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EQ2's Live Gamer opening postponed
SOE has informed EverQuest II players via the game's official community website that the opening of the Live Gamer service has been delayed. The originally stated launch date was March 31st. No new date has yet been provided. The Station Exchange -- the service Live Gamer is to replace -- ceased operation Thursday. In this new announcement, SOE noted that it will update a status thread on the official forums with new information at some point.If you're not in the loop about Live Gamer: it's a company that works with game publishers and developers to provide legitimized RMT (Real Money Trading) services to users of MMOs. SOE has had all sorts of problems in the past with credit card fraud and gold farmers, and it hopes the folks running Live Gamer will have much better luck. Is this delay just technical in nature, or have new concerns arisen? It's a bit late for second thoughts, so this is probably just a technical bump in the road, but we'll be keeping our eyes and ears open for updates.Oh, and if this is all new to you: before you raise your eyebrows too high note that, as with Station Exchange, Live Gamer service will be limited to the specified RMT-friendly servers.
GDC08: Are virtual item sales the way of the future?
With the stigma associated with the term RMT -- or "real money trading" -- companies such as Live Gamer and Ping0 have an uphill battle when selling their legitimized RMT services to many gamers. At GDC recently, Live Gamer's Andrew Schneider and ping0's Steve Goldstein tried to explain to a skeptical crowd why their forms of RMT trading are the future of gaming.Though you hear a lot about WoW gold, all online games have a large secondary market for currency. These services are all operated outside of the publisher's terms of service or EULA and are very inefficient, both for the player and the company. The RMT industry is littered with account and credit card theft -- and when a customer's account has been compromised, they don't call the RMT traders: they call the game's customer support line. It's an immense waste of resources for the game company and a huge hassle for the player involved. (Has your World of Warcraft account ever been stolen? If so, you know it can take weeks to get everything restored.) If game companies don't address RMT issues themselves, they're just going to have problems with black market RMT. Live Gamer seems to offer a, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach with their attempts to run a legitimate RMT business.
