eBay attacks secondary market; secondary market dodges?
by Eliah Hecht 
Jan 30th 2007 at 7:13PM
In news that's been making the rounds today, eBay announced that they will be actively delisting auctions of in-game property for various MMOs. This would include, of course, WoW accounts, gold, and items. The Slashdot article that is the source of this story quotes eBay as having the following rationale:
- Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: "The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner." Given the nebulous nature of ownership in online games, eBay has decided the prudent decision is to remove the possibility for players to sell what might be the IP of other parties via their service.
I have to agree with comments I've seen around the internet that all this will probably do is stop individual users from selling their accounts. Gold farmers, powerlevelers, and other secondary industries have their own sites, and presumably will not be hindered much by this.
The other interesting wrinkle in this story is that Second Life is apparently exempt, presumably on the grounds that it may or may not be a game. I do think that user-created content has much more of a role in SL than in most other online worlds, so it makes sense to give users more control over it. If I recall correctly, Linden Labs (the company behind Second Life) even gives users ownership of the content they create. But this is more of a topic for our sister blog Second Life Insider.
[via Joystiq]
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Lewisham Jan 30th 2007 9:15PM
Julian Dibbell in "Play Money" noted this exact clause when he started selling his farmed gold on eBay. He contacted eBay and asked if he could send them a piece of paper, entitling them to him handing the gold over. He likened it to the sale of a concert ticket; you gain nothing from the ticket but the agreement that you will be given the right to see a concert. You don't actually receive anything physical bar the ticket, so there is no reason he couldn't send out tickets for gold.
They said no, unsurprisingly, but he was perfectly correct. eBay should either rewrite the policy, or allow it to take place, as long as some physical good is transferred.
Lewisham Jan 30th 2007 9:18PM
Oops, read it wrong. Dibbell didn't refer to this at all. My bad.
I think it is a stretch to consider gold "intellectual property" though.
Tool Jan 31st 2007 3:58AM
Maybe this will force a kind of underground game-item-selling-ebay just for this kind of stuff? Then maybe when that is busted down it will fracture into thousands of smaller ones.
*starts thinking up site name for all the money I'm going to make*
umamasyean Jan 31st 2007 4:57AM
All history reveals over and over again...That's just words for the press. The fact of the matter is...they make tons of fees for the transactions of "nothing" via automated systems that only the users do any real work for. Between auction commissions and the outrageous fees paypal charges...that makes free money for investor's pockets. There's always that "selling their time invested" work-around that there is no legal justification for canceling people's auctions. So, obviously any respectable business person from ebay will allow it to go on. Maybe cancel a few auctions here and there to make Blizzard reps happy. But the reality of it is that Blizzard cannot take any legal action to prevent it so as long as the dough rolls in, auctions will continue. It's basic capitalism.
yotix Jan 31st 2007 7:33AM
Blizzard runs a highly successful game. Leeching profits and destroying the economy, the "farming mafia" - that's all those criminal gold sellers, level services etc - severely damage the game experience for the majority of honest players.
Gold farmers / sellers = criminals
Gold buyers = cheaters
Who'd be so %&$§ as to cheat in an online game? ANYONE who bought WoW gold deserves to be banned for life.
dmower Jan 31st 2007 11:34AM
Second life is exempt presumably because its terms of service provide its users with intellectual property rights over the diginal content they create, including distribution rights, and so auctions do not run afoul of ebay's policy.
Ekimus Jan 31st 2007 9:39AM
@Yotix (Comment #5)
Agreed, buying gold is akin to cheating, and those that do so should be punished.
However, there is one sad truth to the hot topic of gold buying. Pre-BC there was much speculation that many of the guilds learning end-game content were buying gold in troves. The rational of this, was that high repair costs, farming for materials and other money sinks were forcing many guilds to purchase gold to cover the costs.
IF (caps intentional) this was/is the case, then Blizzard would (ie:should) have to ban said members. There have been a few instances of entire guilds being banned (one of the most notorious, for hacking), and this has created much drama. Does Blizzard care about drama? Not so much, and community outcry isn't going to change their minds either.
I believe that Blizzard has decided to combat the Gold selling problems at the initial source, the farmers and sellers. While admirable, this is fruitless. That policy just forces the farmers/sellers into buying more accounts (ie: more $$$ for Blizzard). I think perma-banning credit cards would help circumvent some of this. Also, gold buyers should receive temporary bans, starting in hourly denominations and moving towards days/weeks and a perma-ban.
Further on the topic of selling in-game IP/items, the content-publishers selling items. Sony tried it, and it didn't make a splash in the bucket. Blizzard and Upper Deck have tried it with exclusive items, limited to loot cards and points received from the CCG. I think this may be a step in the right direction. Offer cool exclusives to those who will pay, as long as the items and prices aren't outrageous.
magimagic Jan 31st 2007 6:26PM
Good about time. People like gold farmers need to be controlled.
Orin Jan 31st 2007 10:21AM
@ #6
I disagree with your comments on end-game guilds having to buy gold.
Sure, some members of these guilds buy gold just to keep up with their peers. Usually due to not having enough time to be in-game. For the most part though, you'd be amazed how many hours the really dedicated players will put into this game to farm materials to supply the guild for a night of raiding. Multple alts strictly for farming herbs, ore, enchant materials, etc. etc. It all adds up, and as long as a few smart people run the guild and manage the guild bank, there is no need to buy gold.
Pougen (ER) Jan 31st 2007 11:43AM
"farming mafia"
LOL
umamasyean Jan 31st 2007 11:18AM
@ #7
Look at what #6 is saying..."guilds learning end-game content"
...not your definition of "end-game guilds" that would amaze you by "how many hours the really dedicated players will put into this game to farm materials to supply the guild for a night of raiding".
#6 is implying these are the non-hardcore players who are behind everyone else. It makes perfect sense as the non-hardcore players probably have jobs/life obligations other than “The Guild” and hence little time but a lot of money.
Thinks of it this way…the average “real player” can farm X gold/hour. The average industrialized worker can buy the same X gold for less than minimum wage. Considering that many industrialized workers actually earn many times minimum wage…there rest of the story is a no-brainer. Who’s “smarter” now? The player who farms…or the player who buys? Now that’s a little murkier, isn’t it? ;)
Dragontamer Jan 31st 2007 12:06PM
You are correct, SL players owns the IP for what they create.
Crooth Jan 31st 2007 12:24PM
Oh my, what a slipperly slope this is.
First, Blizzard is now officially selling in-game items for cash. Did you miss it? It's called the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Despite its secondary nature (supposedly playing the card game is the primary value) it is establishing a cash for item trade.
Second, is buying or farming gold cheating? Why so exactly? If I start a new character on a new server and my buddy hands me 10 gold to get me started (bags, starting gear, etc.) is that cheating? Why not? If I buy him lunch in the real world for his troubles, does that makes it cheating? What if I just give him $5? See the slope?
The only way to eliminate this secondary market is to eliminate the trading of gold. Drop the ability to trade it between players or to send it in mail. And the AH has to go too - otherwise. Of course, that eliminates the primary market, and I doubt we actually want that.
Time and time again, people have found that if a strong primary market exists for a commodity, a secondary market can and will grow up around it. These are facts - it's hard to imagine a way to get rid of it.