Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board - View Single Post - Well Fuck, SoE finally Did it...who will follow suit?

Sorran · 04-19-2005, 07:02 PM

I dislike people involving real money in these games (beyond the subscription fee), but that doesn't change the fact that there are a vast, vast number of people who have no problem with it. I *gaurantee* you SOE will have done an extraordinary amount of research into the secondary market (because they *know* it has to be worth the huge amount of pain they are going to suffer for it) and I am very inclined to believe their 200 million dollar figure. For a market that size, the number of people engaging in it is massive.

There can no longer be any avoiding the fact that players (in the generic sense) *want* the secondary market, and those of us who don't like it are simply a minority, albeit a very vocal one

. If the companies running these games finds a way to truly effectively police and stop players from doing it in their game, they will simply police themselves out of exsistence. There is simply too much choice available in the MMOG market today for companies to drive such massive numbers of players away.

Given that, I find no real argument why the service shouldn't be offered by the games themselves. If this business has to exist, I would much rather it exists "in the light", so to speak, and in such a way that eliminates fraud, lightens the CS burden that is required to deal with it, and so on.

Now that one of the market's main players have introduced such a service, don't be surprised to see a lot of the others rushing to follow suit. Certainly any future developed games (out beyond Vanguard) will almost certainly include it as a standard. I strongly suspect Microsoft is going to be watching SOE's experiment with this very, *very* closely. And if you think Vivendi isn't watching like a hawk as well, you are deluding yourself. A 200 million dollar market is simply too big too ignore anymore.

In all honesty, I think this issue has become one where the developers themselves are simply out of touch with the majority of their playerbase. There is no question that there are many of us who don't like it, but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that we are vastly outnumbered by the people who do want it.

And in a sort of silver lining - today may well the beginning of the end for Yantis and IGE. If the players of EQ2 end up either supporting it or not caring either way, it will give the other companies carte blanche to offer similar schemes and IGE will vanish. No one will do business with a 3rd party when they can get gauranteed security and delivery from the game company itself.

It may be a sad day for some us, but in my mind, a completely inevitable one.

Cheers,

Sorran.

04-19-2005, 07:02 PM	#25 (permalink)
Sorran Registered User Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 319 -1 Internets	I dislike people involving real money in these games (beyond the subscription fee), but that doesn't change the fact that there are a vast, vast number of people who have no problem with it. I gaurantee you SOE will have done an extraordinary amount of research into the secondary market (because they know it has to be worth the huge amount of pain they are going to suffer for it) and I am very inclined to believe their 200 million dollar figure. For a market that size, the number of people engaging in it is massive. There can no longer be any avoiding the fact that players (in the generic sense) want the secondary market, and those of us who don't like it are simply a minority, albeit a very vocal one . If the companies running these games finds a way to truly effectively police and stop players from doing it in their game, they will simply police themselves out of exsistence. There is simply too much choice available in the MMOG market today for companies to drive such massive numbers of players away. Given that, I find no real argument why the service shouldn't be offered by the games themselves. If this business has to exist, I would much rather it exists "in the light", so to speak, and in such a way that eliminates fraud, lightens the CS burden that is required to deal with it, and so on. Now that one of the market's main players have introduced such a service, don't be surprised to see a lot of the others rushing to follow suit. Certainly any future developed games (out beyond Vanguard) will almost certainly include it as a standard. I strongly suspect Microsoft is going to be watching SOE's experiment with this very, very closely. And if you think Vivendi isn't watching like a hawk as well, you are deluding yourself. A 200 million dollar market is simply too big too ignore anymore. In all honesty, I think this issue has become one where the developers themselves are simply out of touch with the majority of their playerbase. There is no question that there are many of us who don't like it, but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that we are vastly outnumbered by the people who do want it. And in a sort of silver lining - today may well the beginning of the end for Yantis and IGE. If the players of EQ2 end up either supporting it or not caring either way, it will give the other companies carte blanche to offer similar schemes and IGE will vanish. No one will do business with a 3rd party when they can get gauranteed security and delivery from the game company itself. It may be a sad day for some us, but in my mind, a completely inevitable one. Cheers, Sorran.