Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,469
edits
Real Money Trade: Difference between revisions
m
Copyedit (minor)
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.RealMoneyTrade 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.RealMoneyTrade, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) m (Copyedit (minor)) |
||
| (14 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{
{{quote|''"Don't even get me started on you gold farmers,''
''you gotta make a living, but I need that armor."''
|Futuristic Sex Robotz, ''[[World of Warcraft]]''}}
The purchase or sale of online game equipment, currency, or even powerleveling services for real money to a third party without the involvement of, and in the majority of cases against the wishes of, the game's publisher (which is the difference between this and [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]]). A common plague of [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGs]], and the reason why good ways of making money in-game are often nerfed by the publisher after some time.
Contrast [[Allegedly Free Game]], which is when the game advertises itself as free but requires you to pay money to unlock content.
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== References to RMT ==
* Referenced in ''[[Welcome to The NHK]]'', as one of the protagonist's failed money-making schemes.
Line 14 ⟶ 15:
* A side charcter in the GU games has a hacked weapon that was bought via real money tradeing.
* The [[Cory Doctorow]] short story "Anda's Game" is entirely dedicated to the titular character's interaction with a bunch of gold farmers in an imaginary MMORPG.
* Also by [[Cory Doctorow]], an attempt to unionize illegal gold farmers forms much of the plot of ''[[
* One character of [[Walter Jon Williams]]' ''This Is Not a Game'' makes most of his income by gold farming and
* ''[[Ctrl
* In the [[Live Action TV]] series ''[[Noob (TV series)|Noob]]'', one character has been bumped down to level 1 as a punishment for buying in-game stuff on a website called ''farmerchinois.com'' ("Chinese farmer").
* Neal Stephenson's ''[[
* [[Real Life]] example: [http://www.juliandibbell.com/ Julian Dibbell] famously spent a year trying to make a living primarily as a Real Money Trader in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''; he wrote a [http://www.juliandibbell.com/playmoney/index.html blog, and later a book], about the experience.
== Examples of Illegal RMT ==
Some examples in games where Real World Trading is not allowed (through laws, or in game user licenses):
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', RMT has grown in leaps and bounds along with the player base. In the classic game, the majority of illicit gold was supplied by bots that endlessly farmed rare items and sold them on the Auction House, and was advertised via in-game chat. As Blizzard's anti-bot technology grew more sophisticated, buying fully upgraded expansion accounts grew more expensive, and restrictions added to eliminate chat spam, the majority of trade is now in gold stolen from compromised accounts of legitimate players and advertised via the web. Further, it's rumored that major segments of this multi-million dollar business are controlled by organized crime.
** In an interesting twist on Germany's rather draconic video game laws, when Blizzard shut down accounts for participating in RMT, German law stated that this was illegal and demanded Blizzard to undo it on German accounts. If the case is solved by now is unknown, however.
* ''[[City of Heroes]]/[[City of Villains]]''
**
** Interestingly, after the resurrection of the game in 2019 the farmers did not return -- probably because with everything free and everything unlocked from level 1, they probably couldn't see a market that would sustain their "business model". The sign-up system used by most servers, which usually ran through a dedicated support forum and required considerably more exposure and time than just buying a copy of the game, no doubt contributed, too.
* In 2005, a man was stabbed to death in China after he sold a sword someone had lent him in ''The Legend of Mir 3''. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4486823.stm Source].
* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' has its share of this problem, and [[Square Enix]] is very much against it.
** The problem was abated somewhat when [[Square Enix]] put out a Security Token that generates one-time numeric passwords based off of an algorithm. Sadly, the Security Token came with an in-game item called a "Mog Satchel", an additional inventory system that can be accessed anywhere -- people bought the Security Token for the additional inventory, then deactivated it afterward making themselves no more protected from RMT
* ''[[
* Reselling [[Valve]] accounts online will result in legal action if the country has a DMCA type law.
* ''Habbo Hotel'' property is frequently sold online usually as "a joke", but the company itself shuts down online sales pretty quickly.
Line 39 ⟶ 40:
== Examples of Legitimate or Encouraged RMT (usually [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]]) ==
* ''[[Second Life]]'''s core gameplay is based around obtaining in-game currency which can be freely converted to real world currency. The exchange rate is adjustable, according to a supply-demand index called the "Lindex", after the currency, Linden Dollars, which is in turn named for the developer, Linden Labs.
** Similar but far less successful is ''Entropia Universe'', with the difference being that there are (extremely tedious) ways of getting the virtual money without paying anything in [[Real Life]].
*** The difference must be the 'extremely tedious' part. Second Life has ways of getting Lindens without real currency, ranging from the tedious (camping) to the fun (hosting, DJ'ing, selling creations.)
* Recently proposals have been made to tax "virtual assets".
** To be precise, a proposal has been made to the IRS to tax ''playing a MMO'' as if it was making $3.something per hour. Because everyone farms as quickly as gold farmers, and then sells their assets. Also, this would explicitly apply even to games where RMT is completely forbidden (such as [[World of Warcraft]], which was used as the example MMO in the proposal).
* It was previously illegal in ''[[
** You can lose the ISK once you have it, but the actual sale is safe. Scams involving real-life money (including PLEX items and time codes) are strictly forbidden (although they're the only type that is).
* Three Rings Design's games have a separate currency is used for all the things players would normally have to buy a subscription for. Naturally, this currency is bought with real money, but can be traded afterwards.
* [[Achaea|Iron Realms Entertainment]] games use "credits", which can be bought with real money but not sold for it (similarly to EVE, IRE games have theft as a prominent feature). Credits are traded for gold and items in-game at a varying exchange rate, but the credits-to-real-money rate remains constant.
* ''[[Battlefield Heroes]]'' is a game in the ''[[Battlefield (
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' doesn't allow RMT between players, but there is an accessory you receive by donating $10 to the game. It is generally valued at about the amount of meat (in-game currency) that a reasonably well-equipped character could expect to make in a month's worth of farming for it. Because it is very easy to sell the accessory at the current market price, said price works as a very practical real-money-to-meat exchange rate, albeit a one-way one (the accessory's price also serves as a key indicator of the in-game economy.)
** The accessory is also used to purchase [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]] items, which can lead to canny investors making a meat profit via the market when the next Item of the Month is out and the old one becomes a limited commodity. This is also perfectly acceptable, as there's still no way to trade meat for cash.
* [[Maple Story]] on occasion sells Money Sacks, which is exactly what it says on the tin. The downside? The illegal market for such things is at a better rate.
* Although ''[[Magic:
▲* [[Maple Story]] on occasion sells Money Sacks, which is exactly what it says on the tin. The downside? The illegal market for such things is at a better rate.
* Valve preempted this by including the Mann Co. store in ''[[
▲* Although ''[[Magic the Gathering]] Online'' encourages one to use their in-game trading and auction sites, they don't come down heavy on players who sell Online cards through outside sources, mainly because in-game trading and auctions don't give real money back (rather, they use game tickets, which are used to enter tournaments). In effect, using Ebay to sell MTGO cards is pretty much exactly like using Ebay to sell real Magic cards.
** The Unusual Hats created an inverse of RMT, specifically in that several in-game items were given pricings similar to real world dollars. A Mann.Co Key is worth 2.50 dollars in real life, and could be traded for 2.5 refined metal in-game. Therefore many players considered 1 refined metal to be the same as a dollar, resulting in wild prices based around the refined metal and it's lesser forms. Entire spreadsheets, auctions and guides are made on "how to trade" in-game, which has leaked into other Steam-related games after the advent of the gift system and Steam Trading (you can even buy other games with Team Fortress 2 Metals).
▲* Valve preempted this by including the Mann Co. store in ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' alongside trading. The in game store has just about every item in the game, all of which can be obtained through the random drop system. There is still a small market in Unusual hats, something of a status symbol amongst players.
* In a decision which has proved quite... divisive so far, Blizzard, the makers of the above-mentioned ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', have announced that the in-game auction house in [[Diablo|Diablo III]] will allow players to buy and sell items in real-world money as well as in in-game gold.
▲** The Unusual Hats created an inverse of RMT, specifically in that several in-game items were given pricings similar to real world dollars. A Mann.Co Key is worth 2.50 dollars in real life, and could be traded for 2.5 refined metal in-game. Therefore many players considered 1 refined metal to be the same as a dollar, resulting in wild prices based around the refined metal and it's lesser forms. Entire spreadsheets, auctions and guides are made on "how to trade" in-game, which has leaked into other Steam-related games after the advent of the gift system and Steam Trading (you can even buy other games with Team Fortress 2 Metals).
** This could have been an attempt to gain control of the black market
▲* In a decision which has proved quite... divisive so far, Blizzard, the makers of the above-mentioned ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', have announced that the in-game auction house in [[Diablo|Diablo III]] will allow players to buy and sell items in real-world money as well as in in-game gold. How this will play out is yet to be seen.
* Amazon Game's handling of the western release of ''[[Lost Ark]]'' provides an odd example where RMT bots, while officially banned, were allowed to exist to inflate apparent player count. This means the game is consistently in Steam's top 3 highest player counts at ~300,000 players average (as of the end of 2022), but over 250,000 of these "players" are thought to be bots.
▲** This could have been an attempt to gain control of the black market [[RMT]] that was somewhat prevalent in the online communities of the first two games, especially in Asia.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Show Business]]
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:
| |||