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Gaming is serious bizness. Is IGE doomed ?
Liddokun
Member UncommonPosts: 1,665
Further info and interviews about the Hernandez vs. IGE lawsuit.
Comments
Brock Pierce, the CEO is IGE was a child star, and was in the Disney Movie, "First Kid" with Sinbad, if anyone remembers that movie, and also played the young version of Gordon Bombay in his flashbacks in the Mighty Duck movies.
However whilst I think it is unlikely that this suite will succeed, it may end up making the situation worse if it does, because it may just open the door to the taxation of virtual earnings if a dollar value can be assigned to them. (Removes Tin Foil Hat)
Having access to a great legal case tracking system like westlaw will make this an interesting case to follow. This really could be earth shattering in it's impact to the gaming industry as a whole.
Looking at the issue, my primary question is:
1) If "gold-farming" companies are forced out of business, what is the bottom line impact to Gaming Companies? From my limited understanding of the financial aspect of Gaming, most of the money comes from the original sale of the boxed game, correct? If that's so, and you look at the sheer number of characters Gold Farming Companies utilize, this will be a big impact to revenue gained. Even if it's the other side of the coin, and most revenue comes from the monthly fee, Gaming comany's are still going to see an impact - directly via their number of User Accounts. The associated impacts from this are wide ranging.
All that being said, my personal opinion is that Gold-Farming companies - as long as they aren't spamming you in game - are a valid resource for players who don't have the time or patience to grind one spot for hours at a time to make the adena, gold, vis, etc required to support their characters. Perhaps Gaming Companies should take matters into their own hands and sell gold in the Mall type shop. They can always undercut the Farmers, due to requiring no actual labor other than adding one 0 or so to the amounts in the store. Perhaps they could go so far as to create a bit of code that would allow them to assign amounts allowed for purchase based on your actual play time. That way, you could possibly control the fluctuation in the market by artificially controlling available funds in game.
Really I'm not sure of the best solution. But I stand by my belief that Gold Sellers are an excellent way for Joe Casual to compete against Joe Hardcore. Joe Casual spends more time working (i.e. making money and thereby having a higher amount of disposable income). If he has enough real world cash to buy gold, so be it. The problem, that even I see, is that the player market sky-rockets. Causing those players that fall between Joe Hardcore and Joe Casual to suffer the consequences.
Mado
EDIT: Grammatical Fix
Unfortunately, this will never go away, at least not entirely. I don't care what laws get passed and who sues who, in the end there will always be a way around it. Mark my words, before long there will be a company who teams up with gold farming companies and integrate them into their gaming landscape. Not sure if it's been commented or referrenced before but there was a senate committee that was put together to find out how to tax in-game currency. I'll see if I can dig up the article on it. It was reported by BBC news a few months ago.
-edit-
Sorry, it is a congressional committee and the article is from last October. The link follows below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6065534.stm
I voted neutrally, however like most people here, I would love to see IGE served. Of course, if IGE is prosecuted, it sets a precedent against other gold farmers/RMTs, I won't expect much against the sweatshops in Asia, but I'll look forward to future actions against western companies.
I can't help but wonder if this would have never come to pass like the old days when the gold sellers wont so bold, while it was a problem with damage to the economy and people feeling cheated, it was a problem that was dealable and could be relativley ignored. In case anyone is curious as to what I am alluding to it's the sheer amount of spam everyone was recieving from them trying to peddle their goods. I was recieving a whisper that is big enough to fill my entire chat box every 5-10 minutes and a constantly filled mailbox as well.
Fun Factor is what makes or breaks a game, if its not fun just play something else.
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
"All that glitters is not made of gold."
Here is what everyone is missing if blizzard or the lawsuit against ige fails i bet this will happen.......
Major gaming companies like blizzard or soe will take over and stop gold sellers and account sellers in this manor
1. NO GOLD TRADING BETWEEN PLAYERS PERIOD
2. ALL MONEY CAN ONLY BE USED IN GAME WITH A NPC OR BROKER
3.MARKET WILL BE MONITOR FOR TO HIGH OF PRICES AND FIX ACCORDINALLY NOT TO RAKE OTHER PLAYERS
(MEANING GOLD SELLERS CANT BUY A ITEM SAY FOR 1 MILLION GOLD FROM A PLAYER SO THEY CAN BY GOOD FROM SAID GOLD SELLER)
4. ALL ACCOUNT SELLERS ONCE YOU BUY THE GAME AND REGISTER IT THE ACCOUNT MUST BE PAID FOR BY GAME CARD OR VISA IN SUCH NAME YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE NAME OF ACCOUNT IF YOU SELL SUCH ACCOUNT IT IS BANNED FOR GOOD NO EXCEPTIONS.
now mark my words the companies will take control if they must and kick out gold sellers... this is how it will be done and gold and account sells wont beable to do anything at all...... but i also like lotrs version in a way once you cancel your account or change info on said account turbine can delete said account without warning that will also stop account sellers!
matter of fact i should write out a papaer and send it to all mmo companies and have them start this process!
What's IGE?
Inter Galactic Enterprises?
And why are they being sued?
"Ok, I can see how the game is becoming "polluted" by gold farming/selling. It violates the ToS and EULA. But you can’t sue a company for selling gold! And you definitely can't have a class action lawsuit against them from the players who buy it! WE are responsible for ruining the games, not IGE. They simply provide a service to US. If we didn't buy the stinking gold in the first place they wouldn't have anyone to sell it to. And I can tell you that companies will not join up to fight this because one of the biggest MMO publishers: SOE, encourages this behavior with the Station Exchange! I don’t think there is anything anyone can do to stop MMO economies and real economies from merging into one. As sad as it sounds its true. There might be ways to regulate this but that is up to the developers of the game to implement/regulate. To re-iterate- IGE and peons4hire only exist because the players allow them too. Someone will always be able to create a paypal account and send random tells in-game for gold sales. Instead of replying back, "sure ill buy some" /report it’s your duty as a player to /report and its the dev's job to be swift and merciless."
I respectfully disagree. If you re-read the attorneys answers he is angling very sharply at a simple equation and not even interested in culpability for the actual transaction of "selling gold"; He is going to argue that Joe Shmo pays $15 per month for a service but is not able to be completely compensated for that monthly fee. Not because of anything that the game developer is doing or Joe himself. He has to establish that Joe is being "injured", even minutely. That won't be difficult though because there are gazillions of examples of not only Joe getting less than he is paying for as a direct result of IGE blatantly violating the written agreement by anyone buying the game but it's all in text files and not deniable. It's important to remember that a lot of the players buying gold are not "casual players buying 200gp to hobby their way at a comfortable pace while working nine to five. There is a large portion that spends hundreds, perhaps thousands of real dollars in order to become moguls of trade in game. They make a real impact on the player economy as a whole and at the individual level. When the casual Joes out there are unable to play the game at 100% of what was paid for and produced by the game maker they have a grievance. A certain weapon or breastplate becomes hugely popular because it's just plain superior and the price escalates out of control in days. mostly because of the old adage of "its worth what someone will pay for it". If you have even 20 players on a server of 2000 (and that is a very conservative number) that have warped their finances to 500 times or more than everyone else playing, with aspirations of becoming a high end item trader then the casual player likely will never see a portion (even if it’s a tiny portion) of the product he is continually paying for, he has been damaged or wronged. The seller set entered into the agreement in good faith and intending THEIR product to be one thing and the buyer isn't getting what they sent in total. This attorney only has to show that Joe is getting $14.00 of his $15.00 product because of the actions of the gold seller and buyer. Since one doesn't exist without the other the source or the dealer-seller is targeted primarily.
More simply put you can’t, as an individual or business, interfere in the legal partnership of others and degrade the product in transit in any way, whether you profit or not. If you do so and even continue to do so after being asked to stop by the seller then you are going to expose yourself to liability and litigation. No matter one penny or one million pennies. IGE and other companies like it knowingly and purposefully ignore the sellers pleas and the contract they are stepping into the middle of to skim their living. The fact that some players-consumers choose to do the same doesn't absolve IGE of their part in the process.
You correctly state that "IGE and peons4hire only exist because the players allow them too." The opposite is true as well. I'm sorry but I also don't agree that can't be stopped. Class action law suits are giant killers. Companies are in business to make money and if the penalties are as stiff as I think they will be then they will look elsewhere to peddle their wares. If companies were not allowed to sell the gold then the buyers wouldn't have anywhere to go. There was a hint of that when the attorney mentioned that they would be open to settlements possibly including the sellers vacating WoW specifically. Look for that to be more likely than a multi-million dollar award. He is doing this interview and others for a reason. He is talking to IGE, part PR war and part prep-work. The negotiations are already happening and we are looking at them. I guarantee you this child star that runs IGE has his legal team reading every interview and press release like that.
Bottom line IMHO..gold selling does at the top levels make a distinct impact on the game, All the transactions are easily infiltrated or documented in text logs and even though I believe it's a large impact ..in the eyes of the law they only have to prove they are changing the product in any way,negatively or not, interfering in the contract between the two parties and those parties (even if the complaining buyers are in the minority). I don't see as the seller has a leg to stand on. IGE and there ilk are forewarned interlopers, pirates, uninvited guests.
Duiss HunEtte
70 Necromancer
Collander McGovern
70 Warrior
Retired Quellious Player
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
It should be interesting.
In my past MMORPG experience I didn't care about the buying / selling of in-game currency. To me, there were two types of players - those with disposable income and those with disposable time. I didn't see the military guy buying credits from me in any different light than I did guildmates who were online neearly 24/7. One had scant in-game time that he wanted to spend playing the game and not grinding, the other had no money but all the time in the world because they were a useless drain on society as a whole.
That said, it sounds as if WoW has taken it to a whole 'nother level in the past year or two. I quit in early '06, and it sounds like since then the introduction of easy to obtain trail accounts has taken the restraint away from the power sellers.
I don't think you're ever going to see a publisher really push the issue though as a whole (in-game currency sales). Frankly it's in their best interests to keep the issue out of court completely. You start getting the legal system involved, and you open up a can of worms because of the legal gray area that virtual property resides in. When you boil it down, virtual property has a lot more in common with tangible property than it does intellectual property, and the only thing that the publishers have to fall back on is their TOS / EULA, and we all know how well those stand up in court.
Originally posted by fungistratus
What about Vanguard: Saga of Heroes? That game promised allot and I paid 50 dollars and 15x3 months of playing time. What did I get?
Good question
That is opposed drastically to a third party entering into your agreement with VGSoH and degrading your purchase for profit, even after being asked and told to cease and desist. One reason class actions are useful in this type of case is that as individuals we are not slapped in the face and outright robbed. It's a more subtle large scale approach that easily staves off any one person or small group from usually even writing a letter. It reminds of the scheme in Office Space where they siphon off half a penny from 1 million accounts at work purposely to stay under the radar.
The documentation I referred to earlier can be from a variety of sources. If this law firm is serious and I think they are then they have been buying gold from companies for a year maybe. Recording the game footage is easy. I know EQ had a log file that dumped any data you wanted at all for as long as you want. My point in this is not that they have the smoking gun in video or mounds of text conversations to throw anyone in jail. All they have to establish is "IGN works very hard to use techniques to avoid detection, buying new accounts and dumping them etc.. and here is there website with me setting up the meeting...here is the video of the IGN employee logging in to deliver the gold."
There is no possibility of IGN denying anything, because they are so brazen and unafraid they have been doing it out in the open for years. Then we are back to ..OK, they do this and they make an effort to avoid being caught by the business that owns product. Fine, now should they be allowed to do this? Way too many examples there to even attempt to defend them. I don't think IBM would like me sneaking onto their network under aliases to conduct activities they prohibit, whether it was actually costing them money or not. However if you add to that equation that one or two of IBMs customers complained because they had to wait a little longer online due to minor server lag. IBM would crush that person. The example may be a little off but I think you know what I mean:)
Duiss HunEtte
70 Necromancer
Collander McGovern
70 Warrior
Retired Quellious Player
I feel like kinda like a one man band posting in response to my own post but since 6-2-07 my fortune-telling partially started to materialize and it seems the first step off the edge has happened. This is a test for Bliz and if they do well ( and theey will) look for gaming companies to start moving very fast to quash profiteers.
"As many of you know, the latest content patch, along with many great new content additions, contains technical counter-measures designed to combat in-game gold spamming. Our efforts to reduce in-game abuse and create a fun, safe environment for everyone are never-ending.
With that said, we felt that it was important to share with the community just how serious we are in our efforts to combat this type of abuse. Blizzard has filed a federal lawsuit against the operators of Peons4hire, a popular gold-selling organization which many of you have no doubt seen advertised. As part of the lawsuit, the operators of Peons4hire have been asked to immediately cease all in-game spamming efforts by all entities and websites under their control.
If this organization refuses to act accordingly, further legal action will be taken. We'll be sure to keep you posted on the progress of this topic. "
Duiss HunnEtte
" my personal opinion is that Gold-Farming companies - as long as they aren't spamming you in game - are a valid resource for players who don't have the time or patience to grind "
Ah it is a violation of the rules of the game hence cheating. So you approve of cheating in games huh?
What else does your debaised morality allow you to cheat on, wife, work, taxes?
I could very simply say: If your against buying gold, then you must be for grinding.
That being said, I'm not against buying gold. Though I have never done it myself, if someone else wants to waste thier money and buy non-existant money, it is fine by me. I can see why people buy gold (Avoid the GRIND) and thus am not personally against it. I suppose if you were making enough money that your time is valuable enough to you, then buying your online gold is an alternative. Yes, some people may think it is unfair that they may be "unable" to afford to buy gold, but chances are, if they are paying for a subscription, have a computer, and a broadband internet connection (Who plays on a 56k?) you can most definatly shell out come cash for the gold. Welcome to capitalism, everything, even non-existant money, has a price.
I could very simply say: If your against buying gold, then you must be for grinding.
That being said, I'm not against buying gold. Though I have never done it myself, if someone else wants to waste thier money and buy non-existant money, it is fine by me. I can see why people buy gold (Avoid the GRIND) and thus am not personally against it. I suppose if you were making enough money that your time is valuable enough to you, then buying your online gold is an alternative. Yes, some people may think it is unfair that they may be "unable" to afford to buy gold, but chances are, if they are paying for a subscription, have a computer, and a broadband internet connection (Who plays on a 56k?) you can most definatly shell out come cash for the gold. Welcome to capitalism, everything, even non-existant money, has a price.
Dork....
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!