StarGateWars Forums

Taken from the WoW euro site

It has come to our attention that certain individuals are selling Blizzard's in-game property for cash on auction sites such as eBay and on personal websites. The World of Warcraft Terms of Use clearly state that all of the content in World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard, and Blizzard does not allow "in game" items to be sold for real money. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment will take any and all actions necessary to stop this behavior. Not only do we believe that it is 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. In order to promote a fun and fair environment for all our customers, we are actively investigating those individuals who engage in this inappropriate activity and reserve the right to take legal action against these individuals to protect World of Warcraft for all those who "play by the rules." If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.

This system of buying virtual goods and/or money with real money is known as Real Money Trade, or RMT — and it is a bannable offense on most MMORPGs. Regular players, who put in the hours out of pure enjoyment, find the situation distasteful and often rally for greater crackdowns from the companies who run the game — or greater personal restraint from those who purchase virtual currency.

"I think there should be some way to regulate it [RMT]... however; sadly, the problem is deeper than that. The market is there because people will buy it. People will do anything to win, including cheat. I guess what really angers me is that it is poor sportsmanship. As a competitor I personally detest people who would do whatever it takes to win, as far as breaking rules go," says Christian Hildebrand, 30, who plays WoW.

Some just think it's completely abhorrent, any way you slice it. FFXI veteran, 28 year old Danny Peacock, seethes over the idea of real life wealth determining success in a game. "I feel that the ability for some hoity-toity punk with too much money to visit a website and trade his real money away for pretend money is appalling. This practice gives him no gain whatsoever and detracts so much from the game, not only for him/herself, but for anyone that plays the game as it was meant to be."

But it's interesting to look at all perspectives within this situation. In the spirit of "if you can't beat them, join them," Sony started the first RMT-approved servers on their MMORPG, Everquest, earlier this year. So far there are only two among the numerous servers for EQII that allow RMT. Sony collects a per-transaction fee for their authorized service, called Station Exchange. For those who complain about the time-consuming aspect of playing an online game (many of whom are parents or other casual players), this seems a good compromise; Sony's Station Exchange allows people to purchase what they need through a legitimate channel rather than by supporting "farmers," the people who log in to MMOs solely to make virtual money that they then sell for real money. For those gamers who are not interested in RMT for themselves, but who are not against the idea, a system like Sony's would probably be acceptable. Alex Farmer, a 17 year old from the UK who used to play FFXI, says, "I don't agree with buying gil myself but I suppose it's up to others whether they do it or not. I do believe it undermines a lot of the enjoyment of the game, but if people want to play that way then it's their choice."

A server is a sub-world within an MMORPG. Typically, a player will only interact with those on their own server. Some games offer different types of servers, as with the RMT-approved servers mentioned above. WoW also offers servers wherein player-killing, or PVP competition, is allowed. Each server has its own unique economy and population. FFXI offered a cross-server tournament this year for their PVP competition, ballista; it was the first time interaction of any sort was allowed across servers in that game.

Emperor Martin wrote:This will never be stopped. And it's good for games, look at games like Second life they knew they couldn't stop it and now it's a major factor in the game with people having $100k+ fortunes.

Hensenshi wrote:Admin has stated directly that he has no intent to stop the cash market for SGW.

Tech_Support07 wrote:

Hensenshi wrote:Admin has stated directly that he has no intent to stop the cash market for SGW.

ok who cares.. lol

its a discussion, not about what SGW is or isnt doing


chill

and get back on topic