Gold selling, PLing, etc.

[Luciro]

Two things to consider.

One, will the software companies making MMOs ever put in their AUP that in game items are indeed owned by the player, therefore their own virtual property?

Two, who'd be taxin' the virtual economy which could be set in several major economic countries?

 

[Vahsyl]

You know what I think would be neat? Subscription fee being roleplayed in game as "Taxes." If you aren't online at the time your subscription is due, you'd get a letter saying your city taxes were received, and thanking you. If you were, a tax NPC would show up. Hee hee...

It won't happen, I'm sure, but darn it could be funny.

Or, maybe you have to go to a town hall to "pay" your taxes. Kind of like how you "Pay online?" I don't know... would be a nice little added twist in a game.

As for paying for items with real money... meh, I don't believe in that. The point of online RPGs in my eyes is even if you can ONLY afford the subscription fee, you can still be someone amazing with grand items. If they did that, only the rich would look neat... the poor would not. That's the kind of reality I'd rather escape.

 

[Luciro]

Well I believe that time is the primary source of income in MMOs at the current moment.
Some folks have time to grind and raid and spam sale in game and indeed just pay the fee and be grand.
But I can see the point for folks with less time and more money in buying perks in game.
HJ's going with a similar program for perks in game. Why not just have a real cash for fake items auction house? It's literally already set up for it.

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

Two things to consider.

One, will the software companies making MMOs ever put in their AUP that in game items are indeed owned by the player, therefore their own virtual property?

Two, who'd be taxin' the virtual economy which could be set in several major economic countries?

Very good points indeed Luc.

Supposedly, in Second Life, if you create something via their ingame creativity tools you own the copywright to it. It becomes your intellectual property. "And once you've built something, you can easily begin selling it to other residents, because you control the IP Rights of your creations."

Friday 4-27-07 in that 24hr period $1,637,969 US dollars spent via ingame transactions and some %99.9 of all ingame items were created by users.

And here is the story of Anshe Chung (ingame name) who was Second Life's 1st millionaire exclusively from virtual goods (probably not all earned in Second Life(?)). Of note: How game avatar copywright infringement was used to remove a greifed interview that took place in the game. It was fully enforced.

Low and behold even Second Life has other companies selling "Linden Dollars" which not only can be converted to real cash but also flucuate against the U.S. dollar like any other currency. Not known whether or not they sanction it but i've heard of no complaints.

I guess the tax portion doesn't come into play until virtual currency gets converted to real??

*shrug*

 

[Dainarshial]

Two things to consider.

One, will the software companies making MMOs ever put in their AUP that in game items are indeed owned by the player, therefore their own virtual property?

Two, who'd be taxin' the virtual economy which could be set in several major economic countries?

Second Life has done this. They even have a stock exchange going with the ingame currency, it fluctuates, and you can buy from them, and sell it back to them (for RL US$).

The game is basicly an online marketplace, people build things in the game, sell them for ingame currency, and then can sell the ingame currency back to the company for rl cash.

Second Life



Damn you Thaos you beat me to it

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

Damn you Thaos you beat me to it

Wow. Must've been like milliseconds.

 

[Luciro]

Aye but how will it apply to the more structured MMOs? Will it?
Eh, I think the best way to handle it is sadly segregation like EQ2 did. Buyers and those who don't mind going one way, those who feel you have to 'pay to play to earn' it on another. Separate legal notices saves a lot of head aches.

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Elsewise we get jacked up server economies.

 

[Chrisidon]

The only way to fully integrate the game and RL economy is to have no material awards - or means to create value - available in-game without the payment of real money. In that case, why be a hero? Since the big dragon has nothing of value, why do I want to spend all that time and RL money into getting the gear and skills to defeat it? Sure, you could, say, pay a fee to defeat said dragon (so that there'd be loot) but what happens when somebody grabs a piece of loot that you paid for? Is that theft? Or would it only show up for you? Is 'pay to slay' similar to anything else out there right now?

Better to just kill the question flat, and segregate players that want to get real money involved from the rest.

 

[Sadistra]

I think I have a headache so many good points and views on the whole rl/ internet currency debate thats been going on for years. This is a very wise community with many people to whom the younger can look too. First debate I have seen on this topic that appears to be a true debate.

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

Wait...Hero's Journey is going to be going with the whole "Auction to pay for fake items with real money" thing?

I really don't like that thought at all. That's not the way to go about it.. This game is different from games like Second Life. It's not supposed to be about making money within the game. Second Life also has a lot more failures than successes.

No no no..if we're having an actual in game auction that has people pay real money for items and not going about just making such things in a sense useless, I actually think I might not be playing for fun..

 

[HJ-Diviana]

.....

You guys always jump to crazy conclusions.

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

It's the only thing to do!

I know I'm probably not right, but at least it gives people something to do in proving the "conclusion" wrong.

 

[Gate]

I think Diviana more meant that nothing in this entire thread has suggested that HJ would be doing this. This thread has been discussing many different games and their approaches, not what HJ is doing.

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

Well I believe that time is the primary source of income in MMOs at the current moment.
Some folks have time to grind and raid and spam sale in game and indeed just pay the fee and be grand.
But I can see the point for folks with less time and more money in buying perks in game.
HJ's going with a similar program for perks in game. Why not just have a real cash for fake items auction house? It's literally already set up for it.

I sort of got the impression from this, but I'm sure it was just an impression.

 

[Luciro]

What I meant was, they may as well do it.
Since they're looking for a tiered pricing scheme anyway. Tailored ticketed events. Blah, blah, so on and so forth. They could just follow the trend and have a segregated server for folks to properly sale in game items for real cash.
I mean if they wanted to reward everyone just for their time. Then we'd earn tickets by simply logging in hours. Rather than paying cash.

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

If I recall, the only place HJ was thinking of implementing this was in East. Because it's kind of a norm. Can't find the article atm though.

 

[Luciro]

I recall reading that too. Not too long ago. Or at least it was considered in the Asian market.