Selling Accounts Part 3: A stance?
by Josh Owens 
Jan 12th 2006 at 11:30PM
Tall, small, round or skinny - we all look and feel differently about things. In particular, the WoW Insider staff has been debating on what is/isn't cheating. Chris' recent post sparked the behind the scenes debate.
While some of us do feel that selling an account is one form of cheating, others don't. Some consider gold buying ok, some don't. Our differing views and opinions are something that we can offer because we have a team of bloggers. While we don't all agree on the definition, we hope you can understand that we are all individuals writing for the blog.
Now on to my view :). I do think selling a character is cheating, as is buying a character/gold/ or anything for that matter. I do believe that Blizzard should take an approach similar to Sony and offer up realms where they can buy gold and items in a sanctioned environment.
If people want to spend money, why shouldn't blizzard get a cut? Let them take that cut and hire more developers to create content! My ideas tend to be liberal (or flaming liberal as my father says) but I think they could be beneficial. Your views?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zach Jan 12th 2006 11:52PM
I think... no.
This would probably wreck the economy.
If it was allowed on all realms, then they would collapse. Only the people with money to spend outside of the game could compete - traditional farming (not gold farming) would be a waste of time.
If it was kept to a few specfic realms, they wouldn't be very fun, and would instead be "twink havens."
However, since some people think that's sort of fun, it would be reasonable.
I could imagine, however, gold quickly becoming as valuable as coppers are in the current realms at the moment.
And that's not hyperbole.
Tyy Jan 13th 2006 1:19AM
I think YES, but on specific servers with age restrictions. Bring in a specific type of realm, where the vendors or even the AH (what could be done over ebay anyways) sell stuff for REAL MONEY and let the market decide.
Raktor Jan 13th 2006 3:44AM
The problem with having specified servers that allows Real Money Trades (RMT:s) is that they more or less defeat the main purpose why people buy Gold or characters, which is to have an easy way of getting better than the competition. Having a server that allows RMT evens out the competition so everyone will be twinked out to the max. That's why there's always going to be people buying gold on servers that don't allow it, since it's only there you'll get the competitive egde by doing it.
Stormgaard Jan 13th 2006 7:16AM
I think yes.
Folks who say no tend to use the "It will wreck the economy" excuse, but freedom works; capitalism works. Just take a look at our economy - despite the war, high oil prices, and hurricane Katrina we've got the lowest unemployment in the Western world (below %5), the Stock Market just hit 11K, and people have made gobs of money in the housing market over the past 4 years - all because we don't try to micro-manage our economy.
What's more as game developers try to cast their net wider and wider they will, by definition, be snatching up gamers who are not as loyal to the core vision of what the game's economy is supposed to represent because they don't have the same amount of time to dedicate to the grind as your typical mmo-powergamer is. Personally I have no sympathy for the fact that people are buying gold when Mounts cost 100 and 1000 gold in WoW. I'm a middle class married man with 3 kids in the real world (and no time to powergrind) - I'm not about to get hung up on what a multi-million dollar company like Blizzard considers "Unethical" in their imaginary video-game world.
For all the crappy games that Sony Online currently offers the market the Station Exchange is truly smart move on their part. Blizzard needs to do the same.
Mike Jan 13th 2006 7:34AM
I don't understand buying gold/characters. Aren't you just cutting out the "game" part of the game? If you're buying gold and buying characters, then the actual game of WoW is clearly not fun for you and maybe you should consider looking elsewhere for entertainment. I have no problem with people doing it really, I just don't understand WHY.
Dyyne Jan 13th 2006 8:14AM
GOLD FARMERS ARE BAD FOR A GAME. Does anyone here actually remember Diablo 2? It was all great, at least until people strarted companies selling gold/items on the internet. The economy went belly up, and gold became nearly worthless. In a much more "gold" based economy such as WoW, too many people buying large amounts of gold will ruin the economy, causing a once simple stack of copper to cost 15g+. And unless Blizzard has a Greenspan working for them, i doubt they could fix it again.
Selling/buying characters on the otherhand isnt quite as bad, but it still annoys me. Like the other day In Ironforge, I was walking around(i'm lvl 46) and its like BAM! like 80% of the people there are lvl 60. I dont know how many of them earned it themselves, but i bet more then a few bought their way to 60, and that pisses me off everytime i think of the 16days+ ive spent on my guy, and the 100$+ those losers spent on thiers.
Blizzard should crack down on these guys a bit more if you want my opinion.
CarLBanks Jan 13th 2006 9:09AM
I think the entire thing about a game is the GAME part. I remember when I've gotten gold it's been TOO easy. Take a game like Morrowind where you used the gold cheatcode and the game was on easy street and then got boring due to the easyness! Do we want that? NO!
L'Emmerdeur Jan 13th 2006 10:27AM
Stormgaard, there is no free lunch.
Yes, we have an exploding real estate market, a stock market near its highs, low unemployment, low interest rates, etc. But we also have a crushing national debt burden, the likes of which has not been seen since... 1929. Remember 1929? Yeah, THAT 1929.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. economy looked similar back then: low unemployment, low interest rates, booming real estate and stock markets, and nobody ever asked, "Who is going to pay off all this debt we are accumulating to prop up these markets, to keep interest rates low, to keep people employed?"
And then it all came tumbling down.
The same thing applies here. If you artificially inflate the fiat currency within WoW by allowing it to be purchased using real-world currency, the incentive then exists for farmers to create as much of it as possible, and sell it. This is called inflation, and it leads to the collapse of a server economy.
It also removes the incentive for real gamers to play, since they know that others will always out-equip them using U.S. dollars, and they will have to struggle to put together proficient groups for instance runs, since so many people will be noobs who bought their toons/equipment without ever learning2play.
Oh, and what Mike and CarLBanks said, too.
RighteousDork Jan 13th 2006 10:30AM
I'm with Mike (#5). WHY? You spend $15 a month to play a game, why in the world would you want to spend more money just so you can be top dog in a virtual world. Don't get me wrong...I love playing WoW. The joy I get from it is worth $15 a month...on good days. It's all so fleeting though. I think about the poor souls who may have spent hundreds of dollars to buy a character in AC2 only to have the world pulled out from underneath them. That's an extreme example but there's no telling what can happen in a virtual world of 1s and 0s. I go to Azeroth to get away from the real world and have fun. When I hear about gold farmers and people buying accounts to get ahead, it just taints the whole experience for me. Just my two cents.
Sonburn Jan 13th 2006 11:58AM
Considering this is a game I pay for in dollars, and time... I actually like the thought of having something to show for it when the time comes for me to be done. If I finally get burnt out, and I have 3 level 60's, what am I supposed to do? Just let them be deleted when my account expires? I think not! I would like something to show for all my hard work, and just hope that my name lives on with glory and honor... a legacy (as Dane Cook says).
Stormgaard Jan 13th 2006 1:01PM
L'Emmerdeur, no offense, but you don't understand economic growth. As human life and activity expands the economy expands. As it does so it will undergo alternating cycles of growth and recession. Sometimes those will manifest themselves in the extreme - such as the depression of the 30's and the post-war boom of the 40's and 50's. They are alternating cycles nonetheless however and MOST of those cycles will manifest themselves in moderation - you've got 230 years of American capitalism that proves that.
Economics is not like a static "Pie" as your logic and tone seem to suggest - implying that if one person has a bigger "Peice" of it upsets the balance and results in economic disaster and/or class warfare. Human life and activity is a growing and expanding phenomenon by definition. We keep having babies and keep expanding our fronteirs. You might think it's silly, but at some point in the future we'll be colonizing other planets and habitable space stations.
You can't bottle up and micro-manage such a thing. We're not robots. Freedom works.
That being said I think Blizzard is perfectly free to try and police the in game economies as much as they like, and I don't enjoy being spammed with unwanted tells for gold selling, nor do I want to see in game ads.
But Sony's Station exchange is a perfectly logical, and reasonable service. If Blizzard had something similar it would be alarmingly successful I assure you.
Justin Jan 13th 2006 1:01PM
I never understood the point of buying a character until I talked to a friend of mine who bought a few characters. For his first Horde character, he actually did level him up to level 60 by himself. However, once he was there, he wanted to continue playing the end game, only with some of the other classes. Rather than go through most of the same content again, he bought the level 60s. He's mentioned an interest in trying the game with an Alliance character, and if he does this, I think he plans on doing it himself since it's a new experience (for the most part).
So given his example, I could see buying a character if you've already made level 60 and just want to see the end game from a different perspective. That said, I don't see myself ever paying for a character or gold in the real world.
CarLBanks Jan 13th 2006 1:43PM
When you have an account and buy another character it's essentially buying another account. So $15xNumber of Accounts per month is very unreasonable.
Quorthon Jan 13th 2006 1:45PM
If Blizzard added an in-game real money system to purchase items in WoW (like Sony), I would stop playing.
Zach Jan 13th 2006 5:30PM
When I (and others) say it will "wreck the economy," I'm refering to the game economy, which is not like the real world economy.
In the game, inflation is kept down by leveling and buying things. As you get more drops, you also need to buy stuff.
However, if someone, instead of buying things with their gold, gives/sells it to someone else, then the money has just been taken, and inflation happens, dramatically.
In a "buyable gold server," doing any sort of traditional gaming would be very inefficient, since AH prices would be through the roof. If someone can just buy 100 gold, then 100 gold isn't worth as much.
Tyy Jan 13th 2006 10:51PM
I agree the "game" part of WoW would change, if you were allowed to purchase goods for real money, but on the other hand it would give these realms a different spin, which would be interesting to see, social and economic studies included ;-)
L'Emmerdeur Jan 13th 2006 10:53PM
Stormgaard, I agree that Blizzard should dedicate a select few servers to allow for purchasing items with real-world money. In fact, that might benefit the "normal" servers, as many of those wishing to insta-twink their characters with real-world money would be removed from our population, thus improving the overall quality of our servers.
However, although I, like you, hope to see mankind in space (and feel sorry for the poor aliens we subjugate), I can assure you, some recessions are greater than others. Of course, the fortunes of mankind ebb and flow, but when you fight the natural flows of money and capital via government intervention, you may prolong an economic expansion, but the inevitable recession only becomes more severe.
I believe you may have misunderstood me. I agree with you, that America has seen unprecedented prosperity. I believe in free markets. THESE ARE NOT FREE MARKETS. The Fed has been churning out liquidity since the mid-1990s at an unprecedented rate (reminiscent of the French monarchs in the 18th century, in fact). Economic policy has been hijacked by lobbyists and the interests they represent. The US government has been putting off a much-needed recession (what I like to call the "reset button"), especially in the last 5 years, by pumping dollars into the world, and issuing debt to create those dollars. These dollars were issued to keep the American consumer consuming, not to invest in the future.
We will have to pay this debt back. Until we do so, the dollar faces a long period of weakness. Our fortunes will suffer because of this, as will those of our children.
The same applies to WoW. When you attract a large group of farmers and clients willing to buy from those farmers, you create a lot of gold that would not exist otherwise, concentrated in the hands of a few. Unfortunately, the farmers don't have much of an effect on item availability, which means that prices go up, making the game less playable for those unwilling to buy gold.
Now, if Mr. Greenspan held a press conference, and he announced that he would be mandating that $100 billion would be printed by the Treasury and handed over to a few of his friends, just for the heck of it, that would make the world's faith in the U.S. dollar essentially zero, yes? It isn't the concentration of gold in a few hands that is bad. Nor does the economic pie remain "fixed". It is the creation and assigning of fiat currency (whether US dollars or WoW gold) to people on an arbitrary basis that causes inflation and chaos.
If you want a great example of this, look at Argentina.