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Vana'diel and its RMT Special Task Force
GameSpy has an interview up with the Final Fantasy XI team about their recent heavy crackdown on real money trading in their game. The team talks about the two methods that they use to track down and deal with RMT. Although the translation is a little rough, from what we could gather the team takes into account the number of targeted accounts involved in RMT as well as the game economy reaction to their activity. Aside from that, the FFXI team looks at the forum responses from the North American, European and Japanese as well as reports of in-game mail advertising real money trades. The team say that with these methods they are seeing a real decline in RMT sales and dishonest conduct within their game.Additionally, the team says these are only the early steps towards a complete removal of RMT from FFXI, which would be a fairly huge accomplishment for any massively game. If the monthly bans were to stop, the shady activities would definitely restart, so we're not entirely sure if the team will ever truly be done getting rid of RMT activities.[Via Ten Ton Hammer]
Security researchers warn of dangers in online games
Always on the lookout for new opportunities, criminal elements have been interested in MMO players for some time now. A great 'in' to credit card records and personal information, player accounts are also ripe with virtual goods that can be easily liquidated into in-game currency and then resold for real funds. A warning last year about hackers interested in World of Warcraft accounts has been mirrored in recent weeks by researchers cautioning players of Korean and Japanese titles.Security software groups Ahnlab and Symantec have both seen increased reports of criminal hackers working to gain access to eastern MMOs in recent months. For more on this subject, the site SecurityFocus has up a recent interview with the writers of the book Exploiting Online Games, discussing the reality of security research as it pertains to Massive titles. The authors indicate that MMO development houses are still a ways off from fully appreciating the dangers of lax security measures managing these systems.
The alien world of Eastern MMOs
That may be overstating things a bit, but from from the Western viewpoint that's a pretty accurate assessment. It's easy to point out the little things that are different in China. They really like steamed buns, for example, and they make stamps that taste like pork. But the games ... the games are what are really different.Take ZT Online, possibly the most popular game in the country. A fantastic article in the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly took an in-depth look at the title, unveiling the fascinating and utterly alien gameplay that props up the game. It's PvP-heavy, and absolutely riddled with Microtransactions. Almost everything you can think of, from leveling to looting, requires that you pay for it. It's a swirling morass of everything that Western MMOG players say they hate.And it gets even better! Because in ZT Online if you want some loot, you can obtain it easily, just by gambling for it. With real money. Meanwhile in the states we're nervous about the possibility that the government might tax avatar sales. Hah! This is a really complicated issue, and we could all use some help understanding things. You should start with Danwei's commentary, as he was the one kind enough to translate the article for us in the first place. (Oh, by the way, did I mention that the article was pulled from the newspaper's official site when the company that makes it made a complaint? Did I mention China is different?) Then move on to Bills Due's observations. He notes that this gambling component is extremely widespread in Chinese games. A less detached and +5 more cynical analysis is available from the PlayNoEvil, who wonders if the highly addictive game is as much a drug as a pass-time. Simon Carless gives a great capper at the GameSetWatch blog, and should hopefully drive home why you need to read this: The full article is absolutely fascinating - in fact, I'd go as far to say that it's one of the best written, most humanistic pieces on games I've read so far this year.
What is the definition of cheating in WoW?
Michael Zenke, the blogger behind MMOG Nation and regular contributor to our sister site Massively, has posted an article covering the latest dust up over gold selling.The interesting part about this latest debate is that it has become a larger discussion about what is considered cheating. Most people would probably say that cheating is breaking the rules. Paying someone else to level your character or to give you gold for RL money is currently viewed as "unfair."But if receiving money you didn't earn is in-game is cheating, does that extend to farming for gold with your main to give to your alt? What about having your higher level friends run you through a loweer level dungeon quicker? Isn't that powerleveling? What about twinking? Did your alt "earn" those items?For many, I think the distinction is whether RL money is involved. It's acceptable to send gold to your alt because you main earned it, but it's not fair to buy gold because you are using your RL cash to get ahead in a game. So if using RL resources to get ahead is cheating, what about people who are rich with time? After all, the principal mechanic for MMO progression is time spent playing the game. Aren't people with enormous amounts of free time using their RL resources to gain an unfair advantage of those who have limited play time?Where is the line between cheating and working within the game rules to get the most out of your game time? And how much RL can developers expect to keep out of their games in the interest of "fairness"?
The good, the bad, the ugly - MMOs in 2007
The indelible Michael Zenke, who you might recognize as one of our more frequent writers and the winner of a Gnomey for his work on his personal site -- MMOG Nation, recently wrote a piece recounting the top 5 most significant moments in MMOs for this year over at Gamasutra. Among the things that Michael focuses on are the overwhelming success of free, simply coded games like Maple Story, the spectacular failure of a number of larger budget titles like Auto Assault, the way that World of Warcraft has blitzkrieged mainstream culture with the Mr. T commercial spots and South Park episode, the shift in the marketplace that is poised to see EA and Activision Blizzard take broadside shots at each other, and the battle over RMT price models.It's about the right time for this sort of macro-analysis of the year that, unbelievably, has already passed us by. The editorial piece is a great overview of the industry as it's developed this past year, and Michael approaches the subject with the appropriate mix of skepticism and cautious optimism. He also posted a few follow-up notes over at MMOG Nation that are certainly worth looking at if the Gama article strikes your fancy. Definitely give it a look.
The great RMT debate
It's always a pleasure reading up on topics getting bounced around the MMOGblogosphere. One of the recent rigorous back-and-forths centered around the announcement of the Live Gamer service. We discussed the 'legit' RMT outfit and the reluctance of companies like Blizzard to take part, but other folks took the ball and ran with it. Raph Koster, well known designer and the big name behind Metaplace, opined that the announcement made a lot of sense as eradicating Real Money Transfer (RMT) is essentially impossible.Blogger Tobold's view on the subject was quite different, as he offered that RMT was basically just another design problem to be overcome. His site is often quite World of Warcraft-focused, and he offered several possible solutions Blizzard might adopt such as making gold 'bind on pickup', or by changing the Auction House to a 'blind bid' system like that seen in City of Heroes.Raph responded by offering that Tobold was essentially asking designers to remove the 'Massive' element from online games. He argued that the only real way to prevent RMT or power-leveling would be to disallow players from conversing, grouping, trading, or interacting in any meaningful way.That's the point when the fit hit the shan. The back and forth began, and Raph let loose what may be the most comprehensive article on Real Money Transfer I've ever seen. Make sure and read that one, and read on for a breakdown of the blow-by-blow back and forth.
A snapshot of today's gold-selling/power-leveling market
GameSetWatch, the alt.blog on CMP's Gamasutra network of sites, has up a discussion with a gold-farming boss. "Mr. Smith" is one of the owners of a gold-selling site, and submitted an article looking at the current state of the virtual currency market - from his perspective. Smith makes two interesting points in his discussion: that power-leveling is now the 'growth industry' for RMT services, and that the newest workforce in the marketplace is ... wait for it ... North Korea.The cost of these power-leveling services has also dipped considerably as new players enter the marketplace. Competitive pressure has dropped the price from about $6/level to more like $2.50/level in World of Warcraft. All 70 levels now averages about $250, down from a high of almost $500.
SOE President crushes EQ2 / Live Gamer speculation
This past weekend, Sony Online Entertainment's Grand Poobah, alias John Smedley, was out and about dousing the fires and dismissed SOE's alleged takeover by Zapak. (SOE had for a measly 300 million? What a crock.) During his flurry, Smedley also dispelled the crazy speculation talk regarding SOE's new partnership with Live Gamer over on the lovable EQ2 Flames. After the initial announcement regarding the two joining forces; the hysteria pot stirred yet again. The biggest concern was that the grey-market service would intrude on EQ2's non-Station Exchange servers."We aren't going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement. If we catch people, we ban them and have been for a long time now. The truth of the matter is it's very difficult to combat them, but we have people at SOE who fight the good fight each and every day. In the near future you're going to see us becoming a lot more public about this then we ever have been. I think we've done a bad job at communicating just how seriously we take this fight.We're interested in working with LiveGamer because they are unique in the RMT world due to the fact that they are pledging (and are putting technology behind it) to not buy from farmers. Farmers are the bane of our existence at SOE. They cause us endless amounts of grief and do real financial damage in a meaningful way."
Legal files reveal IGE and Affinity connection once and for all
You may remember that earlier this summer, when Affinity Media purchased Wowhead (to add to their acquisitions of Thottbot and Allakhazam), we were able to interview Affinity Media CEO John Maffei, and he told us, in a very roundabout way, that Affinity and IGE had supposedly parted ways-- Affinity and its content sites were, he said, no longer associated with the company that sold gold in World of Warcraft. However, if you read the comments on that interview, you may have doubted what Maffei told us, and now, thanks to legal documents surfacing because of a legal action against IGE, it appears you were exactly right: Affinity and IGE are (or were, according to Affinity Media) still two peas in the same pod (see Update).I know for certain right now that some of you commenters are preparing the "aww geez, not this again" (NSFW) macro to post, and I don't blame you. You're exactly right; this is boring business stuff, not new news about the Sunwell, and anyone paying attention back during the Wowhead acquisition knew that the two companies were still connected anyway. If this isn't news you to, fine-- I don't mean to reopen Pandora's Box, we just want to make sure we do due diligence in covering this issue.
Blizzard on Live Gamer: No way, no how
I've been reporting on our sister site Massively (just like WoW Insider, but for all MMOs) about Live Gamer, a startup that claims to be legitimizing RMT (real-money trading, which is spending real money on virtual items) in MMOs. But while there are a few big names supporting them already (Funcom, which is making Age of Conan, and Sony, which makes lots of different MMOs, including all the Everquests), there is one name that's missing from their supporters: Blizzard.And now we've heard that that's not going to change anytime soon. A "Blizzard rep" says in no uncertain terms that they're not interesting in RMT at all, in a sanctioned form or otherwise. "Not only do we believe that doing so would be illegal," they say, "but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun." Wow. Tell us how you really feel.If I can be biased for a moment, that's great to hear. Blizzard has definitely been taking steps to make RMT obsolete rather than legit (by doing things like adding in daily quests and requiring things other than gold-- reputation, turn-ins-- to buy virtual items). There's no question that there's a lot of money to be made in RMT-- every day, virtual items seems to gain more and more real world value. But it's good to hear that Blizzard is invested in making their game fun, not selling the virtual items they create.
Florida Attorney General issues subpoena to IGE
While it's not a part of the ongoing case of Hernandez v IGE, a newly announced legal action by the AG for the state of Florida will probably be of interest to you. The Attorney General issued an investigative subpoena against the notorious gold-selling outfit today, seeking information on possible illegal activities carried out within the state (and across the country). The Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act was invoked, and the 'investigative' nature of the subpoena means that company records relating to everything from marketing to organizational elements are now to be included in the state's inquiry.The subpoena seeks financial and sales information, the identity of specific World of Warcraft accounts owned or controlled by IGE, the identity of World of Warcraft accounts that IGE has power leveled, and the IP addresses IGE used to log into World of Warcraft to distribute products sold by IGE. The subpoena also seeks documents which show all websites owned or controlled by IGE or its affiliates at any time.
The Daily Grind: Veni, vidi, Visa
For many Westerners who have been involved in MMO culture for any length of time, you'll recognize this as a perenially evergreen topic; the role of RMT in gaming. Of course, with the recent news regarding the attempt to create a "legit" service whereby players can purchase game gold for their favorite MMO, we can't help but throw this out to be chewed on. Personally, while I understand the allure (after all, who wouldn't like to save the hour farming and instead enjoy an hour playing) the problem to me is a question of the structure of MMO culture. In the Western arena, MMOs are largely perceived to be a meritocracy, whereby those who perform the best, have superior forethought and tactics/strategies "win." They get the gear, they hit endgame, and while I would say that not all will necessarily raid everything, they will at least generally get their feet wet. (RL permitting, of course -- I know several folks who would be brilliant raiders, save for those priority things.) The idea that someone who has zero clue about how the game is played but can purchase an endgame character and enough money to kit it out rankles on a few levels:
Blizzard won't support 'legit' RMT service
The Next Generation site has commentary from individuals at Blizzard Entertainment, reacting to the announcement of the Live Gamer service. The company is standing firm on its current terms of use for World of Warcraft, flatly denying the possibility that it will work with the service to allow the purchase of Azeroth's in-game currency."The game's Terms of Use clearly states that all World of Warcraft content is the property of Blizzard Entertainment, and Blizzard does not allow 'in-game' items to be sold for real money. Not only do we believe that doing so would be illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun ... While we can understand the temptation to purchase items for real money, we feel that players can find ample equipment and money for their characters within the game through their own adventuring and questing."
How to make RMT obsolete rather than legit
Raph Koster was nice enough to come by and read our post about Live Gamer and their attempts to make RMT legit, and responds that while I suggested RMT was cheating and reading strategy guides was not, many older gamers actually do consider sites like Thottbot and EVE-db cheating. Just as the spirit of gaming evolved to consider outside help legitimate, so, Raph argues, will designers give up to market and player pressure, and make RMT viable and "legal."Which is probably true-- it's easy to see a future where a game like Dungeon Runners becomes a big hit, and 90% of the people play the game for free (or close to it), and the other 10% of the audience pays for the game by using only the highest level items and gear, and shelling out money for both. But personally, I'd rather go for Raph's other idea-- that smart designers will find ways around integrating RMT solutions by coming up with ways to make RMT unnecessary. I've written and talked about this before-- when it's impossible and/or inconvenient to obtain ingame items with real money, players just won't do it. And no players means no market.And let's not forget, either, that these are just games we're talking about-- RMT can buy you all the items you want, but it can't buy you great gameplay, and that's the reason we're all here in the first place. If designers emphasize gameplay over simple epic item collection in the first place, there's no reason for RMT at all. Companies like Live Gamer smell money in the air around virtual items, but hopefully (and this is what Raph doubted in his first post) there is still more money to be made with a successful widespread game than just selling the items inside of it.
Runescape cracking down hard on RMT
It's the season for talking about holiday events and ... virtual world trading, apparently. The free-to-play browser-based game Runescape has combined both in its recent website updates. A post from last week indicates that they're making some hard choices in an attempt to put a stop to botters, scammers, and gold sellers. Their solution, which they acknowledge won't be making them any friends, is to no longer allow unbalanced trades.It will be tough for law-abiding players, but it will also be tough for us, as we will certainly not be gaining money or members with this update. Instead, we are doing this for the good of the game, which is as dear to our hearts as it is to you. Soon, the hard part will be over and done with. The unbalanced trade changes will be made in January and we certainly don't plan any more hard changes in the foreseeable future.Their first post on the topic is deliberately vague, but a follow-up outlines the specifics of the January trade fixes.We're planning to raise the 3,000gp staking/trading limit for certain players. This will be proportional to the number of Quest Points you have, with the top-end being ten-times what it is now! This should still offer protection from cheats, while also giving you more flexibility in your staking and trading activities.They've also put up the yearly Christmas event, featuring the Queen of Snow, snowball fights, and a Snow tournament. The big present for this year, apparently, is going to be safe trading in the new year.
Live Gamer will attempt making RMT legit and official
Raph Koster has posted about Live Gamer, a new service we posted about yesterday (heavily funded by venture capitalists) that is attempting to bring the real money trading market (where you pay real money for ingame items) over to the official, developer-approved side of things. Gamasutra has a Q&A as well, and there's a lot to chew on as regards to what Live Gamer seems to be attempting to do.Raph's idea seems to be that RMT is simply another ancillary service that can spring up and provide revenue around the MMO market (of which this very site you're reading is one). But there is a serious difference between RMT, and services like the one this site provides (in the form of MMO news and guides). RMT is still, among most players, considered cheating. As most people trying to make money off of RMT have pointed out, it's a cultural thing, much more ingrained among Westerners than anywhere else. But it's still a perception that exists-- it's OK to look at a strategy guide to become a better player, but it's not OK to pay real money for better gear.Which makes Raph's last two sentences that much more disturbing. He says gamers won't like this (and they already do not). But he says that the same people who publicly decry RMT will be spending money on it in private. As much as players argue against RMT on message boards and in blog comments, there's no denying that these venture capitalists are convinced there is a huge market there.
Blizzard tells trial account users to shush
Word has it that, in response to the widespread use and abuse of trial accounts on the part of gold spammers, character-leveling outfits, and RMT humbuggery in general, Blizzard has eliminated the ability for users on trial accounts to invite party members to groups, which joins their recent embargo on broadcast communication in World of Warcraft entirely.One can't help but wonder if there was a better way to go about achieving this same end of curbing the spammers. Perhaps they could have implemented more thorough standards for authentication prior to being given a trial key, or maybe implemented some sort of referral program where an existing player could "vouch" for a trial user and give them the full benefits they enjoyed before this hotfix. Trial users are usually the most vulnerable and least knowledgeable subset of newbies, and to remove their ability to communicate with the world around them just seems a bit cruel to me.We all know the spammers are going to find another way around it, after all. They're quite the creative lot.[Via WarCry]
A legal, in-game "Wal-Mart" of virtual goods coming to an MMO near you
Two very large names have joined forces to help battle the illegal (and increasingly annoying) digital Black Market that exists to sell virtual in-game goods. Backed by $24 million in investment money, Mitch Davis (the former Massive in-game-ad firm founder) and Sony Pictures Digital vet Andy Schneider will launch Live Gamer, a publisher-supported service that creates a secure platform for real-money purchase and the sale of virtual goods.Already on board are MMOs and virtual worlds from Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10Tacle Studios, Acclaim, GoPets and Ping0 Interactive (the company that provides access to the online, multi-player component of Hellgate: London), and they're willing to work with any publisher. With backing such as this, we may soon see a siesmic shift in the virtual goods landscape.Nearly every MMO is now plagued by these despicable gold farmers and Real Money Traders bent on selling their warez, regardless of their legality. Even my beloved City of Heroes and Villains has recently been targeted with endless spam that fills in-game Email boxes and brazen "live" players (often named "jkjkljlkj") who will approach you trying to offer their services. A concerted effort from within the industry itself to stop these griefers is long overdue. Hopefully this will be the spark that ignites a widespread change.
Final Fantasy XI hacked; Square-Enix hides behind policy
Numerous reports have come in concerning the recent hacking of Final Fantasy XI player accounts, with the concomitant liquidation of assets, leaving many users without gear and gil. Although complaints to the game admins have been many and passionate, Square-Enix seems to be employing a strategy of claiming that the hacked users are somehow to be found at fault for downloading keylogging software, or somehow allowing their account information to be taken by malicious hackers. There is an interesting theory circulating that the attacks are in response to S-E's crackdown on real money trading (or RMT) activities, which in general drive up inflation of in-game economies. It's been supposed that " ... RMT have decided for Christmas to meet demands for the people who buy the games currency (gil) to hack droves of veteran characters and sell everything of value in an attempt to meet the demand with the least amount of labor as possible", to quote player Sparthos.Interestingly, many of the hacked account holders place the inception of these attacks as occurring shortly after the release of FFXI's newest expansion, Wings of the Goddess. If there is a connection, it might be possible for there to be some weak code in the expansion that allows a hack of this nature to occur. With S-E's refusal to acknowledge legitimate grievances on the part of the players, however, it's not likely that we'll have this either confirmed or denied. We'll keep an eye on this story and see how it develops.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Rumor Mill: Fury bombed - Massive layoffs at Auran imminent [updated]
[updated: 11:55PM PST] The rumors regarding the layoffs have beenconfirmed by IGN in this interview with the CEO of Auran Games. Another one bites the dust? Angry Gamer reports that a reliable anonymous source close to Australian based Auran has told them staff layoffs are imminent and that Fury may be outsourced to China. "Fury was a financial disaster, it lost Auran a lot of money." No kidding. This news is not in the least-bit surprising considering Fury is in-the-running for worst MMOG of the year. Fury is more proof that not all RMT (real money trade -- micro transactions) based MMOs in the Western market strike it big as some developers so often pronounce. I believe Fury is dying, maybe you want to check the game out in case it does take a final dirt-nap. If you are interested in the last update to the game you can find the details over on the official Fury website. Any Fury players here disappointed over the news or good riddance?
