Random thought of the afternoon:
What portion of WoW gold selling would be eliminated if Blizzard changed the character transfer service to strip your character of everything but the clothes on their back, and returned the balance of your inventory after 24-48 hours? Gold sellers depend on server transfers to move goods from compromised accounts to servers where potential customers are waiting. Most accounts that are worth stealing are worth it because they log in often enough that a character transfer would be noticed within a day or so.
Obviously, not having cash or consumables would be an inconvenience for players who legitimately want to transfer their characters to a new home (though really, routine questing does not require consumables, and I guess you could provide a 100G stipend for repairs and reagents). Then again, if you're moving to join friends or a new guild, someone can probably loan you the stuff you'll need for a day or two until your stuff arrives. Moreover, how many players would this really affect? How does that number of players compare to the number that are affected by the illicit gold trade? To the numbers who have had their guild banks looted, or had to wait for weeks for character restorations?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the gold selling problem can be solved entirely by impeding the transfer of assets. In this particular case, though, I'm wondering if the effect on legitimate players isn't so minimal that there is no real downside. Can someone point out the stupid detail I'm missing that argues why Blizzard shouldn't do this tomorrow?
Privacy Implications of Real ID
Consider the following two statements on a guild application:
- To facilitate contacting players as needed, all raiders are require to add the raid leader as a friend on their real world Facebook account.
- To facilitate contacting players as needed, all raiders are required to add the raid leader as a RealID friend on battle.net.
The former statement would probably raise some red flags with most people, though Uncle Ferrel's stories from his days as an elite EQ1 raider suggest that they're not unprecedented in MMORPG history. By incorporating the functionality into the default UI using the Battle.net RealID friend system, along with newly announced Facebook integration, Blizzard has legitimized the latter (which effectively leads to the former).
I've written before about real world privacy consequences of linking your gaming to your real life identity. This new push - all character alts in all Blizzard games will be included - adds in consequences for your virtual life as well. Spinks observes that we may be seeing the end of the virtual identity.
For some players, this type of functionality might be a good thing. I would be happy with allowing the raid leader in my WoW guild to contact me on my WoW alts in the event that there's a vacant slot in a raid that needs any warm body (the only circumstance under which I would potentially be worth bringing along). However, this would expose my real name to all of his realID friends, which I would be less thrilled about. And, as with any social networking oversharing, the consequences of making the "wrong" decision may not be immediately obvious at the time the player makes them, and may be hard to correct in any discreet fashion.
The unfortunate part is that there is nowhere for players to hide. Every game out there has its own web portal these day, and we can expect sites like Sony's Station, Turbine's my.game.com (my.ddo and my.lotro), and Bioware's version (used in Dragon Age and presumably SWTOR) to include Blizzard's new features ASAP in a push to gather more marketing data. If the genre is changing for the worse, players have no alternative other than to give up gaming and go take up books (until someone starts releasing iPad and Kindle-only books that require Facebook integration, which may not be that far off either).
- To facilitate contacting players as needed, all raiders are require to add the raid leader as a friend on their real world Facebook account.
- To facilitate contacting players as needed, all raiders are required to add the raid leader as a RealID friend on battle.net.
The former statement would probably raise some red flags with most people, though Uncle Ferrel's stories from his days as an elite EQ1 raider suggest that they're not unprecedented in MMORPG history. By incorporating the functionality into the default UI using the Battle.net RealID friend system, along with newly announced Facebook integration, Blizzard has legitimized the latter (which effectively leads to the former).
I've written before about real world privacy consequences of linking your gaming to your real life identity. This new push - all character alts in all Blizzard games will be included - adds in consequences for your virtual life as well. Spinks observes that we may be seeing the end of the virtual identity.
For some players, this type of functionality might be a good thing. I would be happy with allowing the raid leader in my WoW guild to contact me on my WoW alts in the event that there's a vacant slot in a raid that needs any warm body (the only circumstance under which I would potentially be worth bringing along). However, this would expose my real name to all of his realID friends, which I would be less thrilled about. And, as with any social networking oversharing, the consequences of making the "wrong" decision may not be immediately obvious at the time the player makes them, and may be hard to correct in any discreet fashion.
The unfortunate part is that there is nowhere for players to hide. Every game out there has its own web portal these day, and we can expect sites like Sony's Station, Turbine's my.game.com (my.ddo and my.lotro), and Bioware's version (used in Dragon Age and presumably SWTOR) to include Blizzard's new features ASAP in a push to gather more marketing data. If the genre is changing for the worse, players have no alternative other than to give up gaming and go take up books (until someone starts releasing iPad and Kindle-only books that require Facebook integration, which may not be that far off either).
Should Item Store Purchases Be Tradeable?
The current episode of DDOCast discussed whether there could be ways for players to gift or trade Turbine Points in the future. Could such a system be implemented? Perhaps, but it’s not quite so simple in practice.
The role of free players in a game with item shop trading
There are games out there that allow players to gift or trade items that are obtained via real currency. For example, Eve Online allows players to purchase in-game time-cards that can be sold to other players for in-game currency, allowing them to finance their subscriptions with the proceeds of their gaming efforts. In another example, Kingdom of Loathing allows players to sell or trade anything out of the game’s item shop.
These approaches have a major advantage – they allow the developers to monetize players who can’t or won’t pay directly. Players who have money to spare pay the developers for items that they can then sell off, purchases that they would not have made if the items were not tradeable. These players can then get their hands on in-game resources that they would not have wanted to farm or grind for on their own. Finally, cash shop items make their way into the hands of non-payers, who in turn are valuable to the developers because their presence in the economy drives sales by creating a secondary market for cash shop items.
Undercutters, Farmers, Botters and Fraudsters
Unfortunately, this type of plan does not work very well with free samples and sales. If Turbine points were tradeable players could potentially stock up during a sale and undercut Turbine’s own prices when things return to their normal price. In that case, money that would have gone to Turbine from players who were willing to pay instead winds up in the hands of resellers (who might also turn out to be fraudsters who pocket players’ money, as we’ve seen in WoW).
Another issue is with free samples. Each new Turbine account can pretty easily obtain almost 1000 Turbine Points ($10 at the most favorable non-sale exchange rate) just by making new characters on each server and advancing to level 4 or so. I’ve been doing just that recently, because I would have tried out those alts anyway, but the cost benefit in my view drops off very quickly once you’ve obtained those low-hanging fruit.
Even so, there are guilds right now that speed level additional characters to 100 favor for the 25 Turbine points (which can be repeated indefinitely). You’re talking about maybe $0.50/hour under ideal conditions, which is less than I value my time at, but that apparently does not go for everyone. Those numbers would only increase if the points could be resold, and, given the history of MMORPG’s, a large number of those farmers would probably be botting.
Finally, there’s a major account security issue in allowing players to trade their Turbine points in a system where credit cards are associated with your store account. If Turbine opens the door to point transfers, there’s be a major incentive for hackers to target DDO accounts and run up a balance on the account’s credit card.
This type of fraud apparently ended Runes of Magic's currency sales, which had been permitted via the in-game auction house until people started buying gold with which to buy item shop currency.
The Value Of Trading Vs Samples
Ultimately, I’d argue that the operator of a free to play game has a choice. You can go with free samples and free points, to show potential customers what they’re missing, along with sales to encourage impulse purchases, which is how DDO runs their store. Alternately, you can open up the cash store items to trading, in the hopes that this will improve the value of the potentially large majority of players who opt not to pay.
Personally, I have a slight preference for the latter model, because it feels more democratic; the risk with an optional payment system is that the non-payers become a less valuable demographic, and that creates incentives for the developers not to care about a major segment of the playerbase. Either way you go, though, mixing the two seems like a difficult task indeed.
The role of free players in a game with item shop trading
There are games out there that allow players to gift or trade items that are obtained via real currency. For example, Eve Online allows players to purchase in-game time-cards that can be sold to other players for in-game currency, allowing them to finance their subscriptions with the proceeds of their gaming efforts. In another example, Kingdom of Loathing allows players to sell or trade anything out of the game’s item shop.
These approaches have a major advantage – they allow the developers to monetize players who can’t or won’t pay directly. Players who have money to spare pay the developers for items that they can then sell off, purchases that they would not have made if the items were not tradeable. These players can then get their hands on in-game resources that they would not have wanted to farm or grind for on their own. Finally, cash shop items make their way into the hands of non-payers, who in turn are valuable to the developers because their presence in the economy drives sales by creating a secondary market for cash shop items.
Undercutters, Farmers, Botters and Fraudsters
Unfortunately, this type of plan does not work very well with free samples and sales. If Turbine points were tradeable players could potentially stock up during a sale and undercut Turbine’s own prices when things return to their normal price. In that case, money that would have gone to Turbine from players who were willing to pay instead winds up in the hands of resellers (who might also turn out to be fraudsters who pocket players’ money, as we’ve seen in WoW).
Another issue is with free samples. Each new Turbine account can pretty easily obtain almost 1000 Turbine Points ($10 at the most favorable non-sale exchange rate) just by making new characters on each server and advancing to level 4 or so. I’ve been doing just that recently, because I would have tried out those alts anyway, but the cost benefit in my view drops off very quickly once you’ve obtained those low-hanging fruit.
Even so, there are guilds right now that speed level additional characters to 100 favor for the 25 Turbine points (which can be repeated indefinitely). You’re talking about maybe $0.50/hour under ideal conditions, which is less than I value my time at, but that apparently does not go for everyone. Those numbers would only increase if the points could be resold, and, given the history of MMORPG’s, a large number of those farmers would probably be botting.
Finally, there’s a major account security issue in allowing players to trade their Turbine points in a system where credit cards are associated with your store account. If Turbine opens the door to point transfers, there’s be a major incentive for hackers to target DDO accounts and run up a balance on the account’s credit card.
This type of fraud apparently ended Runes of Magic's currency sales, which had been permitted via the in-game auction house until people started buying gold with which to buy item shop currency.
The Value Of Trading Vs Samples
Ultimately, I’d argue that the operator of a free to play game has a choice. You can go with free samples and free points, to show potential customers what they’re missing, along with sales to encourage impulse purchases, which is how DDO runs their store. Alternately, you can open up the cash store items to trading, in the hopes that this will improve the value of the potentially large majority of players who opt not to pay.
Personally, I have a slight preference for the latter model, because it feels more democratic; the risk with an optional payment system is that the non-payers become a less valuable demographic, and that creates incentives for the developers not to care about a major segment of the playerbase. Either way you go, though, mixing the two seems like a difficult task indeed.
Three WoW Pets for $15
Right now, paying Blizzard $15 would allow me to increase my WoW minipet collection by 3. Well, technically only 2, but they claim that they're going to fix the bug with the third. How is this bargain - half the price of the $10 minipet store - possible?
It's Children's Week in Azeroth, which means that it's time to escort orphans around the world in exchange for minipets. There are three sightseeing tours currently, one for the old world, one for TBC, and one for Wrath. (The latter is bugged and has not reset since its introduction late last year - I wonder if there's something specific about world event quests that makes them so hard to code, because Blizzard repeats this particular mistake every single time new once per holiday content is added.) With a flying mount, the entire tour takes less than an hour.
The $15 in question is, of course, WoW's monthly fee, which I am not paying at the moment. Most players don't think of this as a microtransaction - the nigh trivial amount of time that it takes to obtain these items in-game is still somehow enough to say that these pets are earned through gameplay, rather than a reward for subscribing to the game on a specific week in May. Even so, it costs real money for subscriptions and expansion packs to obtain these pets, just as it costs real money to click the purchase button in the Blizzard store.
As the old quip goes, we have already established the nature of the transaction, now we're just arguing over price.
P.S. This is the type of scenario I was referring to when discussing the EQ2 $5/3 day pass - good deal for the player, but perhaps less good for the studio in question.
It's Children's Week in Azeroth, which means that it's time to escort orphans around the world in exchange for minipets. There are three sightseeing tours currently, one for the old world, one for TBC, and one for Wrath. (The latter is bugged and has not reset since its introduction late last year - I wonder if there's something specific about world event quests that makes them so hard to code, because Blizzard repeats this particular mistake every single time new once per holiday content is added.) With a flying mount, the entire tour takes less than an hour.
The $15 in question is, of course, WoW's monthly fee, which I am not paying at the moment. Most players don't think of this as a microtransaction - the nigh trivial amount of time that it takes to obtain these items in-game is still somehow enough to say that these pets are earned through gameplay, rather than a reward for subscribing to the game on a specific week in May. Even so, it costs real money for subscriptions and expansion packs to obtain these pets, just as it costs real money to click the purchase button in the Blizzard store.
As the old quip goes, we have already established the nature of the transaction, now we're just arguing over price.
P.S. This is the type of scenario I was referring to when discussing the EQ2 $5/3 day pass - good deal for the player, but perhaps less good for the studio in question.
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