hell we have laws against drug use.. and people still do it. SO there will be loopholes.
we also have laws against murder and people still do it. I don't think that's a loophole. crime exists. that's not the point of the topic.
na what i mean is, even if you made it 100% illegal to sell gold or buy it, people still will find a loophole to do it. much like people break the traffic laws and such. it really just comes down to the company either keeping up on selling sites and issuing punishment to their accounts. or going after people who buy it.
as its 90% more the end users fault for goldselling anyway, as they openly go out and buy it knowing its against the game rules. just like a drug dealer makes/sells illegal drugs to users.
people will do anything to get 0.0000001% headup on someone else
Originally posted by Aerowyn you are making money off of someone else's product illegally.. don't see it any differn't than people who rip movies or games and sell pirated copies and that's a felony...
bingo
making a profit off of someone else's property is a crime (exluding the fair use doctrine for monetization). Clearly, gold farming/selling is not associated with fair use.
It is not a crime, and also not a single company can dictate to you what is or is not legal, they can only dicatate you the TOS, and the EULA which has no legal standing what so ever.
Lets say i use one of those rental city bikes in my job as a messenger, i make money out of some one elses property is that breaking the law?
If you claim that virtual currency is the property of the company who made the game than you are not selling it either since it only exists in the game then nothing actually changed hands...
Ok, let me restate what I was saying. Making a profit by selling someone else's property is a crime. Your example of a rent-a-bike messenger is amusing, but it does not relate to the point I was making; in your example, you didn't sell the bike. If you would have sold the bike, i.e. someone else's property, you would have been committing a crime.
The problem with charging this activity as a crime is it is often difficult to determine ownership of virtual goods. Also, laws that protect intellectual property are often underrepresented when it comes to these virtual items. Here is a journal artical by Leah Shen, entitled Who Owns the Virtual Items?, that explains some of the problems related to this topic. You will have to go the Duke Law website and enter the author's name, Leah Shen, in the search field. You can read the abstract directly from the website, then download the entire document. The website is as follows:
And? I'm not saying you cant sue some one for a "virtual crime" im saying that gold farming is not a crime, and if you claim the the selling of virtual currency is a crime since it belongs to the IP holder puts you into a legal bind.
You can't prove that any property changed hands if you claim that the virtual currency belongs to the IP owner since in that case nothing except money has changed place.
Like it or not pure gold farming is a service, the same way i can pay some one to walk my dolg or mow the lawn.
Now if we involve the only illegal part of gold selling which is selling gold of compromized accounts it's a completly different story. And if you actualy bothered to read the 2nd article then you would see that thats what it was about, he "hacked" accounts, got the items that the original account owners payed for and moved them to his own account.
But sadly as traditional gold farming and RMT goes you cant make a legal case agaisnt it not in a million years sorry, and yes i don't see nothing wrong with that either.
Also during WoW vanilla i used to play on the top PVE server on the US realms, when every one was broke, repairs costing pretty much as they did during WOTLK, the top end guilds that used to raid 6-7 times a week for 4-6 hours at the time actually gave repair money to every one on a daily bases. And i know for a fact that several of them were buying gold to keep it up from money they got from their sponsor simply because it was not possible to facilitate it other wise, a night of wipes which was not uncommon at the time could cost a tank 300-400 gold, and back then that was more than a week worth of farm unless you got really luck on world drops, not to mention the cost of potions and flasks.
Let me state a hypothesis using a game many of you i'm sure have heard of - Guild Wars 2:-
---------------------------------
Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet) makes a large majority of their income through their in-game cash shop by selling Gems as an RMT (Real-Money Transaction).
Let's assume you can buy 300 gems for £10 from ArenaNet. (These figures are not exact)
We also know for those who arent interested in RMT that you can purchase Gems for in-game gold.
Lets say it costs 2g for 300gems currently.
Further, let's assume gold-selling-site.com is selling Guild Wars 2 gold at £1 per gold.
There is now a situation where it is 10 times more profitable to purchase gems (through gold) from a third-party site than directly through ArenaNet.
Everyone flocks over to gold-selling-site.com to make their in-game purchases and are essentially robbing ArenaNet.
The high demand on gold-selling-site.com creates the need for higher supply. More bots are released in to the game, more accounts are hacked/hijacked, more gold selling spam from successful businesses.
While at the same time ArenaNet is suffering from a loss of funds, they have a lower budget to release further content, consumers complain about the state of the economy but unfortunately response is slow as staff have had to be laid off.
----------------
So tell me now, exactly how this can be justified?
Let me state a hypothesis using a game many of you i'm sure have heard of - Guild Wars 2:-
---------------------------------
Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet) makes a large majority of their income through their in-game cash shop by selling Gems as an RMT (Real-Money Transaction).
Let's assume you can buy 300 gems for £10 from ArenaNet. (These figures are not exact)
We also know for those who arent interested in RMT that you can purchase Gems for in-game gold.
Lets say it costs 2g for 300gems currently.
Further, let's assume gold-selling-site.com is selling Guild Wars 2 gold at £1 per gold.
There is now a situation where it is 10 times more profitable to purchase gems (through gold) from a third-party site than directly through ArenaNet.
Everyone flocks over to gold-selling-site.com to make their in-game purchases and are essentially robbing ArenaNet.
The high demand on gold-selling-site.com creates the need for higher supply. More bots are released in to the game, more accounts are hacked/hijacked, more gold selling spam from successful businesses.
While at the same time ArenaNet is suffering from a loss of funds, they have a lower budget to release further content, consumers complain about the state of the economy but unfortunately response is slow as staff have had to be laid off.
----------------
So tell me now, exactly how this can be justified?
If you exclude the account hacking from this its called a free market, any one that can provide additional services, or a better service has the right to compete.
I pay my ISP to access the internet, Youtube makes a metric ton of money from advertisment while costing my ISP money in bandwidth can my ISP sue Youtube because youtube is making money?
Let me state a hypothesis using a game many of you i'm sure have heard of - Guild Wars 2:-
---------------------------------
Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet) makes a large majority of their income through their in-game cash shop by selling Gems as an RMT (Real-Money Transaction).
Let's assume you can buy 300 gems for £10 from ArenaNet. (These figures are not exact)
We also know for those who arent interested in RMT that you can purchase Gems for in-game gold.
Lets say it costs 2g for 300gems currently.
Further, let's assume gold-selling-site.com is selling Guild Wars 2 gold at £1 per gold.
There is now a situation where it is 10 times more profitable to purchase gems (through gold) from a third-party site than directly through ArenaNet.
Everyone flocks over to gold-selling-site.com to make their in-game purchases and are essentially robbing ArenaNet.
The high demand on gold-selling-site.com creates the need for higher supply. More bots are released in to the game, more accounts are hacked/hijacked, more gold selling spam from successful businesses.
While at the same time ArenaNet is suffering from a loss of funds, they have a lower budget to release further content, consumers complain about the state of the economy but unfortunately response is slow as staff have had to be laid off.
----------------
So tell me now, exactly how this can be justified?
-Some of you people cannot be serious- But evidently are. This is VERY SCARY to me since I imagine many of you vote as well.... =/
Look, Anet can magically create as much Gold and gems as they wish with the flick of a wrist and sell iot for any amount they deem the market will bear.
If a Goldseller is hacking this is ALREADY ILLEGAL- If they are earning these virtual goods through play and selling for CHEAPER than ANET can type some numbers in a Computer and process your Credit card- Fuck 'em. Seriously.
And sop ANET is losing money because a Goldseller can sell something cheaper than they can . Now you want to pay the TAXES to hire a plethora of people/agencies and make an INTERNATIONAL bobdy which supecedes a soveirn nations laws. How much does this cost verse ANY LOSS Anet is having?
And what about the cost to our freedoms? Extra surveilence, people jailed and fined for this, more databases.
Seriously this thing boils my blood- That this is even being supported in any way... WOW. Read some History books...PLEASE...
How can you tell the difference between legal gold farmers and illegal? How can you tell the difference between my giving my friend gold and me selling gold to someone? Plus, paying the tax dollars to police a video game - yeesh.
I enjoy farming for gold, by the way. I don't sell it for money, I do like to find good spots to farm to make gold for my account. Again, I don't sell it and never will.
As far as hacking and stealing accounts - that's fraud. It's already illegal but difficult and expensive to prosecute in these situations.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
How can you tell the difference between legal gold farmers and illegal? How can you tell the difference between my giving my friend gold and me selling gold to someone? Plus, paying the tax dollars to police a video game - yeesh.
I enjoy farming for gold, by the way. I don't sell it for money, I do like to find good spots to farm to make gold for my account. Again, I don't sell it and never will.
As far as hacking and stealing accounts - that's fraud. It's already illegal but difficult and expensive to prosecute in these situations.
-Right on...
Not to mention ANET itself opened this Pandoras Box by legitimizing this anyhow. So Gold buying is "Okay " now, but only from US (who will be higher priced than someone earning it in game and selling it with 0 work beyond processing Credit cards)- Then people want to (apparently) pay Taxes and form new Burocracies to PROTECT THE INTEREST OF Anet??? WOW.
And the thing is, most are intellegent people. These are not "stupid" people supporting this ideal. Honestly , most of us are a cut above average (although we often disagree on many things)- Just very misguided IMHO. I see a very corporate-centric generation and its quite scary.
I think that goldselling is immoral, but is more immoral being a gold buyer. And i don't think that states can stop in by law, but must be software hoses and players to stop goldselling/gold buying. (not only gold, but account and many other things).
Originally posted by uncletoma I think that goldselling is immoral, but is more immoral being a gold buyer. And i don't think that states can stop in by law, but must be software hoses and players to stop goldselling/gold buying. (not only gold, but account and many other things).
Why though?
Lets exasmine some rationale: Gold selling is immoral. (I actually agree) but Anet legitimized it.It isnt immoral in a game that actually offers it up- Its part of the game, its fully legal and endorsed.
Let me make another comparison (if you will)- I am a huge supporter of medical Cannabis and helped legalize it in my State. The dispensaries want to try to monopolize the industry and say "Okay, you HAVE to buy from us or its ILLEGAL..." and yet they want the Government to enforce THEIR Monopoly and control of the market- And thus set the price wherever they wish.
-We have fought this tooth and nail, and the State agrees with us.
Its either Legal or it is NOT.
There really is no middle groyund here. Anet wants their Cake and wants to eat it too. They want to sell you Gold (gems) which cost nothing to make. No time, no effort, nothing. The ONLY manpower needed is to process your credit card. How then, can anyone find buying Gold from a CHEAPER source immoral? To me its immoral to try to monopolize a market which takes 0 manpower and rake in PURE PROFIT.
So Anet cannot compete with the Goldsellers, yet it cost nothing (ZERO) for them to create the gold from thin air...How can this be????
ADD- Look, once they offered Gold/Gem sales in the game- This is a free market issue. Hacking is already illegal. They can enforce their EULA with bans and such- But it stops there. This is NOT an issue of crime nor should it ever be.
And now people want to pay taxes and give up freedoms to protect ANET so they can sell their Gold at any price they deem (and throw folks in jail for offering the SAME product for cheaper_
-Pure insanity.
ADD #2- This whole thread is just..... Anyhow do you people understand that a FELONY is punishable by not only jail times and fines but voids your rights to own a firearm and in many states your right to VOTE??? That you would have a permanent record for life which could bar you from employment??? That you would lumped with Armed Robbers and Crack dealers for...Selling/Buying Gold in GW2?
Do you realize that even a mistermeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail? That drunk driving is usually a mistermeanor???
Have you any ideal the cost in manpower and the added surveilence this would increase? And that WE ALL would have to pay for this?
Not to mention ANET itself opened this Pandoras Box by legitimizing this anyhow. So Gold buying is "Okay " now, but only from US (who will be higher priced than someone earning it in game and selling it with 0 work beyond processing Credit cards)- Then people want to (apparently) pay Taxes and form new Burocracies to PROTECT THE INTEREST OF Anet??? WOW.
And the thing is, most are intellegent people. These are not "stupid" people supporting this ideal. Honestly , most of us are a cut above average (although we often disagree on many things)- Just very misguided IMHO. I see a very corporate-centric generation and its quite scary.
Yeah I don't get it either. There is alot of consumers that personally defend corporation interest over their own.
I mean, let's assume that game company hire 1 bot-hunter per server which ONLY task is to check people bot reports, bot detection tools report (if they exist in this game) and randomly check most popular bot spots. + few programmers which also ONLY job is to create and pefect bot hunt tools and modify API to make bot job harder.
Would it make bots disappear? Lol no. It would propably decrease amount of bots.
It would cost alot. Sure. It would make corporation earn less and quarterly report worse for investors. Sure it would.
Now why many people care so much about corporation profits, quarterly reports, etc It is NOT some RIGHT they have that corporations have to continuesly increase their revenue and profit percentage.
Certain industries and certain business types profitibility increase and decerase.
Game companies should provide good product and should spend money on making good product and that also mean spending money to fight bots even if that mean they will earn less.
You're consumer quality of product you get should be more important to you than corporation profits. After all for corporations their profits are important and nothing else. They don't care about your personal income. Why you care about theirs?
Not to mention ANET itself opened this Pandoras Box by legitimizing this anyhow. So Gold buying is "Okay " now, but only from US (who will be higher priced than someone earning it in game and selling it with 0 work beyond processing Credit cards)- Then people want to (apparently) pay Taxes and form new Burocracies to PROTECT THE INTEREST OF Anet??? WOW.
And the thing is, most are intellegent people. These are not "stupid" people supporting this ideal. Honestly , most of us are a cut above average (although we often disagree on many things)- Just very misguided IMHO. I see a very corporate-centric generation and its quite scary.
Yeah I don't get it either. There is alot of consumers that personally defend corporation interest over their own.
I mean, let's assume that game company hire 1 bot-hunter per server which ONLY task is to check people bot reports, bot detection tools report (if they exist in this game) and randomly check most popular bot spots. + few programmers which also ONLY job is to create and pefect bot hunt tools and modify API to make bot job harder.
Would it make bots disappear? Lol no. It would propably decrease amount of bots.
It would cost alot. Sure. It would make corporation earn less and quarterly report worse for investors. Sure it would.
Now why many people care so much about corporation profits, quarterly reports, etc It is NOT some RIGHT they have that corporations have to continuesly increase their revenue and profit percentage.
Certain industries and certain business types profitibility increase and decerase.
Game companies should provide good product and should spend money on making good product and that also mean spending money to fight bots even if that mean they will earn less.
You're consumer quality of product you get should be more important to you than corporation profits. After all for corporations their profits are important and nothing else. They don't care about your personal income. Why you care about theirs?
-Very well said.
Thats the beauty of the FREE market. At some point the cost/benefit must be assesed- If they are losing tins of money it would be cheaper to hire more GMs and their own "undercover" staff. If they have to raise the Box price to pay for this then the people who PLAY this game pay the regressive tax and not EVERYONE.
People would have every man, woman and child taxed to help Anet (or any gaming company) control a monopoly on virtual items- This means we all pay so Anet (or anyone) can make MORE $$$$. This (in turn) means they will do LESS to Police their OWN INDUSTRY since the Governments (and people) of the World will pay the tab for THAT part. EDIT: If we are paying the tab we should reap in the profit.
-Plus I seriously do not think Anet is "hurting" right now. I think they wopuld be doing doing fine absent of their "Cash Shop" and thats all icing on the cake.
Anyhow- Fascism is the merger between Corporations and Governments- Something we are seeing more and more of daily....Food for thought.
Originally posted by SaintPhilip-Right on...Not to mention ANET itself opened this Pandoras Box by legitimizing this anyhow. So Gold buying is "Okay " now, but only from US (who will be higher priced than someone earning it in game and selling it with 0 work beyond processing Credit cards)- Then people want to (apparently) pay Taxes and form new Burocracies to PROTECT THE INTEREST OF Anet??? WOW. And the thing is, most are intellegent people. These are not "stupid" people supporting this ideal. Honestly , most of us are a cut above average (although we often disagree on many things)- Just very misguided IMHO. I see a very corporate-centric generation and its quite scary.
Yeah I don't get it either. There is alot of consumers that personally defend corporation interest over their own.
I mean, let's assume that game company hire 1 bot-hunter per server which ONLY task is to check people bot reports, bot detection tools report (if they exist in this game) and randomly check most popular bot spots. + few programmers which also ONLY job is to create and pefect bot hunt tools and modify API to make bot job harder.
Would it make bots disappear? Lol no. It would propably decrease amount of bots.
It would cost alot. Sure. It would make corporation earn less and quarterly report worse for investors. Sure it would.
Now why many people care so much about corporation profits, quarterly reports, etc It is NOT some RIGHT they have that corporations have to continuesly increase their revenue and profit percentage.
Certain industries and certain business types profitibility increase and decerase.
Game companies should provide good product and should spend money on making good product and that also mean spending money to fight bots even if that mean they will earn less.
You're consumer quality of product you get should be more important to you than corporation profits. After all for corporations their profits are important and nothing else. They don't care about your personal income. Why you care about theirs?
In regards to the "corporate-centric generation", that is a primary attribute assigned to the Millennial generation unfortunately.
Generation Y often fails to be able to think or decipher information for themselves, while they have an abundance of information available to them on the internet, they don't necessary understand how all the pieces work together.
Having worked as a TA for an English Professor for college freshman I am sad to report how many times I witnessed an individual from that particular generation attempt to plagiarize by literally cutting and pasting articles from the internet and slopping them together in paragraphs.
The kicker is they are forewarned that all of their papers will be turned in through turnitin.com where it is cross-referenced with a catalog of other papers and the actual percentage of material plagiarized and the sources used (wikipedia lol) can be identified ... but they still do it.
I think that ANet gems and goldselling aren't the same thing. BTW i'm glad for your fight for legalize medical cannabis was ok, i agree with you about it (but i live in Europe, here is more easy).
Being IT, if software house do a sort of in game goldselling (gems, or AH with real money, and so on) can be a good way in order to fight "chinese" (but there are east european goldsellers too), or immoral, goldselling. But i think that Stats and Nations can be aware to do laws about videogames. I wel remember the german law against violence and blood inside VGs and, well, a lot of german people bought VGs abroad.
There's a time for everything, but no time for Big Bro inside MMO. Not now, ever and forever.
I personally am not a fan of gold sellers(many get their gold from hacked accounts, so even if Blizzard allows them to use the RMAH and sell their gold it still does not stop the fact that most their gold comes form hacked accounts). Not only does it hurt the overall in-game economy; the fact they usually use iligal means to aquire their gold is wrong.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
Originally posted by Presbytier I personally am not a fan of gold sellers(many get their gold from hacked accounts, so even if Blizzard allows them to use the RMAH and sell their gold it still does not stop the fact that most their gold comes form hacked accounts). Not only does it hurt the overall in-game economy; the fact they usually use iligal means to aquire their gold is wrong.
I think we all agree with you my friend.
The question is , should Gold Selling/Buying be made illegal (as in punishible by law) and the word "Felony" was even mentioned in the title.
Hacking already has LAWS in place regarding this...Right now, Gold Selling/buying (Hell, Include account sales even) is not ILLEGAL it just breaks the EULA and you can be banned.
-So, in order to make this Illegal we first need Police Powers given to an agency which would need be under International Law. But even IF it could be done nationally it means extra Police Powers, folks imprisoned and more surveilence. Probably undercover Police playing these games to "bust" Gold sellers... Who pays for this? Is this the direction you wish our society to go?
These are very important and fundamental questions which REALLY demand thought and meditation.
ADD- Look our economy is in terrible shape (Worldwide for the most part) we are cutting services, laying off teachers and Police and our infrastructure is crumbling. Our Court systems are bursting at the seams and our Prisons are so far past capacity it is inhumane.
Corporate profits are at an all time high.
And you would even entertain the notion of adding new Laws and manpower and Prisoners to pad a gaming companies bottom line. Incresed taxes even?
Originally posted by Presbytier I personally am not a fan of gold sellers(many get their gold from hacked accounts, so even if Blizzard allows them to use the RMAH and sell their gold it still does not stop the fact that most their gold comes form hacked accounts). Not only does it hurt the overall in-game economy; the fact they usually use iligal means to aquire their gold is wrong.
I think we all agree with you my friend.
The question is , should Gold Selling/Buying be made illegal (as in punishible by law) and the word "Felony" was even mentioned in the title.
Hacking already has LAWS in place regarding this...Right now, Gold Selling/buying (Hell, Include account sales even) is not ILLEGAL it just breaks the EULA and you can be banned.
-So, in order to make this Illegal we first need Police Powers given to an agency which would need be under International Law. But even IF it could be done nationally it means extra Police Powers, folks imprisoned and more surveilence. Probably undercover Police playing these games to "bust" Gold sellers... Who pays for this? Is this the direction you wish our society to go?
These are very important and fundamental questions which REALLY demand thought and meditation.
ADD- Look our economy is in terrible shape (Worldwide for the most part) we are cutting services, laying off teachers and Police and our infrastructure is crumbling. Our Court systems are bursting at the seams and our Prisons are so far past capacity it is inhumane.
Corporate profits are at an all time high.
And you would even entertain the notion of adding new Laws and manpower and Prisoners to pad a gaming companies bottom line. Incresed taxes even?
New laws..no.Making Gold selling illegal..no. I do believe that hacking accounts is a form of theft and should be prosecuted.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
if you're going to charge gold farming, target the way they actually do their work. Such as stealing other places accounts. In an example of GW2, you can then look at that days gold to real dollars value through Arenanets cash store and use that to figure in how much money they stole. Most of it would just be midemeanors. There are a couple of problems though with trying with any criminal charge anywas.
1.) No matter what the punishment is, you're not going to deter people. Several people will have the mindset of, "Well sure you arrested all these other guys but they're morons. I am a criminal genuis and will never get caught." Then they will proceed to continue the crime.
2.) How are you going to charge a lot of these people? I know its steryptypical, but a fair number are in China, others I believe South Korea. They're out of the United State jurisdiction and neither of those countries would extradite these people for the crime of gold farming/selling, just like the United States wouldn't if the roles were reversed.
Originally posted by Aerowynyou are making money off of someone else's product illegally.. don't see it any differn't than people who rip movies or games and sell pirated copies and that's a felony...
With that sort of rationale you would see it fit to charge the gold buyers with a felony too for facilitation of a Black Market, like busting the john and the prostitute as well? Sounds like a well thought out idea...
yes same as it's illegal to buy pirated copies of video games.. usually the punishment is worse for the supplier than the buyer as with most things
I understand what you're saying and I agree with you. The same people that think gold farming and selling gold is okay are probably the people that think ripping CDs or movies and selling them is okay. Intellectual copyright laws mean nothing to these people, but they do to me and I agree with what you've said.
How do you draw the parallel between copyright infringement and gold selling?
In game gold is the creation and intellectual property of the company that made it. Creative license should apply. It's their creation, not that of those selling it, unless the company that made it is the one selling it. You don't have to agree with me, and I'm sure I'm not "legally" accurate, but I do have an opinion as to what SHOULD be the case. If you now intend to give me a 3 paragraph lecture on legalities, don't bother.
yes... because the girl that got raped, the child that got molested, the bystander that got stabbed, the husband that got run over....should all wait in line while the courts deliberate on Joe Blow for farming make believe gold in an online game....
.....please just delete this thread.
heh obviously it wouldn't be enforced as such but classifying something as a felony does put a damper on what people are willing to do.
what is the point of making laws that wont be enforced. completely rediculous. if it's made law then some companies/studios will take lawsuit actions vs individuals and that WILL take up the justice system's time.
it's completely ludicrous to believe that you can make a law, not enforce it and people will just follow it because they will be scared of braking the law....which you dont enforce to begin with.
New laws..no.Making Gold selling illegal..no. I do believe that hacking accounts is a form of theft and should be prosecuted.
I agree with you about account cracking (hacking? I don't thing that hackers are interested about any kind of account) and thieving.
But if MMO software houses do a char backup it's a problem easy to solve. And my Eden Eternal account was cracked around 1 year ago: no money, no objects... nothing, only a nude char.
Comments
I always thought it was a good thing until I went to WoW where there are nothing but bots spamming for gold.
In EQ, it use to be players selling their plat as they got it and did not need it. Never once saw bots selling it.
Oh yeah... no it should no be illegal.
na what i mean is, even if you made it 100% illegal to sell gold or buy it, people still will find a loophole to do it. much like people break the traffic laws and such. it really just comes down to the company either keeping up on selling sites and issuing punishment to their accounts. or going after people who buy it.
as its 90% more the end users fault for goldselling anyway, as they openly go out and buy it knowing its against the game rules. just like a drug dealer makes/sells illegal drugs to users.
people will do anything to get 0.0000001% headup on someone else
And? I'm not saying you cant sue some one for a "virtual crime" im saying that gold farming is not a crime, and if you claim the the selling of virtual currency is a crime since it belongs to the IP holder puts you into a legal bind.
You can't prove that any property changed hands if you claim that the virtual currency belongs to the IP owner since in that case nothing except money has changed place.
Like it or not pure gold farming is a service, the same way i can pay some one to walk my dolg or mow the lawn.
Now if we involve the only illegal part of gold selling which is selling gold of compromized accounts it's a completly different story. And if you actualy bothered to read the 2nd article then you would see that thats what it was about, he "hacked" accounts, got the items that the original account owners payed for and moved them to his own account.
But sadly as traditional gold farming and RMT goes you cant make a legal case agaisnt it not in a million years sorry, and yes i don't see nothing wrong with that either.
Also during WoW vanilla i used to play on the top PVE server on the US realms, when every one was broke, repairs costing pretty much as they did during WOTLK, the top end guilds that used to raid 6-7 times a week for 4-6 hours at the time actually gave repair money to every one on a daily bases. And i know for a fact that several of them were buying gold to keep it up from money they got from their sponsor simply because it was not possible to facilitate it other wise, a night of wipes which was not uncommon at the time could cost a tank 300-400 gold, and back then that was more than a week worth of farm unless you got really luck on world drops, not to mention the cost of potions and flasks.
Let me state a hypothesis using a game many of you i'm sure have heard of - Guild Wars 2:-
---------------------------------
Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet) makes a large majority of their income through their in-game cash shop by selling Gems as an RMT (Real-Money Transaction).
Let's assume you can buy 300 gems for £10 from ArenaNet. (These figures are not exact)
We also know for those who arent interested in RMT that you can purchase Gems for in-game gold.
Lets say it costs 2g for 300gems currently.
Further, let's assume gold-selling-site.com is selling Guild Wars 2 gold at £1 per gold.
There is now a situation where it is 10 times more profitable to purchase gems (through gold) from a third-party site than directly through ArenaNet.
Everyone flocks over to gold-selling-site.com to make their in-game purchases and are essentially robbing ArenaNet.
The high demand on gold-selling-site.com creates the need for higher supply. More bots are released in to the game, more accounts are hacked/hijacked, more gold selling spam from successful businesses.
While at the same time ArenaNet is suffering from a loss of funds, they have a lower budget to release further content, consumers complain about the state of the economy but unfortunately response is slow as staff have had to be laid off.
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So tell me now, exactly how this can be justified?
If you exclude the account hacking from this its called a free market, any one that can provide additional services, or a better service has the right to compete.
I pay my ISP to access the internet, Youtube makes a metric ton of money from advertisment while costing my ISP money in bandwidth can my ISP sue Youtube because youtube is making money?
-Some of you people cannot be serious- But evidently are. This is VERY SCARY to me since I imagine many of you vote as well.... =/
Look, Anet can magically create as much Gold and gems as they wish with the flick of a wrist and sell iot for any amount they deem the market will bear.
If a Goldseller is hacking this is ALREADY ILLEGAL- If they are earning these virtual goods through play and selling for CHEAPER than ANET can type some numbers in a Computer and process your Credit card- Fuck 'em. Seriously.
And sop ANET is losing money because a Goldseller can sell something cheaper than they can . Now you want to pay the TAXES to hire a plethora of people/agencies and make an INTERNATIONAL bobdy which supecedes a soveirn nations laws. How much does this cost verse ANY LOSS Anet is having?
And what about the cost to our freedoms? Extra surveilence, people jailed and fined for this, more databases.
Seriously this thing boils my blood- That this is even being supported in any way... WOW. Read some History books...PLEASE...
How can you tell the difference between legal gold farmers and illegal? How can you tell the difference between my giving my friend gold and me selling gold to someone? Plus, paying the tax dollars to police a video game - yeesh.
I enjoy farming for gold, by the way. I don't sell it for money, I do like to find good spots to farm to make gold for my account. Again, I don't sell it and never will.
As far as hacking and stealing accounts - that's fraud. It's already illegal but difficult and expensive to prosecute in these situations.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
-Right on...
Not to mention ANET itself opened this Pandoras Box by legitimizing this anyhow. So Gold buying is "Okay " now, but only from US (who will be higher priced than someone earning it in game and selling it with 0 work beyond processing Credit cards)- Then people want to (apparently) pay Taxes and form new Burocracies to PROTECT THE INTEREST OF Anet??? WOW.
And the thing is, most are intellegent people. These are not "stupid" people supporting this ideal. Honestly , most of us are a cut above average (although we often disagree on many things)- Just very misguided IMHO. I see a very corporate-centric generation and its quite scary.
yu cant stop gold sellers theyll exsist for as long as ppl buy gold from them
and its still a free market out there
and how r yu gonna enforce it?
theyr not us based so us laws r meaningless
how are yu gonna prove tht a player payed real money for ingame gold or is it so that mere suspicion shuld b enough?
theres some questions tht pops up in my mind when reading this thread
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
Why though?
Lets exasmine some rationale: Gold selling is immoral. (I actually agree) but Anet legitimized it.It isnt immoral in a game that actually offers it up- Its part of the game, its fully legal and endorsed.
Let me make another comparison (if you will)- I am a huge supporter of medical Cannabis and helped legalize it in my State. The dispensaries want to try to monopolize the industry and say "Okay, you HAVE to buy from us or its ILLEGAL..." and yet they want the Government to enforce THEIR Monopoly and control of the market- And thus set the price wherever they wish.
-We have fought this tooth and nail, and the State agrees with us.
Its either Legal or it is NOT.
There really is no middle groyund here. Anet wants their Cake and wants to eat it too. They want to sell you Gold (gems) which cost nothing to make. No time, no effort, nothing. The ONLY manpower needed is to process your credit card. How then, can anyone find buying Gold from a CHEAPER source immoral? To me its immoral to try to monopolize a market which takes 0 manpower and rake in PURE PROFIT.
So Anet cannot compete with the Goldsellers, yet it cost nothing (ZERO) for them to create the gold from thin air...How can this be????
ADD- Look, once they offered Gold/Gem sales in the game- This is a free market issue. Hacking is already illegal. They can enforce their EULA with bans and such- But it stops there. This is NOT an issue of crime nor should it ever be.
And now people want to pay taxes and give up freedoms to protect ANET so they can sell their Gold at any price they deem (and throw folks in jail for offering the SAME product for cheaper_
-Pure insanity.
ADD #2- This whole thread is just..... Anyhow do you people understand that a FELONY is punishable by not only jail times and fines but voids your rights to own a firearm and in many states your right to VOTE??? That you would have a permanent record for life which could bar you from employment??? That you would lumped with Armed Robbers and Crack dealers for...Selling/Buying Gold in GW2?
Do you realize that even a mistermeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail? That drunk driving is usually a mistermeanor???
Have you any ideal the cost in manpower and the added surveilence this would increase? And that WE ALL would have to pay for this?
Have you thought this all through?
Yeah I don't get it either. There is alot of consumers that personally defend corporation interest over their own.
I mean, let's assume that game company hire 1 bot-hunter per server which ONLY task is to check people bot reports, bot detection tools report (if they exist in this game) and randomly check most popular bot spots. + few programmers which also ONLY job is to create and pefect bot hunt tools and modify API to make bot job harder.
Would it make bots disappear? Lol no. It would propably decrease amount of bots.
It would cost alot. Sure. It would make corporation earn less and quarterly report worse for investors. Sure it would.
Now why many people care so much about corporation profits, quarterly reports, etc It is NOT some RIGHT they have that corporations have to continuesly increase their revenue and profit percentage.
Certain industries and certain business types profitibility increase and decerase.
Game companies should provide good product and should spend money on making good product and that also mean spending money to fight bots even if that mean they will earn less.
You're consumer quality of product you get should be more important to you than corporation profits. After all for corporations their profits are important and nothing else. They don't care about your personal income. Why you care about theirs?
-Very well said.
Thats the beauty of the FREE market. At some point the cost/benefit must be assesed- If they are losing tins of money it would be cheaper to hire more GMs and their own "undercover" staff. If they have to raise the Box price to pay for this then the people who PLAY this game pay the regressive tax and not EVERYONE.
People would have every man, woman and child taxed to help Anet (or any gaming company) control a monopoly on virtual items- This means we all pay so Anet (or anyone) can make MORE $$$$. This (in turn) means they will do LESS to Police their OWN INDUSTRY since the Governments (and people) of the World will pay the tab for THAT part. EDIT: If we are paying the tab we should reap in the profit.
-Plus I seriously do not think Anet is "hurting" right now. I think they wopuld be doing doing fine absent of their "Cash Shop" and thats all icing on the cake.
Anyhow- Fascism is the merger between Corporations and Governments- Something we are seeing more and more of daily....Food for thought.
In regards to the "corporate-centric generation", that is a primary attribute assigned to the Millennial generation unfortunately.
Generation Y often fails to be able to think or decipher information for themselves, while they have an abundance of information available to them on the internet, they don't necessary understand how all the pieces work together.
Having worked as a TA for an English Professor for college freshman I am sad to report how many times I witnessed an individual from that particular generation attempt to plagiarize by literally cutting and pasting articles from the internet and slopping them together in paragraphs.
The kicker is they are forewarned that all of their papers will be turned in through turnitin.com where it is cross-referenced with a catalog of other papers and the actual percentage of material plagiarized and the sources used (wikipedia lol) can be identified ... but they still do it.
I think that ANet gems and goldselling aren't the same thing. BTW i'm glad for your fight for legalize medical cannabis was ok, i agree with you about it (but i live in Europe, here is more easy).
Being IT, if software house do a sort of in game goldselling (gems, or AH with real money, and so on) can be a good way in order to fight "chinese" (but there are east european goldsellers too), or immoral, goldselling. But i think that Stats and Nations can be aware to do laws about videogames. I wel remember the german law against violence and blood inside VGs and, well, a lot of german people bought VGs abroad.
There's a time for everything, but no time for Big Bro inside MMO. Not now, ever and forever.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
I think we all agree with you my friend.
The question is , should Gold Selling/Buying be made illegal (as in punishible by law) and the word "Felony" was even mentioned in the title.
Hacking already has LAWS in place regarding this...Right now, Gold Selling/buying (Hell, Include account sales even) is not ILLEGAL it just breaks the EULA and you can be banned.
-So, in order to make this Illegal we first need Police Powers given to an agency which would need be under International Law. But even IF it could be done nationally it means extra Police Powers, folks imprisoned and more surveilence. Probably undercover Police playing these games to "bust" Gold sellers... Who pays for this? Is this the direction you wish our society to go?
These are very important and fundamental questions which REALLY demand thought and meditation.
ADD- Look our economy is in terrible shape (Worldwide for the most part) we are cutting services, laying off teachers and Police and our infrastructure is crumbling. Our Court systems are bursting at the seams and our Prisons are so far past capacity it is inhumane.
Corporate profits are at an all time high.
And you would even entertain the notion of adding new Laws and manpower and Prisoners to pad a gaming companies bottom line. Incresed taxes even?
New laws..no.Making Gold selling illegal..no. I do believe that hacking accounts is a form of theft and should be prosecuted.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
if you're going to charge gold farming, target the way they actually do their work. Such as stealing other places accounts. In an example of GW2, you can then look at that days gold to real dollars value through Arenanets cash store and use that to figure in how much money they stole. Most of it would just be midemeanors. There are a couple of problems though with trying with any criminal charge anywas.
1.) No matter what the punishment is, you're not going to deter people. Several people will have the mindset of, "Well sure you arrested all these other guys but they're morons. I am a criminal genuis and will never get caught." Then they will proceed to continue the crime.
2.) How are you going to charge a lot of these people? I know its steryptypical, but a fair number are in China, others I believe South Korea. They're out of the United State jurisdiction and neither of those countries would extradite these people for the crime of gold farming/selling, just like the United States wouldn't if the roles were reversed.
Just two issues I see.
In game gold is the creation and intellectual property of the company that made it. Creative license should apply. It's their creation, not that of those selling it, unless the company that made it is the one selling it. You don't have to agree with me, and I'm sure I'm not "legally" accurate, but I do have an opinion as to what SHOULD be the case. If you now intend to give me a 3 paragraph lecture on legalities, don't bother.
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No point in going after the farmers. Much like the music industry it is much easier to go after the buyers.
Just make it illegal to purchase gold from 3rd party sites for real money. Not that hard to get a bank record of the transaction.
what is the point of making laws that wont be enforced. completely rediculous. if it's made law then some companies/studios will take lawsuit actions vs individuals and that WILL take up the justice system's time.
it's completely ludicrous to believe that you can make a law, not enforce it and people will just follow it because they will be scared of braking the law....which you dont enforce to begin with.
please just stop making no sense.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I agree with you about account cracking (hacking? I don't thing that hackers are interested about any kind of account) and thieving.
But if MMO software houses do a char backup it's a problem easy to solve. And my Eden Eternal account was cracked around 1 year ago: no money, no objects... nothing, only a nude char.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)