Sony creates auction site for game artifacts

CNet News ^ | 04/20/2005

[r5boston]

Sony plans to launch an online marketplace where fans of its multiplayer games can buy and sell virtual artifacts, a practice it previously discouraged.

The Station Exchange site, announced Wednesday by Sony Online Entertainment, is apparently in response to the growing underground market for such items.

Planned for launch in late June, the site will first offer subscribers to Sony's "EverQuest II" the option to buy, sell or trade the right to use specific characters, items and online funds that they have earned playing the video game.

Until now, Sony has been among the most aggressive game makers in restricting sales of such articles, even insisting that all material related to its EverQuest series belongs to the company. For instance, Sony has blocked numerous EverQuest-related auctions on eBay and Yahoo and convinced both of those sites to ban sales of such items. Sony has also sued other sites specializing in the barter of the online commodities.

Gamers are interested in selling or buying items for a number of reasons. For those who have spent long periods of time developing their characters or "unlocking" items such as weapons or cash, there is the lure of a payoff for all their hard work. For new players, the sales offer the ability to fast-forward their own progress in the games, circumventing the virtual legwork.

[Das Outsider]

Ancient Hittite Play Stations?
Charlemagne's Game Cube?
The first Tekken?


DO DO

[tfecw]

This is honestly too bad for those who enjoy the online gaming scene. This pretty much takes it from a game to a job. You could argue that it already was a job before ;) but these addicts (that is what they are) will be getting paid for it. Of course we don't need to go into how this basically destroys the in game economy and game play. I think this is a bad movie on Sony's part. Yeah this is already going on in the underground markets, and sony is just getting a slice of the pie. In the end I think they'll loose more gamers then they keep.

[Ingtar]

They are doing this on seperate servers. Even so, it appears to not be going over well with many players.

[faloi]

The worst part of this will occur when Sony allows sales of items or cash out of thin air. That is to say, instead of buying things from other people that they've worked hard (well, not really worked hard, just spent a lot of time in the game hitting buttons), they allow people to buy what they want directly from Sony. That ought to mess up the whole game economy, and crowd higher level zones...

[tfecw]

Hmm missed the separate servers part

I've heard good arguments on both sides of the fence on this one. One side contends "I'm either a poor/honest player who can't afford/doesn't believe in buying super items instead of putting in the work everyone else has to. It took me 100+ hours of waiting for this to happen and it's not fair for someone to buy it for 40 real bucks"

The counter argument is (and i thought it was a good argument) "I'm worth about 150 bucks an hour, when i can get a 100*150 = $15,000 item for 40 bucks it's a steal. I save time and ultimately money."

I play for a couple hours (not EQ) here and there when i get a chance it's mainly to kill time or do a quest or 2. Why spend money to get a character with full stats and all the best equipment in the game? Then why would you ever want to play the game again? So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Funny

SOE couldn't program it's way out of the loss of it's customer base, now they are jumping on the Ebay bandwagon.

Instead of doing something this stupid they should just hire quality people, but... they won't because they are stupid.

[Trampled by Lambs]

I'm a long time MMO game player.. (currently playing World of Warcraft) I've never understood why anyone would pay real cash for in-game items (or high level characters etc.)

Isn't the acquisition of these things the point of playing the game? Hell, why not buy the game then pay the kid down the street to play it for you?

[aft_lizard]

I dont see it that way, I see this as capitalism in action, imagine even playing a game can make somebody a buck. So what if some guy wants to spend doezens of hours a week to make a few buck, its his loss.

[tfecw]

"So what if some guy wants to spend dozens of hours a week to make a few buck, its his loss."

Well Faloi pointed out that The this innocent kid just getting some props (in the form of cash) for his "hard" work isn't getting a taste. SOE is just pumping items and money into an economy. The balance is lost.

I didn't know about SOE just adding in items. It'll be interesting how that plays out now that i think about it. Assuming they don't just pour money into the economy, but add items as well, it could become a better experience for the average (couple hours here and there) gamer.

If just money is bought from SOE we have a problem. We all know what happens when you just print more money and dump it into the economy. The price of Super rare item X goes from 1 mil to 16 mil.

Then again, if everyone just buys Super rare Item X from SOE, the price would go from 1 mil to peanuts. I'm not an economist (i'm sure that's apparent) but i'm curious how this will play out now.

I wouldn't mind SOE selling stuff. That way i don't have to spend as much time/in game money to earn it. Those who don't want to play the game can buy the stuff with cash.

[6SJ7]

Pong of the Gods.

[Androcles]

Already happening. I read an article on "virtual sweatshops" springing up in eastern Europe, especially Rumania. People with Good English skills and computer familiarity were being paid above the average wage to play particular multiplayer games to ensure there was always a minimum level of real humans online to make the game enjoyable. Working in long shifts with state of the art equipment, it was definitely a step up from the normal sweatshops of yore...

[faloi]

Isn't the acquisition of these things the point of playing the game?

One could make a point that if the game is so boring or tedious that someone would spend real money to get the items instead of spending time in game, that's a good sign it's time to find a new game. Unfortunately in a lot of MMOGs, the time spent playing seems to be tied to the difficulty of the game in a lot of players minds. That is to say, it takes a long time to get something, so the game must be harder. I've never understood this logic. Taking a lot of time to do something because you get lucky once and the critter drops the item you're after does not make a game hard or challenging. Just...well...time consuming.

[Ingtar]

It is a transfer service rather than selling new items. I wonder if it will have much of an effect on the economy over that the botters and farmers have now.