the best equipment is a pretty hollow victory. I know that would be true for me.

Of course, the other issue is how the gold farming/buying affects the game. I've played quite a few MMORPGs and it seems to me that many of them bleed to death as a result of these exploits. It's more than just one thing, like the effect on the economy or the camping of certain game areas. At the basic level these things are a nuisance, but that's all they are. It's more of the perception of them that ruins the game, when people in game start accusing each other of being "chinese farmers", when that's all people ever talk about. The effect of the negative "vibe" is far worse than the effect of the actual farming. I notice in World of Warcraft at the moment that anyone who tries to sell something on the trade channel is automatically accused of being a 'farmer' by someone, and anyone who has a piece of Epic gear is labelled someone who paid r/w coin for it. It's probably much less widespread than what people think, so it's the perception of it that causes all the damage to the game. These sort of games will always have people who 'farm' gold in one way or another, but it is the additional step where gold is being sold for r/w money that gets people annoyed and actually damages the game experience as a whole.

Where is the real harm though? I see this point being made time and time again. Well, from my point of view, the harm is that the fun dissapears from the game when all the talk is about whether items were obtained 'fairly' or not. The perception puts people off the game. The more competitive types are put off because whenever they achieve whatever goal they are aiming for, such as a top PvP ranking, they get suspected of 'cheating'. And if they fail they get put off because the person that beat them may have 'cheated'. The more casual types change their perception of the game from being 'fun' to being 'work', since it is clearly more work than fun if people are paying r/w money to get anywhere.

The net effect is that people leave, server populations fall, developers stop content development in order to work on things that might bring people back or balance the game, people get disillusioned, even more leave, experienced developers get bored working on a failing game and they leave, new people come in a screw up, and the downward spiral continues. It sounds like a very pessimistic portrail of the effects of gold reselling, but I honestly believe that any rumor of exploits/cheats in a MMORPG can damage the game dramatically over a period of 6-12 months. There will always be some people who play, no matter what, but the game will be over for a substantial number of people. They might not even realize that it was the gold farming that caused them to leave, since the cause and effect chain is very long and not very well understood.

Limorkil, you just managed to say what I could not. Kudos.

"1. Gold farming gives a extremely unfair advantage to those of us who don't have loads of cash."

My response to that is that those who have the time to play these games all day have an extreme unfair advantage over those of us who work for a living.

Who's advantage is greater?

I also believe that most people (especially younger ones) are way too emotionally invested in MMORPGs. It's a game. This game does not take much "skill" to attain in-game goods. If I have to quit my job in order to gain then it's no longer a game but a job. My existing job pays better, thank you.

If I have the money but not the time why should I not be able to buy up in the game. In WoW it's not like I can "buy" legendary gear. I can only "buy up" my status so much.

"My response to that is that those who have the time to play these games all day have an extreme unfair advantage over those of us who work for a living.

Who's advantage is greater?"

...you know, if there's one thing I don't get, it's people like you comparing themselves to those who have the time to play the game all day. You talk about them having an advantage over people with decent jobs like it really affects your game. It doesn't. The most you'll see of them is them running in their new-fangled armor in Ironforge.

I can admit that I'm no Fatal1ty, yet that doesn't stop me from playing Quake and CS or inspire me to cheat. I simply don't have the time to invest on such games. I still find the games fun.

Generally, I'm not for purchasing gold as I am of the mind that the two worlds should remain separate. I am an avid MMOPG player in the casual sense, meaning I play plenty, but 900 gold in WoW would be a fortune to me that I can not imagine making earning via game play alone. Nevertheless, in my heart I'd rather earn the gold than buy the gold.

And so, when it comes to players supplementing their gear and wealth by puchasing gold, I'm squarely on the fence. These comments, of course, do not apply to "games" like Project Entropia where the system is based on real world cash.

That being said, I'd like for you, Steve, to go play a few hundred hours of Lineage 2 and then tell us what you think of gold farming, if farming is indeed the matter in question. It seems that you (and I to some fumbling extent) support a merged RL/Game economy, but do not support organized exploitation and facilitation of that system. IGE or Sony Exchange. One appears evil, the other appears marginally evil?

As a few posts above mentioned, it isn't so much an issue with the practice of buying gold, it is the practice of farming gold that is fustrating. Of course, buying gold encourages the farming.

It equates to an animal rights activist eating meat. Part of the problem, no matter how removed from the source. For every gold coin we buy to help our epic-mount fund, some other players are becoming frustrated by ninja looters, kill stealers, and camp hogs.

I fully recognize that I didn't resolve and questions here.

Very interesting subject matter. Thanks much.

-Prognosticator

Dear Steve.

I sign under what happydan20 wrote.

Unfortunatey for your point of view on gold farming, most of it is done with players 24/7 controlling all the spawns in a determined area;

I have been tracking a player on my WOW server (Stormrage) called East. Now, he is online from 20 to 24 hours a day, most of it while AFK. All of this time, bar 30 minutes, he farms Burning Steppes for all the thorium ores. He leaves the Steppes for a few minutes to use Redridge Mountain's mailbox. He comes back to the Steppes and continues farming. He repeats all this also while AFK.

He hasnt responded so far to attemps to communication by neither me or other players.

When someone is mining and sometimes (actually, many times) he comes along, somethimes whatever ore / solid chest we are using / opening, suddenly gets the ingame message of "that item is already in use" : even though we were there acting on it first.

I find it an attempt to any player who plays a fair game all people who say there is nothing wrong with buying gold out-of-game. You know damn well how that gold is obtained: out of the expanse of other people's quality leisure/free time;

It's not fair to have to play more then 400 hours to perhaps own a decent set of armour or an epic mount? Bah: join a end game guild, sell raid loot you won fairly, set up and be the best you can be, and you will have money for the epics you CAN buy.

Don't ruin the game for all the fair players by supporting all the cheats.

You lost a fan, btw.

pwned

Gold farming and anything that supports it (i.e. being a customer) is wrong from so many angles (all well-covered here), and I applaud Greg V for taking his stand.

WoW is an escape from reality. Anything that ties it to the real world shouldn't be allowed. That means you earn your own money, in game, period. If you're able to rationalize it any other way, then quit your job and become a criminal defense lawyer.

The opinions on this matter are divided squarely between those who have a conscience and those who do not. If you don't feel even slightly wrong or bad when you enter your CC number and purchase in-game gold, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you.

For those of you making the "some of us can't afford to buy money" argument, well, if you can afford $15 a month for a game, what's an extra $5-$10 here and there?

Also, Steve, there are other things that are perfectly legal until you start charging specific people for specific actions. For instance, sex and lawmaking become prostitution and corruption.

lol Lobster

one of his lines made me think that any attempts from Blizz itself or their lawyers on their behalf, on trying to control gold farming, will cross path with on the public's liberties. what people deal with each other is just private. if people want to cybersex, they expect to do it regarless of what the rules on obsenities are in the game. Blizz just cannot control what people feel is private and belonging to them to do. everything in WoW belongs Blizz, but not the decisions for them. many times in the game i gave out gold to people who needed it for a grand purchase (i made thousands in the AH). sometimes i pitched in with others to help someone buy a mount when the made commander. so i alone or with others enabled people to buy things without farming or ebaying. Blizz just can't control that.

The argument about legalizing or designing the game around real money purchases opens up a can of worms most sane companies are staying clear off for many obvious reasons.

They have been exposed and commented upon on numerous occasions already, but for the sake of the argument, let's just highlight some of the most important ones:
- If a dev sell PowerItem and later nerf it for whatever reason (balancing for instance), he may expose himself to breach of contract lawsuits
- Characters or items sold by the dev increase liabilities for lawsuits brought against the dev in case of ganking, griefing or just plain player ineptitude.

The "who owns the player's time" argument has been tried already in the miserable charade brought about by BlackSnow Interactive against Mythic, not so long ago. As a matter of fact, as a player you are accessing a gaming service and paying for that, not virtual property, unless the lawyers who framed any particuliar EULA have been incompetent.

The player's time is obviously his own to spend as he pleases. As such, electing to spend it on a gaming service instead of watching TV or going to the pub doesn't and shouldn't transfer any additional rights to virtual property. By analogy, take a guy who spends the time at the pub, happens to be an entertaining fellow and by his mere presence attracts several of his friends every evening. Does that entitle him to a portion of the pub's income? More to the point, should it?

Part of the real world's economy is already revolving around virtual goods - heck, speculation during the last decades has changed the stock market to the point where a company's stock price has little to no connection to a company's real worth. When it goes overboard, things like Enron happen.

Incidentally, as this all boils down mostly to WoW, let me state that I am myself a father with a day job, don't get to play anywhere close to hardcore, but with two characters between level 40 and 50 I have already enough gold amassed to pay for three more normal mounts. It is not hard. Not in WoW. And it has even become a lot easier during the War Effort.

The "casual players have a disadvantage over hardcore players which they can (and should) make up with real money" is a strawman argument if I ever saw one. If you don't have the time to level a char to 60 yourself and to farm for your epic mount, what good is buying one going to do to you? You won't have time to raid endgame content either if you can't play for several consecutive hours. My guild took its first go at ZG on Wednesday, and gave up after wiping on the second boss. Almost four hours after making the roll call to start the raid. Which wasn't done in the wee hours of the morning but at 8 pm. No amount of real cash spent would have allowed me to participate to this effort or any of the subsequent ones - I know fully well that endgame for me will never be anything beyond the 15-man raids. So there's actually little point in buying my way to level 60. Doing so, however, generates player who enlist for endgame activites who never went through the learning curve of mastering their abilities while they got it. They don't know how to play their role, and slow everyone else down.
In short, gold buying ruins the game for both hardcore and casual players:
- It impacts the economy, sometimes to completely ludicrous extent (FFXI is a prime example)
- It may hamper the legit players' own farming by denying access to certain highly-sought resources
- It floods endgame content with inexperimented novices whose blundering experimentations may wreck the enjoyment of everyone else.

In short: There be Dragons. Don't go there.

listen "gaming" steve i dont know how much of a gamer you could be if you actually bought stuff from ebay to use in your mmo doesnt that take the point, fun, and sense of accomplishment out of it. I mean if your gonna play games play games, and if you have a job/family dont sleep like the rest of us. What upsets me is people writing articals about games who dont actually play them for the full experiance.

P.S you guys need to get over WoW.

Whats all the hubbub about? Dang it, I just woke up, and all this noise... *looks over old posts* Geez, you people are trumping this up...

Okay, firstly, the seperation of reality and fantasy? Sure, that is great in theory, but how about practice? What if my fantasy is to have all level 60 characters with all epic gear with elite mounts without any effort on my part? Sure, my fantasy butts into someone else's fantasy, but that will happen in MMORPGs.

About the inflation of economy: Yes, get an economist in here. For those who say that an economist isn't necessary, take high school economics with your lower level electives, get a real opinion, and skeedaddle back in here. If you build a real system of economics into a game, gold farmers will lose their customer base. Turn real life currency into something that CAN be sold and bought IG, and it'll lose its value as a rare item in its own. I mean, real world economical laws of supply and demand. "The more goods we stock, the cheaper we sell things!" - a quote from Fable, which actually had a decent attempt going with its economics system. The more real life money sells for in a game, the cheaper it'll be worth. It balances out.

Moral implications? Cheating? Hardly! The person who told that one guy to stop putting free-timers on a pedastal doesn't know what having free time is like. I start working tomorrow, actually, and I KNOW I won't have nearly as much free time as I used to. But I will have more income flowing in - whats to stop me from making the obvious exchange? I used to sacrifice time for gold, now I'm sacrificing time for dollars. I can, hence, sacrifice dollars for gold.

Again, cheating? What is cheating is not the people who spend $50 or so buying 1000 gold, but the people who go out there and tag other people's targets, set up timers with their hacking programs, and other riff like that. The people who spend fifty bucks are doing just that - spending fifty bucks. Just like you spent 60 hours collecting that all powerful rare, they spent money and got it immediately. And I assure you, they don't feel this nagging in their consciousness saying it is cheating to buy items, just as how you don't find it cheating to camp in front of an area for 5 hours just to get a rare item. Different means to different goals.

If anyone can set their beliefs down in a clear order, I'll give a deeper retaliation, as is, I'm just answering to what I read. And Brian, I'd like to know more about what EULAs can't do - sounds like something that might actually get me to start reading those darn things. As it stands, those things are just jumble that I scroll through to get to the [X] at the bottom quicker.

Thanks,
Sire

The REASON it's hard to separate reality from fantasy in practice is exactly because of rationalizations like yours, Sire.

The absence of a nagging conscience is necessary in order to accept the idea that buying in-game gold is perfectly okay to sacrifice dollars for gold simply because he's getting money for his time instead of game gold. What a leap.

Wouldn't you rather everyone be on equal footing in the game world, or do you really think it's just fine for people with more money in real life to be able to have more in-game? Doesn't anyone else see this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! ;)

And you brought up a good point. I really don't think we're supposed to be doing it because of the EULA, something we ALL click on when we play the game.

I have no problem with the act of selling gold, or my my case, gil. Hell, I have little time but love to play my MMO, so if I actually had disposable income, I would actually buy it.

My problem is with the problems the gil sellers create in-game. Dozens of bots or trainers running around, inflation, kill-stealing, etc. It's blasted annoying. I watched a piece of equipment for my Red Mage increase in cost nearly ten times when I joined that I had been watching for when I was a high enough level to use it.

I don't have the time to make the large amounts of gold required for items, and I don't have the time to what for gil-sellers to miss a spawn for a monster, and I don't have the money to buy the gold in the amounts I'd need.

Granted, the Final Fantasy XI economy isn't the greatest, but the methods gil-sellers use just compound the problems for a game I like.

Hrmmmm...what a surprise. A dude who supports buying gold has three links to companies who sell gold on his site!!

LOL, it would have been better if he blasted gold sellers and then had the links to buy it directly above.

To quote him...

"On the other hand, I don't really see what the big deal is about. Most everyone at this point knows about gold farmers and "in theory" everyone hates them, but they do provide a service that people are obviously quite interested in."

Yes and in your case they provide money to your pocket directly.

: )

Yikes I meant he has links in his banner ads! Which seem to randomly change, but I swear when I logged onto this thread there where three links to buy gold in WoW. You gotta belive me!

Mods help meeeeee!!!!

WHY ARE THINGS SO HARD FOR HULK?

Just wanted to add i support non/exploiting Gold farmers- And say that there impact is very minimal to my gaming experience; id even go as far as saying to my whole server. Simply because. and i imagine blizzard made it this way- the best items are not purchasable. You can make a very good lvl 20-50 with over prived gold farmed items + currency, but once you are to lvl cap, those items arent worth zilch. I wouldnt pay 20 gold for a Krol blade my self, ( that is if i didnt know i could resale it for 600g+) Because it is trash compared to end game items.

I would think that if the best items/epics etc. were purchasable(sp?) that the gold farming thing would actually be a big problem. At the moment, its simply a way for inexperienced gamers ( noobs) to have some better gear, or cause lowbies who dont buy gold to go without stuff that they could possibly of afforded had the economy not been inflated by farmed gold.

Just my thoughts from a Epiced out AQ/BWL/MC geared player who could give a rats A$$ about some gold farmer, Also- Being a rogue with rank 14 weapons i can out farm any gold farmer if i wanted to :P Its kind of fun going to a couple of their known locations and owning every mob in the camp while they are eating their conjured food.

Well now, it still drives on and on. Firstly, John, you completely lost me with that drivel above...

"The absence of a nagging conscience is necessary in order to accept the idea that buying in-game gold is perfectly okay to sacrifice dollars for gold simply because he's getting money for his time instead of game gold. What a leap."

Yes... yes... what a leap... I don't need a conscience to follow that sentence... although a translator would have been nice... finally figured out what you were trying to say I said... I still have trouble when I reread it... essentially, I need to be conscience free in order to accept that buying gold is okay because I'm spending dollars instead of time. I think. (tries to read again, fails, jumps out window, crawls back in)

Okay, to everyone who says that a game with an economy based on real-world economics, amen.

Secondly, to everyone who complains, I stand by my old argument. You farm areas for profit, I pay someone else to farm an area for profit. I walk away with my gear, you start crying about how unfair it is.

TIME = MONEY, TIME = GOLD, therefore, algebra proves it, MONEY = GOLD.

I really don't have anything new to add to this. Mainly, I see a few seperate camps...

1) Whining little kids who say that their time is more valuable than the farmer's time and try to insist that farming is morally wrong on the grounds that it annoys them.
2) People who look at this realistically and say, "If farming was bad, they wouldn't design it to be farmable." or some similar common-sense statement.

If you don't like the above categories, make yer own. I'm exhausted, I work nights, and play days, and right now my brain is on 'foggy' mode.

The arguement that buying gold is wrong morally is non sequitur. It's hardly unfair, the option is available to everyone. It isn't monetarilly exclusive, if you can afford to play the game, then you can afford to buy gold. Moreover, if you're paying for the game, but can't afford to buy gold, it might be a good idea to quit the game because you have bigger things to be concerned about.

I have to say, the one thing that has always irritated me about the anti gold farming logic is: "Gold farming gives a extremely unfair advantage to those of us who don't have loads of cash." Do these people even pay attention to how much money they plunk down a year on MMOs?

Limiting the arguement strictly to WoW, a player will pay 155.88 to 179.88 a year for a single account. Tack on the amount of the game itself and that first year jumps up to nearly 200 to 250 dollars. WoW gold, if you're intelligent enough to shop around, costs no more than a single payment of 5 dollars per 100 gold to 90 dollars per 3000 gold.

How is it any less morally reprehensible to charge someone 200 dollars a year to play a videogame that's loaded with more irritants than actual fun. The thing is basically one long grind, no matter how you look at it. A long grind without any real discernable reward. The Epic mount was used as an example for a reward, but when all of your peers have epic mounts, and you don't, then you're at a significan't disadvantage. Esepecially in the PVP arena.

Some have said that earning the reward is the fun of the game. This is true, to a point, but that's only true when the rewards are frivilous. You could say that the epic mount arguement is a perfect example of a frivilous reward. That's only one example, and a tenuous one at that. Most people buy gold for armor, weapons, enchants, spells, and respec cash.The fact is, in WoW, every good item that you can get your hands on can prove a significant advantage in the game overall. It's not a reward that you're paying for, it's better gameplay. Some might look at that statement and be tempted to say "it's not the equipment but the skill of the player." This is true, to a certain extent, but if you take two players of the same skill playing the same class with the same levels the one that will come out on top will be the one with the better equipment. (Sorry about that sentence.) This is just speaking in PVP terms, what about PVE terms. Well, fact is, the rogue with the 30 dps dagger is going to be killing and leveling faster than the rogue with the 20 dps dagger. (Don't bring talent spec in to this, that's semantic BS.) Infact, once you reach end game content the only real between you and the next guy will be your equipment. If you still don't believe me, walk up to a guy using a "Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros", strip down everything off of your character, challenge him to a duel, and still try to say "equipment doesn't matter" with a straight face. By the time you're finished uttering "equip--" the guy will attempt to trade you something. He'll gingerly say "Here, take it." "Oh, what's that?" you'll respond quizzicaly. And he'll happily respond, "It's your ass."

I have a friend who is a couple of years older than me. He has a job, school, an ex and a 3 year old son to contend with. All of these take up his time and are certainly more important than WoW. At most he can spend an hour to two hours a week leveling. He has been playing since release and his highest character is a 47 priest. When he hit 40, 4 or 5 gold was "alot" to him. I waited a few weeks, and asked him, "Did you get your mount yet?" He would generally scoff at the prospect of 100 gold. As a casual gamer who didn't know the ins and outs of the game beyond leveling, earning 100 gold at level 40 was an impossibility. Now I had earned my first mount through a disgusting amount of hard work and wasted hours. (I've boughten the gold for my other mounts, and I'm not ashamed to say so.) However, when I grouped with him, I couldn't use my mount because he didn't have one. It was generally harder for him to get around. His interest in WoW faded and as he was about to quit I plunked down 5 bucks and bought him 100 gold. He used it to buy a mount, ofcourse. Not only did it increase the overall enjoyment be rekindled the fun of the game for him.

Now the typical response to that anecdote might be dismissive. Something like "I play ___ hours and I was still able to earn ____ gold." If that's your attitude then your missing the point entirely. Fact is, my friend played enough to get to level 40, solo, on a priest. Yet, still 100 gold was an insurmountable task. This is bad game design. I understand the concept of challenge, but there comes a point where it becomes rediculous. This stuff isn't challenge, it's busy work. It's as if they didn't have enough to flesh out the game and make it fun, so they put that little bit of cheese in front of your face to make you ignore the bullshit that you're wading through.

What it really boils down to, and what really irritates me, is the fact that gold farmers are even neccessary. I blame Blizzard for this. The fact is, WoW is poorly designed in many respects and incomplete in many others. I have a few friends who are a few years younger than me, just out of high school, and able to play this game non stop. Fact of the matter is, I can't. I don't have that time to waste. Despite what Blizzard has said, WoW isn't casual gamer friendly. I have to buy gold to keep up with them. End of story. If the game were designed properly, I wouldn't have to. There would/should be alternatives, and work arounds. An "If they can't do that, then they can do this" mentality. But it isn't that way, it's an "If they can't do that.... fuck em." The only people that are loyal to that kind of treatment are Blizzard zealots and people who don't know any better, who blindliy believe every piece of BS blizzard feeds them. The EULA agreement chief among them.

sorry about the bad grammar, misspellings, and erroneous commas,,, I'm far too fluey to spell check my writing right now.

Amen. =) Squid = knows what he talks about. The rest of you, pooey. =)

As for that matter, I work 40-60 hours a week, and ever since the boss said 'we need people to sop up this available overtime like a piece of bread in warm sphagetti sauce' (not her exact words) I haven't had time to play WoW at all. I'm now shelling out money per month for a game I can't even find the time to play. (sigh) But oh me, oh my, I can't even afford five bucks for WoW gold. BOO! =P

Squid, thank you for putting to words what I could only hint at. You rock!

Squid basically covered it. You rock man.

Im tired of Blizzards shity "casual gamers can still get somewhere" lies. Sure, you can get your blue set. Big ****ing deal. Now in WoW's times most people have full epic gear, and those 'casual', in it for the fun, old-school people get crushed. Skill has lost its luster vs gear.

Gold farmers can give the 'casuals' a bit more umph into the system, but only to a certain extent. You can obtain fun new items, but still gear is a problem, money doesnt buy you time.

Buying gold is the last resort for them, and for people like me, who just cant seem to grasp what the point of the game has become, is over it. Im tired of being strung up by Blizzard and set out to dance.

I dont see the selling of gold much of a problem. Its value people place on a game that bothers me. The things you cant have usually are seen through bitter eyes. Most people that hate Gold Farmers are ones who arnt able to use thier services (Or don't).
There are so many other determinents to this issue, way more than people think.

Okay...

This is truly hysterical.

I love how the relativists can find an explanation to justify (to them anyway) anything they do. You should be able to buy gold simply because you want to? What a typical spoiled Westerner mentality: "I want it. Therefor I am entitled to it, and I should have it. So give it to me. Now." And yes.. I'm from the US and this mentality pisses me off without fail.

Here's why the argument about not having time to farm for an epic mount or "insert expensive gear here" is the most ridiculous attempt at justifying that I've ever seen. It speaks directly to my above comment... Not having as much time as someone else does not entitle you to get it in the same amount of time as them. It's not "unfair" that someone else has more free time than you. It's called "REAL LIFE". You don't have the same 6 hours a day to put into the game as someone else? Fine.. so it'll take you a bit longer to get your epic mount. That's the reality. Makes perfect sense to me. Please, show me where it says a player with 6 hours a week should have an epic mount, or "insert expensive item here" in the same amount of time as someone with 6 hours a day? Here.. let me save you the time.. It doesn't exist - except in your own lazy, self-centered minds. Let me repeat what I said earlier.. Not having as much time to play as someone else does not entitle you to acquire something in the same amount of time, or with any less effort, as they do.

So stop the whining and griping and deal with it. If you can't - then perhaps MMO's aren't your bag. Find another game you can actually handle. Try a board game... like "Life" You can jump to the end and "Win" the game every time you want. How about Trivial Pursuit? Just have the person read you the answers and fill up those pie slots. There ya go... You could race right to the end of the game. Easy win and ya hardly had to use a brain cell. Though on second thought.. maybe not Trivial Pursuit.. some of you might complain that you don't have enough free time to have to fill in the pie slots and wonder why they don't come already filled in for you. Hey.. maybe they come pre-filled on eBay! There ya go...

When you take the lazy/easy way to the end-game and simply buy your way there - you are *cheating*. The game is designed a certain way so that it can be played and experienced that way. Why the hell else would the companies have poured all the time and resources and money into its development... so it could be ignored? I think not.

Farmers/RMT are regularly banned from MMOs because they have a very real effect on the in-game economy that affects those who can't, or won't cheat their way through it by buying the money. There's a reason for this. *Because they destroy the game for many other players*. Of course, those of you who are strong proponents will throw all your ridiculous, intellectually dishonest rebuttals at it, explaining why it's "perfectly a-okay". The bottom line.. you're all full of crap.

And you know it.

So just admit it.. those of you who believe in buying your way through games are simply lazy, spoiled brats who don't want to be challenged and want everything to come easy. You don't want to earn your victory. You want it handed to you. Now. And to hell with anyone else who's affeced by it. Damn am I glad I'm not one of you.

As a final statement... the fact that the MMO companies are cracking down on RMT speaks, loud and clear - that they are vehemently against it. How about taking a hint from that and stop trying to rationalize it. Because, the plain hard truth is - you can't. Pick apart and find all the loopholes you want in the EULAs... they're still there for a reason. And it's obviously not to promote RMT. In fact.. how about putting the energy you put into debunking the EULAs into actually *playing the game* the way it was intended.

Now there's a novel idea.

This whole "RMT is okay" thing is a bunch of BS. Plain and simple.

Either play the game the way it was intended and *not* forbidden in the EULA - or find a different hobby.

I've seen several posts saying that Blizzard should hire an economist to fix the problem of inflation in Azeroth due to “gold farming”. As someone with a background in Economics (BS, MS) and someone who is a Foreign Currency trader, I have a few ideas to solve the "gold farming" problem. Other posters have commented on the “morality” or “fairness” of gold farming, however, it has been my experience that markets are never completely fair. Good markets exhibit qualities of reasonable equitability and transparency among members; however, there will always be members that have an unfair advantage. Remember, that this is how the real world works. The essence of real world market reality is simply this – if there is a buyer and a seller than an exchange will happen. Period.

Although I do not buy gold in World of Warcraft (WOW) since I enjoy the process of earning it and don't see it as tedious, I personally think it is a good thing because it means that the market is more open. The best economic markets in terms of health, purchasing power parity and other economic standards are those markets that are not overly regulated. If you study economic history you will see that the most financially successful countries placed the fewest restrictions on how you spend your money for both good and ill. There are a number of reasons for this, however, suffice it to say, that regulation creates barriers to market entry, reduces possible buyers and sellers, creating illiquid markets full of inefficiency and hence “unfairness”. This unfairness might exhibit itself the way the Hunt brothers corned the silver market, or it might be lack of access to market goods at a reasonable price (as compared to other markets).

Basic Econ 101 tells us that inflation is caused by 2 things: 1) too much monetary supply, 2) lack of confidence in the currency. Azeroth actually suffers from both of these problems. Some of this is due to gold farming and some of it is simply due to poor free market economics. Some solutions to the current economic woes in Azeroth are as follows: 1) the ability to invest gold in the WOW universe as I would at my local savings account, or by buying other investments, and 2) some form of cross-server marketplace.

The first solution would provide real value to your gold. In Azeroth at the moment, no one wants "gold" for the sake of having it - it in fact has no value. What we want from our WOW gold is "stuff". Now the problem with that is that this creates an unnatural demand for "stuff" and inflates the price of "stuff" since gold is essentially worthless. This behavior would occur in the real world if one could not get any interest from holding money at your local bank or investing it in the stock market. After all, money is nothing more than an exchange medium - we as a society arbitrarily assign it a value. So to make Azeroth gold worth something, there must be a marketplace for this. The second point pertains to the stability of large vs. small economies. Although WOW has millions of people on its numerous servers, its individual servers and thus micro-economies are tremendously isolated and subject to large economic swings. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the fads of particular server economics. Having a central WOW marketplace would do wonders for improving the stability of the market.

There are other possible solutions, including a central bank (which has the advantage of dictating monetary policy), taxation of the very rich, and other regulatory based solutions. However, none of these regulatory based solutions are as effective and eloquent as the ones outlined above.

Personally, I have to agree with the site's author - it is the ultimate responsibility of Blizzard (i.e. the government) to regulate its simulated world economies. Blaming hapless (and very low paid) "Chinese farmers" or the people who buy from these people is disingenuous and also misses the point of having free world economics. It is the equivalent of people blaming illegal immigrants who come to America to work and yet all of us directly or indirectly enjoy the low cost of the fruits of their labor. I think that is the biggest thing to remember - economics don't just affect individuals - they affect the entire society.