by Darkgolem on May 31, 2007
by: Tony "RadarX" Jones
<!-- if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ','; phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11); document.write ("<" + "script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript' src='"); document.write ("http://ads.tentonhammer.com/adjs.php?n=" + phpAds_random); document.write ("&what=zone:19"); document.write ("&exclude=" + document.phpAds_used); if (document.referrer)http:// document.write ("&referer=" + escape(document.referrer)); document.write ("'><" + "/script>"); //--> href='http://ads.tentonhammer.com/adclick.php?n=a44824e0'An interesting interview with Turbine Executive Producer, Jeff Steefel surfaced this week at Eurogamer.net . He discussed very candidly the RMT (real money trades) market and it's place in the MMO industry. Does it actually have a place in the industry? Should it? According to Mr. Steefel:
“The 'secondary market' is a huge topic of conversation across the industry, and we're watching it really closely.”
and
“We all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we're paying attention to what's going on; watching what's going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this. “
If you are from the old school MMO's the hair on your neck is probably standing up right now. He believes the market is going to sanction RMT? What?! Those who grind and toil following the rules will end up the victims of whoever has the most real cash? While it's not quite that dramatic (depending on who you ask) Mr. Steefel does have a point about changing trends in the industry.
It's important to keep in mind that RMT extends beyond the traditional “plat sales” and can be attributed to anything from weapons, to mounts, to skills. This means if its legalized pretty much anything you could trade might fetch you cold hard cash.
Let's just face facts, the RMT market is enormous despite rumors of large sites like IGE bleeding money like Enron. The providers are now attempting direct marketing of their product while simultaneously annoying the piss out of most players. Is there a way that this could be harnessed and controlled by the game designers?
SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) opened a server in 2006 where RMT was not only permitted but encouraged. Skimming a slight fee off the top they allowed you to exchange your cash for plat, items, and even characters with little worry of scams or being banned. A white paper released this February outlined an entire year of transactions. SOE saw $274,083.00 realized revenue from rougly $1.8 million dollars in sales and while this isn't an astronomical figure it does validate their experiment.
Some of the benefits the SOE Exchange servers claimed were: reduced customer service complaints, secure transactions, and the aforementioned pile of cash they made. So did it work? You bet your sweet leveling service it did. The market is there, the benefits are there, so why isn't this up and running like yesterday on every MMO?
As far along as MMO's have come, RMT is still considered blood money. You are lazy, a cheater, think you are too good to do grunt work, etc... That stigma will never break completely and until the player outrage is at a manageable level there is risk. When the SOE Exchange servers went live the anger flowed like alcohol in Vegas all over the forums and many of us are still in therapy over it.
The other downside to legalized RMT is the effects it can have on an economy. If everyone can purchase currency/items, if left uncontrolled a market could become outrageously inflated catering only to the wealthy. This hurts your new playerbase by steepening the progression curve which isn't really good for business. None of this is taking into account things like dupe bugs and other exploits that can quickly overwhelm an economy.
I'll admit companies bold enough to actually implement processes involving RMT are either really cutting edge or really brave. Does this mean we'll see the ability to buy gold in game any time soon? I really doubt that very much. In fact he mentions “two to five years” being the time frame for a large enough market shift so if this annoys you, hopefully there is still time to build a bunker. I wouldn't however be surprised to see Turbine implement their own version of the Exchange server allowing players to transfer over to sell any and everything.
As you can see this topic can get more slippery than Jack Thompson's legal arguments. Risks and rewards are both very tempting and it's interesting to see professionals actually speaking out about it. Now one knows for sure what the next few years will bring, but it may be a bag of gold for $5.00.