Turning gold into green
by Spencer Callaghan 
Aug 8th 2006 at 3:00PM
When I was younger my Dad used to tell me the key to happiness in your career was to take something you enjoy doing anyway and find a way to make money at it. Actually, my Dad never said that, I think it was a movie whose name I can't remember. Of course if that were true I would be a professional hockey player.Regardless, Wall Street finance magazine Forbes has posted an interesting piece on the controversial topic of making real money in virtual worlds. World of Warcraft features prominently in the piece, which features a top 10 list of virtual world careers.
The story looks at the growing trend of making money in online games and discusses some of the advantages and pitfalls of such a career move, including the ominous specter of taxation of virtual funds (the IRS is always watching).
Of course in WoW such methods of making money are generally considered a nuisance (think gold farmers), but the growing popularity of virtual worlds will inevitably lead to more and more people trying to make real world money selling the Uber Sword of Awesomeness.
Filed under: News items, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mikeschramm Aug 8th 2006 3:44PM
Technically, I think almost all of their suggestions (with, ironically, the exception of "prostitute") run into trouble with the Blizzard TOS.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html
moonfaer Aug 8th 2006 4:06PM
I sometimes cannot understand why Blizz doesn't take the same route as SOE, and set up their own authorized marketplace where people can choose to sell their items and chars. for cash if they want. Blizz gets a cut, everything's legal, and people who choose to cough up money rather than play for a few more hours a week get what they want.
cheezedog420 Aug 8th 2006 5:24PM
I have to agree to disagree moonfaer. I sudder to emagin what would happen if Blizzard legalized, and condoned the sale of Electronic WoW property. Doing that would quickly turn WoW into a game for rich bastard's. Now Im not a rich bastard, But even if I was, I have to state that be no fun because there is always a richer bastard.
We don't play WoW because we have money to burn. We play WoW, because we can play it for so long, and put so little money into it. And that is value.
Now if we had to drop more and more money into something in order for it to be more fun, thats not valueable... Thats like a car. (Don't get me wrong, I love driving cars but...) Cars are more fun when they are cheap. But after a while, cars get boring and expensive because you just have to keep dumping more and more money into them.
Currently, Everyone has a fair shot at enjoying WoW, because the only thing you have to invest over anyone else is time. There is only so much time in a week someone can dump into WoW, (unless you want to develope a sleep deprevation problem, and loose your job...) so its actually preatty fairly set up as is. So If your willing to put in the time to get better stats and equipment at WoW, it should and will show. And thats the way it should be.
Cheezedog
moonfaer Aug 8th 2006 7:36PM
Cheeze-
I agree that's the way it *should* be, but, it's not. I've seen the EQ system and it's not set up in a way to encourage farmers/people looking to just profit, which is pretty nice. Right now, enough people aren't looking to invest their time instead of their money. All I'm saying is if that's the way it's going to be (which it will, because people are lazy or want instant gratification), at least maybe we could get a few new servers out of the extra cash Blizz would be taking in. People are already paying companies to power-level for them and to get gold, for which we currently see nothing but grief.
Just my $.02 though. ;)
cheezedog420 Aug 9th 2006 1:05AM
moonfaer, you do have a good point in that it happens, and probably to a great enough degree that make you wonder what is the point of trying to stop it. But I will tell you this. There are some battle so important that not fighting them is worse then loosing the fight to them.
And as sad as it is for me to say this, this battle that Blizzard has been fighting for our benifit is one of those battles... And it is loosing it, but to give up the fight is a defeat as good as suicide.
Games like WoW, as populare as they are, only remain popular as long as everyone feels they have a fair chance to play, and compete with everyone else that plays. And to be able to buy gold, and fully made charicters does no justice to all the people that play WoW. Just because you may be able to, (and I don't sugjest you want to by any means) does not mean I be able to, (and I don't sugjest I want to even if I could afford too.)
Now, I spend alot of time avoid, and citizing the systems that allow such ample room for cheating, and mistakes to be common place. Im at the end of my wits when it comes to politics, goverments, and corperations because of there wars, need of profit, and false sence of securitys they try to sell us. But when WoW came out, I knew I had to play it because Blizzard threw together one hell of a video game. And comming from a person that typical prefers to critize systems, I hope you understand what a compliment that is.
So I Really hope that Blizzard is able to straighten this mess out so we don't have the option of paying pay a few more dollars for a extra bucket of gold, and are not plagued by the likes of farmers either. But I reconnize to do that might require even more money from all of us to be spend on blizzard so they can afford to better monitor us.
Cheezedog
PS: Not played EQ yet, and not sure I can afford to spend the time too either... But a friend has it, and I might give it a look.
Deafdumbandblind Aug 9th 2006 4:31AM
Cheeze, I agree with you that Selling WoW gold IRL is ruining the pleasure of the game for most players because in order for these companies to sell the gold they have to get a hold of it and they do this by using farm-bots. It's the farm-bots that are the problem.
However, Moonfaer may have stumbled on to something.
What if the WoW gold selling companies DIDN'T have to farm gold to sell it to players?
What if Blizz sold the WoW gold to the WoW gold-selling companies at such a price as to make less worthwhile using farmbots?
Blizz doesn't have to farm gold, it can generate it electronically in game.
What if Blizz sold WoW gold to players?
This way they could control the market, drive the gold sellers out of business and then make it sufficiently expensive to buy WoW gold that most players will go back to getting gold the old fashioned way i.e. by playing. If you were to ask any gold seller what his worst nightmare would be, it would be a gold seller who could sell gold at REALLY cheap prices and keep doing so for so long that they captured the market i.e. Blizz.
On the other hand, if organisations - like WOW INSIDER - didn't keep advertising WoW gold sellers then maybe we wouldn't have so much of a problem.
To get rid of this problem without capitulating to the gold selling ethos it will take a concerted effort starting with players reporting suspected farm-bots, websites not advertsing WoW gold sellers and Blizz taking hard and fast action on farm-botters.
The problem is not enough players care, companies like WOW INSIDER will do anything to make a buck and have no morals whatsoever and Blizzard is drowning under the weight of all the suspected farmers. So maybe Blizz should sell gold.
cheezedog420 Aug 9th 2006 2:36PM
The problem with that Deafdumbandblind is that a lot of the people that play WoW, would have to want the ablity to legaly buy gold. And the rest of the people that play WoW would have to feel its ok.
But most people that do play WoW, don't want to buy gold, and don't feel its ok. And if Blizzard was to start selling gold, everyone that hated how for extra day's pay you could buy your way past content, would quit, because now Blizzard would put the OK, lets let inflation get out of control stamp of approvel on the matter. Serriously, what is the point of a game where you instead of playing it as intendid, you pay for more growth?
Ever see the scientology Southpark eppisode? "We need $250 dollars to figure out what is wrong with you, and once we do that, we need anouther $250 dollars to tell you what is wrong with you..."
But lets just ignore all that for a moment and put your idea to a hypatetical test. Lets just say amazingly we mannage to get 6 million WoW player to agree, this is a great idea. And Blizzard settles on selling 1000 pieces of gold for $25.99. Heck, not only is this a great deal, but now you can punch in your daddy's master card into Blizzard's easy pay system just like paying for your subscription. So... because Blizzard can just hit a copy gold button, and gold sellers can't, and can't sell as dirrectly as Blizzard can, so gold sellers everywhere all go out of business. Horray the evil of gold farmers, and gold sellers is dead! Long live the king!
But in doing so, you create a new and possibly worse problem called inflation. It happens across the real world every day. And now its going to come to a WoW server near you. Because the Goverment (Blizzard) can make money as wants to freely, and certin people that live under the goverments rules have more free access to that cash, all cash becomes less valuable. The rate at which money devalues itself is in dirrect relation to the rate at which the goverment prints more money, but that really does not matter to the casual player...
What will matter is this, because all money is now devalued, a couple of things must happen. First, Because some (if not all,) people will take advantage the Blizzard gold offers, for a time, (a vary short time if all people take advantage of the offer all at once...) they will be able to freely afford to purchase whatever they need or want on the AH. But because they can afford to freely purchase most, (if not all Tradeable) goods, all trade goods will become more expensive, because money is not so hard to come by for those people, And markets are fuel by demand for product.
So suddenly prices on everything is rising... And the gold you had before can't quite cover everything you need to buy... Well you can choose to buy more gold... or take advantage of this system. And the best way to do that is farm for stuff to fuel the market.
Because some people can afford to purchase any trade good they wish, farming for the AH will become even more competitive then before. Farming Guilds may be formed for the express purpose of farming selected territorys. These guilds will likely be comprised of Horde And Alliance charicters so they will be able to freely attack anyone that dares enter there territory. Goods gained from these opperations will then be sold on the AH at inflatated prices further driving inflation to a new high. And if these farming guilds do a good job, they will be able to do that because they are cornering the market.
After that, people start complaining again because any money they saved before legalized gold sale has lost considerable buying power. Of course, these people will get told by a number of other people to choose a evil pills to swallow. (in the form a farming guild that will defend a section of territory, & corner select markets, or just buy some gold from blizzard.) Those that don't choose eather, will likely quit because they can't get ahead, and that will force Blizzard to rethink gold sales once enough people quit.
This is inflation on WoW, It does not matter if its caused by a Bot-farmer, gold seller, or Blizzard itself. It always results in the inflation of prices beyound the capablitys of the avrage/casual player. And the more Blizzard allows it, the worse it will be for all of us.
Lomax Aug 11th 2006 2:16AM
My fiance is a pretty hottie with a nice body who made the mistake of posting pics of the two of us (we play wow together) in our guild forums. After doing so there was constant flirting with her from then on and I even started getting a somewhat cold treatment, as if I was in the way of them getting to my lady. On the downside she was taken more seriously before they knew what she looked like, or that she actually was indeed a girl. After seeing her pics they all wanted to do nice things for her all the time but didn't really listen to her input any more (i.e. raid strategy etc.) despite her playing the game since the Friends and Family alpha test with me.
We have since left that server and play on another, she doesn't talk on Vent and doesn't show anyone pics. But people act more "normal" now with her and she's much happier playing. It's nice to know people like you for what you say and not how you look. She's a smart girl so she does deserve to be heard not just objectified.
I have however run into my fair share of girls in wow who enjoy the objectification. My guess is, they are really guys. We had a few in that guild as well, and they suddenly developed "bisexual" tendancies around my fiance and were hitting on her too (yeah right, more like they weren't really girls).