a) is there a chance that a gold advertisement appearing on a site like this will mislead people into believing that buying gold online is legal and therefore they cannot be banned from that game? The answer is: YES.
b) since so far none of the mmo's has sued a gold seller site for violating intellectual property, does this mean that mmo's forfeited/waived their right to protect their intellectual property? The answer is: NO.
The fact is: everything that is contained in a MMO (world objects, money, even your character) is owned by the game operator/developer. You are granted a license for your monthly subscription to use it. If the developer/game operator forbids the sale of in-game property for real money, it is entirely within their right, and they can sue you/ban you for violating this rule. If they decide for some reason that they do not sue such gold sellers (e.g. the local legislation at the place of business of the gold seller does not support enforcing such claims for damages on account of violation of intellectual property, because the issues around intellectual property rights are not regulated yet in conformance with the international standards and practices) , it does not constitute and cannot be interpreted as a waiver.
Making screenshots of a DVD movie and putting them on a fan site has already lead to situations where the fan site operator received "cease and desist" letters. One might claim that such acts do not result in any harm for the movie producer, in fact they are free advertisements, and so on, and it is difficult to prove how much damage it has done to the copyright owner, but the copyright law says otherwise. You are NOT permitted to use copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder. Period.
How does gold sale damage game economy? Inflation and easily obtainable epic items will reduce the time required for a player to reach various goals. Less time means a shorter period before the game 'burns out' and new content needs to be added to maintain interest. The companies may easily produce statistical reports that demonstrate the link between the amount of gold and in-game inflation, however, as I wrote, they do not really need to do it. The only claim they should submit to the court that their intellectual property right was violated.
I am going to take the time to write a long and incredibley thought out post on this subject. Why? Because I just spent 2 hours away from developing my resume that could get me in to the swing of making all those new and awesome MMOs your all waiting for to read the first ten bleeding pages of this thread. If that doesn't just cry out for a rant I don't know what does.
Lets start out with a concept.
All people are in some way responsible for problems of the world. Why? As big as the world is, it's really very small. Each and every person to post to this thread has in some way contributed to the state of bad things in the world, including this second market, (if you so define it as bad.)
This presents us with a far more interesting platform. You see now how much you bemoan the unethical nature of the beast, you are not inherently higher in ethical standing than the person who does do it. So it doesn't matter if it is ethical, all that matters is what it does, and wether we want our gaming to go that direction.
I'll start out with a statement somebody made earlier. "Games are where we go to forget about our current poverty in life and be equal despite it." Although I'm horrifically paraphrasing I know.
How is encouraging the creation of games that cost more to play for one month than a family in indonesia can make in a month helping people forget their poverty? How is making the prerequisite to play a game the owner having invested in a computer costing $500-$1200 going to make someone forget theri poverty when thats 2.5-6 weeks of work a starting wage for a highschool gradute and thats straight up money, not counting taxes, bills, and food required in that time period. How is playing a game for 3 hours a night because you have the luxury of not having a second or third job evening the playing field so that poverty doesn't matter.
You have in so many ways brought your financial standing into the game that it is rediculous to site real world economics as breaking a game. I went through this entire conversation with my sister today, what makes you so mad about rich people spending their money, you are guilty of doing exactly the same thing when seen from the point of view of someone more impoverished than you.
Second there is a belief that the mixing of gaming and real life is some sort of sin. And you play and praise games based on the exchange of man hours, far more expensive than any monthly fee, for in-game benefits. You then scream and moan and pout when someone breaks that system and does the intelligent thing. You make it against the rules to be creative and think outside the box, you build your games so strictly around a box that you are somehow intelletually damaged when people say, "hey look there is another way to do it."
This is the self same system that keeps millions of people poor and undertrodden. This is why you 'are' impoverished to begin with. You are trained from preschool to college to think as critically as you want so long as you remain "inside the box". Never look at a situation and ask, "how can I make this work for me?" for that way lies exploitation of the masses. The masses who then ahve the gaul to approach the rich and say, "can I exchange my work for your money" and then turn around and say, "how dare he make a profit off my work!" Did you yourself not ask to be used? Do you yourself not keep playing the silly game that you rail against so?
As to why I'm going so far off-topic with this, I'm not going off-topic at all. You see the problem comes back to the same basic problem of pirated music. In the case of music some look at it and say, "you are hurting the industry." To which the others respond, "The industry is hurting the Industry". Is it a bad idea that everyone should have access to free music, that everyone should have their cahnce in the spotlight? Why does an artistic pursuit have to be a business?
My view in two words, "stupid artists."
The artist and developers refuse to learn financial literacy and thereby take control of their own finances and liberate themselves from the NEED to deal with corporations. Through the building of assets through investments a game could be funded and distributed for free while maintaining higher quality than WoW. And there need not be one or two, but as many as there are developers who wish to undertake to make such games.
And if the players were to be financially literate and have no need to worry about doing anything besides what they loved, where would be the point in a "second market".
Lets recap that in a nutshell shall we.
People live inside the box. People refuse to take a risk and move outside the box. This requires that people place monetary value on their time. This allows others to set up a monetary trade of money for time. This causes games that have spent far too long creating a time=reward system to have through their own design attached a real monetary value to the reward. Which causes people to exploit that. Which causes the games to panic as they have no other reward system in place. Which causes the exploit to be made unethical by their standards. Which causes a forum debate about the ethics of advertising for those illicite services.
My solution?
Shut up, take some personal responsibility and fix the actions you are doing that facilitate the problem. Yes it's hard, yes it requires you actually DO something besides sit on a forum whining.
The likelihood of anyone listening, understanding and acting upon what I just said?
Very small. If you haven't acknowledged the message that life has spent the better part of 2-4 decades beating into you, why would acknowledge my voicing it?
And on a more personal note, there are wys of rewarding players besides the standard time=reward formula. You can use community activity, kindness to other players, ingenuity in accomplishing tasks, ability to effectively organize a group, ability to suck up to the admins, skill in fighitng other players, skill in performing the tasks with which they have been assigned, and skill in the management of their in-game assets. Oh and I almost forget, skill in staying IN CHARACTER.
In short, there are so many other systems to use, why are you all so dead set on making and playing grind-fests anyway?
Most of us that discuss design in the developers corner do not want any grind fests. Many are for getting away from stats and levels and uber loot. You should join in the discussions there. Alternate ways to reward and acheive in the game are great topics we are always willing to discuss.
And if you read back through this mess. you will se how many times I have been ridiculed for saying this would eventualy and HAD to happen.
So let me take this opportunity to say.... Told ya so!!
Now if we can just get the developers of games to admit responsibility for thier own creations then my solution is complete.
No applause necessary.... just throw money please
+-+-+-+-+-+ "MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol" http://purepwnage.com -+-+-+-+-+-+ "Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
The ebay announcement only hurt players who used to sell their characters for cash.... now they'll have to sell directly to gold selling firms (or adverstise by word of mouth).
All major gold is traded on private websites....very little actually was sold through ebay, except by small time firms....
Net effect....not too much...though the price of WOW gold has gone way up....either due to less competition from EBay, or Blizzard has done a better job restricting farming to the fact that lots of players are reaching level 70 and finding out they only have 1.5 plat towards their elite flying mount sklll which costs 5P.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
a) is there a chance that a gold advertisement appearing on a site like this will mislead people into believing that buying gold online is legal and therefore they cannot be banned from that game? The answer is: YES.
b) since so far none of the mmo's has sued a gold seller site for violating intellectual property, does this mean that mmo's forfeited/waived their right to protect their intellectual property? The answer is: NO.
The fact is: everything that is contained in a MMO (world objects, money, even your character) is owned by the game operator/developer. You are granted a license for your monthly subscription to use it. If the developer/game operator forbids the sale of in-game property for real money, it is entirely within their right, and they can sue you/ban you for violating this rule. If they decide for some reason that they do not sue such gold sellers (e.g. the local legislation at the place of business of the gold seller does not support enforcing such claims for damages on account of violation of intellectual property, because the issues around intellectual property rights are not regulated yet in conformance with the international standards and practices) , it does not constitute and cannot be interpreted as a waiver.
Making screenshots of a DVD movie and putting them on a fan site has already lead to situations where the fan site operator received "cease and desist" letters. One might claim that such acts do not result in any harm for the movie producer, in fact they are free advertisements, and so on, and it is difficult to prove how much damage it has done to the copyright owner, but the copyright law says otherwise. You are NOT permitted to use copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder. Period.
How does gold sale damage game economy? Inflation and easily obtainable epic items will reduce the time required for a player to reach various goals. Less time means a shorter period before the game 'burns out' and new content needs to be added to maintain interest. The companies may easily produce statistical reports that demonstrate the link between the amount of gold and in-game inflation, however, as I wrote, they do not really need to do it. The only claim they should submit to the court that their intellectual property right was violated.
Lets start out with a concept.
All people are in some way responsible for problems of the world. Why? As big as the world is, it's really very small. Each and every person to post to this thread has in some way contributed to the state of bad things in the world, including this second market, (if you so define it as bad.)
This presents us with a far more interesting platform. You see now how much you bemoan the unethical nature of the beast, you are not inherently higher in ethical standing than the person who does do it. So it doesn't matter if it is ethical, all that matters is what it does, and wether we want our gaming to go that direction.
I'll start out with a statement somebody made earlier. "Games are where we go to forget about our current poverty in life and be equal despite it." Although I'm horrifically paraphrasing I know.
How is encouraging the creation of games that cost more to play for one month than a family in indonesia can make in a month helping people forget their poverty? How is making the prerequisite to play a game the owner having invested in a computer costing $500-$1200 going to make someone forget theri poverty when thats 2.5-6 weeks of work a starting wage for a highschool gradute and thats straight up money, not counting taxes, bills, and food required in that time period. How is playing a game for 3 hours a night because you have the luxury of not having a second or third job evening the playing field so that poverty doesn't matter.
You have in so many ways brought your financial standing into the game that it is rediculous to site real world economics as breaking a game. I went through this entire conversation with my sister today, what makes you so mad about rich people spending their money, you are guilty of doing exactly the same thing when seen from the point of view of someone more impoverished than you.
Second there is a belief that the mixing of gaming and real life is some sort of sin. And you play and praise games based on the exchange of man hours, far more expensive than any monthly fee, for in-game benefits. You then scream and moan and pout when someone breaks that system and does the intelligent thing. You make it against the rules to be creative and think outside the box, you build your games so strictly around a box that you are somehow intelletually damaged when people say, "hey look there is another way to do it."
This is the self same system that keeps millions of people poor and undertrodden. This is why you 'are' impoverished to begin with. You are trained from preschool to college to think as critically as you want so long as you remain "inside the box". Never look at a situation and ask, "how can I make this work for me?" for that way lies exploitation of the masses. The masses who then ahve the gaul to approach the rich and say, "can I exchange my work for your money" and then turn around and say, "how dare he make a profit off my work!" Did you yourself not ask to be used? Do you yourself not keep playing the silly game that you rail against so?
As to why I'm going so far off-topic with this, I'm not going off-topic at all. You see the problem comes back to the same basic problem of pirated music. In the case of music some look at it and say, "you are hurting the industry." To which the others respond, "The industry is hurting the Industry". Is it a bad idea that everyone should have access to free music, that everyone should have their cahnce in the spotlight? Why does an artistic pursuit have to be a business?
My view in two words, "stupid artists."
The artist and developers refuse to learn financial literacy and thereby take control of their own finances and liberate themselves from the NEED to deal with corporations. Through the building of assets through investments a game could be funded and distributed for free while maintaining higher quality than WoW. And there need not be one or two, but as many as there are developers who wish to undertake to make such games.
And if the players were to be financially literate and have no need to worry about doing anything besides what they loved, where would be the point in a "second market".
Lets recap that in a nutshell shall we.
People live inside the box. People refuse to take a risk and move outside the box. This requires that people place monetary value on their time. This allows others to set up a monetary trade of money for time. This causes games that have spent far too long creating a time=reward system to have through their own design attached a real monetary value to the reward. Which causes people to exploit that. Which causes the games to panic as they have no other reward system in place. Which causes the exploit to be made unethical by their standards. Which causes a forum debate about the ethics of advertising for those illicite services.
My solution?
Shut up, take some personal responsibility and fix the actions you are doing that facilitate the problem. Yes it's hard, yes it requires you actually DO something besides sit on a forum whining.
The likelihood of anyone listening, understanding and acting upon what I just said?
Very small. If you haven't acknowledged the message that life has spent the better part of 2-4 decades beating into you, why would acknowledge my voicing it?
And on a more personal note, there are wys of rewarding players besides the standard time=reward formula. You can use community activity, kindness to other players, ingenuity in accomplishing tasks, ability to effectively organize a group, ability to suck up to the admins, skill in fighitng other players, skill in performing the tasks with which they have been assigned, and skill in the management of their in-game assets. Oh and I almost forget, skill in staying IN CHARACTER.
In short, there are so many other systems to use, why are you all so dead set on making and playing grind-fests anyway?
IronOre - Forging the Future
http://www.theage.com.au/news/games/ebay-bans-sales-of-virtual-game-loot/2007/01/31/1169919383349.html
And if you read back through this mess. you will se how many times I have been ridiculed for saying this would eventualy and HAD to happen.
So let me take this opportunity to say.... Told ya so!!
Now if we can just get the developers of games to admit responsibility for thier own creations then my solution is complete.
No applause necessary.... just throw money please
+-+-+-+-+-+
"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
-+-+-+-+-+-+
"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
The ebay announcement only hurt players who used to sell their characters for cash.... now they'll have to sell directly to gold selling firms (or adverstise by word of mouth).
All major gold is traded on private websites....very little actually was sold through ebay, except by small time firms....
Net effect....not too much...though the price of WOW gold has gone way up....either due to less competition from EBay, or Blizzard has done a better job restricting farming to the fact that lots of players are reaching level 70 and finding out they only have 1.5 plat towards their elite flying mount sklll which costs 5P.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon