Just Say No!
By Shayalyn
A friend of mine once admitted to a heinous crime: He bought EverQuest platinum, the in-game currency, with real-world money. He paid around $50 for 100,000 plat, and he wasnt at all ashamed of it.
My mouth hung open. Youre kidding, right? I said. Doesnt that sort of take away from the fun of getting it yourself?
He shrugged and explained that his work schedule didnt permit him the time to raid or quest for items and spells he wanted, and he didnt feel he could keep up with his friends unless he had them. He was willing to spend a little of his hard-earned cash for the satisfaction of having the things his character needed to progress.
Its like spending money on a hobby, he said. I spend cash for tools that make me more efficient at my woodworking hobby, so why not do the same thing with EverQuest?
I had to admit he had a point. If he couldnt keep up because he didnt have the same kind of time to commit to EverQuest that his power-gaming friends did, then what was to deter him from buying the game currency he needed from a secondary market?
But then again, if he was high enough level to group with these people, shouldnt he also have a similar amount of cash and items? No, he told me. He didnt have the time to raid like they did, and the pickings he received from time spent grouping were mighty slim. I cant stay up all night swilling Mountain Dew and leaving my PC only for the occasional bio break just so Ill have the chance at uber raid drops that sell for a ton of plat, he said. I have a job and a family.
Okay, I decided Id concede that point, too.
But I insisted that gear and spells dont make the player. He laughed. You want to make a bet? he said. Try playing a caster without a horse. Or try going into a dungeon or on a raid and telling your group that you havent been able to afford that one absolutely necessary spell that defines your class. In EverQuest, magic wielders rely on mana. In order to regenerate mana quickly, one has to sit down (which often draws aggro from hard-hitting mobs) or sit on a mount. And my friend was a Mage. I had to admit it would be pretty humiliating for him to inform his friends that he didnt have Call of the Hero, a useful raid and group utility that summons players to his location. He would indeed be gimped without the horse and the spell.
Of course, the hard fact remainspurchasing in-game currency and gear from secondary sources erodes the virtual economy in a MMO, something the games developers have worked tirelessly to create. Sure, my friend would buy his horse from an NPC vendor, thereby taking his purchased plat immediately out of playonce that NPC vendor has the coin, its gone from the game world foreverthat in itself isnt such a terrible thing. But what will become of the excess plat my friend has purchased? Surely hell spend it buying items from other players. That is a problem. There isnt a MMOG out there that encourages its player base to purchase in-game currency or items from outside the game, because this blending of real-world economy with game economy creates havoc. The more platinum (or other game currency) that comes into the game from outside the less value each piece of platinum has and the more prices of items and spells soar. This, in turn, hurts more casual players who, like my friend, dont have the time to commit to gaining raid-dropped items and selling them for the plat they need to sustain them.
You know, youre only hurting yourself in the long run, I told my friend. Secondary markets are part of the reason that games like EQ have issues with their economies and experience price inflation.
He agreed with me, but he felt that the damage had already been done. He just wanted to buy his plat, get the spells and equipment he needed, and be done with it. I wondered aloud whether the ability to pay real-world cash for certain vendor-purchased items would help keep secondary markets from making a killing, and in turn inflating and inevitably killing the games economy. What if my friend couldve spent some real-world cash in-game to buy items (like his horse and his spell) that would normally come from an NPC vendor? He admitted he would have done just that, and not brought an outside source into the mix.
Its an interesting sort of dependency the secondary markets prey on. The more the influx of currency and items from secondary markets causes in-game inflation of prices, the more necessary it is for people, especially more casual players who dont raid frequently, to seek an outside source. Its quite obvious that the secondary markets are doing well; just type buy EQ platinum into Google and see how many paid advertising sponsors, each offering the best prices, come up. Like drug dealers, the secondary markets continue filling the supply for a demand they helped create. Pretty seedy, isnt it?
Allowing players to use real-world cash to purchase limited in-game items from NPC vendors might be one way to curb the demand for secondary markets, but its not a cure. I believe the only real cure is for players to realize the damage that purchasing game currency from places like IGE and MySuperSales inflict on the game and player community they supposedly love. I did convince my friend never to make another purchase from a secondary market, and Im sure hell keep his promise. Now the rest of us need to resist the siren call of easy in-game money and just say no.
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