Opathu's Investigation Into 'Gold Selling' on Eurogamer website

On the http://www.eurogamer.net/mmo/ industry website today, the first of a series of *four* articles, by me, appears about the subject of "gold selling". Each week there will be a new article.

This news story http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/30-per-cent-of-mmo-players-buy-gold taken from the article, shows that some people contend up to 30% of all MMO players are buying gold, items and power levelling services.

Here's how the articles work:

1. We start with an introduction to the "market" for gold selling in MMO games.

2. We then go to talk to the gold sellers themselves (the farmers, the companies, etc) next week.

3. Then to the players who either buy the gold and items, or have had bad experiences because of it, the week after.

4. Finally we detail the response of MMO companies like Blizzard, CCP, Mythic, Jagex and so on to the problem, including looking at those firms which have actually organised their own, legitimised, in-game RMT (real money trading).

Before you post ANY CRAP AT ALL like "wtf chinese w****ers should all be banned", I will ask you: "Why the f*** didn't you respond, then, when I asked for people to interview more than 4 weeks ago?!"

Part 1 here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gold-trading-exposed-introduction-article

I will link them to my own website http://www.nickryan.net soon.

i found the peice very intresting. the thought that developing countries are jumping into this 'industry' that offers better prospects for its employees than more traditional work is something to consider.

And before we all get on our high horses, if -everybody- that professed to hate gold selling so much actually refused to use the services...there might be less of a market instead of the growth that is the reality...

What Vypra said.

I'd guess that about 50% of the people that hate gold selling have used it or do use it. Perhaps 50% out of those hate it because of their experiences but hide it behind what is normally said.

I can admit that I'd be using it if it weren't for the fact that it, like Blizzard have claimed, promotes and condones account hijacking and guild bank stealing. That the economy gets flooded isn't really true in the way we got taught by previous rumors and what-not. The real world economy gets flooded more easily than the game world. In WoW there's no real way of making gold from nothing, but in the real world there is a way to do that... and world banks have been doing it for ages, that's part of why the market crashes from time to time. In WoW there's no gold that wouldn't have been there for someone else to get a hold of if they would just have had the time to do what the farmers do, that's not flooding the market... that's doing what Blizzard have set the game to effectively do. If Blizzard didn't expect someone to play the game as much as these gold farmers do, then... they were stupid.

hacking accounts and getting gold that way won't flood the market either, just like stealing someone's money in real life won't make money out of nothing, technically. But it's illegal, and that's where gold selling turns bad.

Odd. I thought more people would have picked up on this story from our little 'world'. Oh well

Go pimp yourself on SSL then!

I enjoyed the read and look forward to the next one.

Opathu wrote:

Odd. I thought more people would have picked up on this story from our little 'world'. Oh well

PAY ATTENTION TO MOI!!!!11111

Sometimes Oppy...

Vexacus wrote:

Opathu wrote:

Odd. I thought more people would have picked up on this story from our little 'world'. Oh well

PAY ATTENTION TO MOI!!!!11111

Sometimes Oppy...

STFU EMO RANT NERDRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=8465206490&sid=1

There you go!

Good article Nick. Hope to see lots more of you on Eurogamer.

There was quite a provacative article in PC Gamer a while back written by a Chinese gold farmer himself. It was interesting to see the industry from his point of view.

Adalan wrote:

Good article Nick. Hope to see lots more of you on Eurogamer.

There was quite a provacative article in PC Gamer a while back written by a Chinese gold farmer himself. It was interesting to see the industry from his point of view.

That's coming next. Gold farmers, gold sellers and more ...

More comments on the SSL thread, so far only Xari has been positive. Are you sure he's not the love child that you and Niana spawned?

Argh! Can't reply to Thaya's post...!!!1 >:[

Want to say "Click next on Table of contents?" or some sly/snerky remark like that.

Isn't it amazing (well, no I guess not, but I'll say it anyway ...) that you get people writing:

-- "It's kinda short" (yeah it's a fucking introduction for next week, you dim shit)

-- "Where are the interviews with victims" (read the intro, it tells you those are coming)

But, as Vexa says so wisely, don't waste one's breath on the internet fora ...

Not everyone can concentrate longer than 1,5 minutes on something. And well, you have to be honest it contains so many letters but so few images.

It needs loads of pictures and people talking with the help of bubbles containing text or maybe even moving images and sounds...

Morgalyen wrote:

Not everyone can concentrate longer than 1,5 minutes on something. And well, you have to be honest it contains so many letters but so few images.

It needs loads of pictures and people talking with the help of bubbles containing text or maybe even moving images and sounds...

This. Some kind of interesting backstory about cyborg pirates vs ghost ninja's would also help, imo.

Morgalyen wrote:

Not everyone can concentrate longer than 1,5 minutes on something. And well, you have to be honest it contains so many letters but so few images.

It needs loads of pictures and people talking with the help of bubbles containing text or maybe even moving images and sounds...

Lol, the CMs removed my post about this in the Off Topic forums.

... you can say "stick it up her pooper", "Hitler was great" or "u fag" or whatever on there, but not suggest that anyone buys gold in-game ... right ...

Well, I just came cross a Dutch article that stats that 30% of the MMO players is willing to pay for virtual gold.


*smirks* Just noticed they have a link to your article Nick.

That young Vex is a cheeky scamp, eh? ^^

"Lesbo Vampires was a crap film!" Ergo, come up with a new marketing concept for me next book. That one is out

Article gets re-linked on Rock Paper Shotgun. Wouldn't otherwise be worth mentioning I guess, but it's an odd-feeling clash of two ends of the internet I frequent colliding. Chilling!

It was a great and interesting read Nick..
Though putting this together with the drunken Orc of Saturday night did cause a bit of amusement..
(can orcs even type with those fingers?)

NEXT PIECE IS UP -- THE GOLD SELLERS THEMSELVES.

Hello from Caribbean btw. Airport is crap, beer is nice.




Evil Morgy made link for easy clicking.....

Nice read.... I'm still wondering if there are account hackers and that sex leg teacher interviews as well though.

I'm just back in from the Caribbean, hence my absence from these geeky realms. Ok, seems there has been quite a bit of Internet reaction to my series on Gold Selling in MMOs for Eurogamer.net.

Here are the links:

1. Introduction to the series
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gold-trading-exposed-introduction-article

2. Meeting the gold farmers and gold sellers
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gold-trading-exposed-the-sellers-article

3. Talking to players about their views
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gold-trading-exposed-the-players-article

4. The MMO companies' reactions and solutions
(next week)

Enjoy.

((edit: changed the 3rd part to the correct URL))

I am especially looking forward to the last part of the series. Good articles!