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The Inner Workings of the Chinese Gold Farming Industry
Luv_bug
Member Posts: 120
Professional Chinese Gold Farmer tells all - Exclusive Interview with Jared Psigoda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvHcoqru7I
Kinda explains the current push to F2P for a lot of publishers...
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Thanks for the link, it seems Blizzard is hurting these guys pretty bad.
this might explain why WoW has a large amount of subs. I wonder what % of wow subs make up gold farmers.
Ever wonder how many gold farmers buy leveling services?
Ever wonder how many leveling services buy gold and items?
I've always wondered how much of a merry-go-round is involved in that.
Once upon a time....
Np and yeah, seems they've come up with some effective things to hinder them.
Farmers and dupers have been moving items and gold around and hiding it from GMs for years.
Once upon a time....
To be honest, I'm not really concerned about "gold farmers" , but those who hack accounts and do away with it, are the ones that really upset me. But I guess its just the effect from being able to buy virtual money with real money.
Great interview, thanks for the link!
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have a problem with farming on these levels...
Same thing as with FtP games, it allows players to buy wins. Part of these games, to me, is the competition to be at the top. That can be with trades or PvP or whatever. Farmers basically allow one player to use the work and efforts of as many players as he can buy from to set himself up to be more competitive than normal. For example, in UO where there's a big economic game, there are some players who are way ahead of others and basically control the markets. Now, some of them did it on their own, having played for a very long time and played the investment and trades game extremely well. And I love that that can happen becuase it's more "realistic" with a set of "the wealthy". But many did it simply by buying gold and items and leaping into that wealthy level in very short time. (There's inflationary and control problems here, that can be fixed with gold sinks and maintenance in a good Sandbox.)
Gold farmers are always interested in trying to direct game play and game forms towards things that will work out better for them to make more money. This is a classic example. They talked about FtP being harmfull to them. But it's not, it's very good for them.
It tells all players that buying "win" is A-OK. Even if the game company says "don't", it's an easy jump to "well, you do it."
It sets prices and makes even items that otherwise would be valueless for RMT (because they'd be easy to produce in-game..healing potions as an example in some FtP games) to have a value. All they have to do is undercut the company's prices.
In short, Gold Farmers and RMTers are bad for games, as they kill economies and the competitive spirit of them.
To make matters worse, they work to set up volume discount prices on Cash Shop items. This gives them access into that too. Look at what happened with Farmville and the massive amounts people were spending in private, invite only, rooms. This isn't good for games. The game's own developers get into this whole act, playing along with them, and not far behind are game decisions for the RMTers and Farmers, rather than for the players.
Once upon a time....
Thanks for the link. It was informative.
"I am the harbinger of hope. I am the sword of the righteous. And to all who hear my words, I say this: What you give to this Empire, I shall give back unto you."
-Empress Jamyl Sarum I
Thanks for the link, that was actually a very good watch!
I really hope that *insert game name here* will be the first game to ever live up to all of its pre-release promises, maintain a manageable hype level and have a clean release. Just don't expect me to hold my breath.
Kid looks / sounds like hes 15.
Thank for this I always wondered about this and WoW.
The most ironic thing, of course, is that he openly admits that the current trend to f2p will kill his business.
Which rather goes against the preferences of many players here - we resist f2p, want monthly sub games with robust economies, but those are precisely the softest targets for the gold farming business; yet we also hate gold farming!
Something has to give, and it's more likely to be that developers just wise up and print their own money, and players lose out on little bit of virtual-worldiness and immersion.
Good to know that CCP's methods are outfoxing them too - although player botting seems to be the real negative problem in EVE atm. I think he's quite right that punishing gold-buying players directly is likely to be effective, and it is surprising that only CCP seems to do it.
Very informative and interesting. *rushes off to change several passwords*
I would much prefer f2p .... the fact that you can play the game (or a large part of it) for free is a big plus. You can't get rid of a market if there is demand. It is much better to legitimize the market to get rid of all the hacking.
Jared makes a lot of good points. Even if you don't like what he does, he seems to be quite knowledgeable and have a good handle on the issues.
I'd rather have "free to start". You have limited play in a sandbox, then for the sub fee can go to the beach. (of coruse not using the 'normal' meaning for sandbox).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."