If you are of the achiever mindset, then someone achieving something without actually achieving something is EXACTLY what detracts from the game experience.

Er, yes there is. An individual does rely on the opinions of others while they play - it’s only when they stop relying on that and rely on their opinion of themself that they get to finish the hero’s journey. If people are advancing using RMT, that devalues the opinions people hold of each other (because of the suspicion or fact that you got to where you are through money, not through play).

At the end point, sure, RMT doesn’t make a great deal of difference; on the way to the end point, it’s of paramount importance.

>and as long as the act of farming gold, or power-leveling does not visibly detract from the game experiences of other players, [unsanctioned] RMT poses no threat to MMOs.

OK, if it poses no threat, why don’t game world developers simply give away for free what RMTers make you pay money for? You go to a web site, you fill in the form saying what level character you want, with what gear and how much gold, you click the “submit” button, and voila! Seconds later, that character appears on your account. It would be trivial to create such a system, so why don’t game developers do it?

>I rest my case.~

You may wish to summon more witnesses…

Richard

It’s more accurate to say that person A (for example, Prokofy Neva) perceives person B (for example her ‘game gods’ like Castranova) as perceiving players C-Z (aka players of games, or perhaps industry movers) as being willing to accept the idea that games are somewhat shallow virtual worlds, and virtual worlds are somewhat boring games.

“Er, nothing happened to it?”

In that case, there is no reason for one player to object to another player buying virtual gold to ‘achieve’ something without really achieving it, and as long as the act of farming gold, or power-leveling does not visibly detract from the game experiences of other players, [unsanctioned] RMT poses no threat to MMOs.

I rest my case.~

Yes, I was rather obscure in that cod reference - sorry!

Richard

Yes- EU sees the Tragedy of the Commons, but I always ask… Asking leads to enlightenment they say. TY.

regards,
Wayne

As far as the actual content of the debate, I think Scott Jennings of Broken Toys captured it well by saying that “Users of games see virtual worlds as somewhat boring games….Users of virtual worlds see games as somewhat shallow virtual worlds.”

I can see why Prokofy and others would want to express very strong views on the politics of Virtual worlds that are designed to be platforms for commerce (such as Second Life). It is far harder to justify these perspectives for games. Game designers can prohibit side payments among players, just like business organization can prohibit side payments between employees. It doesn’t matter that those side payments could make some people wealthier than they would otherwise be.

Today I interview Nick Yee on his virtual world research, 11am SLT on CMP 1. (http://www.nickyee.com/). Come join for a lightly moderated, largely civil discussion, and let’s see what we can find under another set of rocks.

What’s with the “Mr Bartle”?

>whatever happened to your precious statement: “if you rely on the opinions of others, then you have not completed your Hero’s Journey” that you place so much faith in?

Er, nothing happened to it?

>Then supply would bounce back down, the gold supply would be reduced, and gold farming would become profitable again.

It would be nice if it did, but why would people come back to a non-RMT world knowing it was just going to get invaded by gold farmers again?

Richard

To address the specific point:

“If it were allowed to continue unfettered, supply would outstrip demand, and then you couldn’t make a decent living in China or Indonesia or wherever from grinding out gold to sell to people. They’d have to find another way to feed themselves.”

Then supply would bounce back down, the gold supply would be reduced, and gold farming would become profitable again. Your statement here is not consistent with basic economic principles of supply and demand.

I meant cod.

I was alluding to the fishing quotas that are set by international organisations, for example the EU. They have set aside vast swathes of the sea as no-fishing areas, and restricted the amount of fish that can be caught in other areas (”quotas”). This has caused terrible hardship to fishing communities, where people whose families have been fishing for generations are put out of work. However, if this action were not taken, then in a couple of decades there’d be no fish left anyway and the fishing communities would still suffer.

By analogy, if we let gold farmers walk all over non-RMT worlds, they will drive away all those people who want some sense of achievement in what they’ve done. The RMTers, faced with only competing with/against each other, will follow. We’ll end up with only rumps of non-RMT worlds, and therefore the people who rely on RMT to keep their children fed will be out of a job. We’d then be in the position of arguing about gold farming when it has killed off non-RMT worlds (and therefore itself).