Station Exchange White Paper

[Badass]

First off, I would like to congratulate you on having the foresight to experiment with the future recognition of player rights in virtual property. Im curious Mr. Smedley if this service was a way to prepare SOE for the very likely possibility that virtual game players will be deemed to have some measure of rights in virtual property they "create". I think in some measure it is, and I salute you, for once again proving that you are ahead of the curve. (despite what some might say )

A couple points and questions on this:
1. The possibilities are limitless for game developers who realize that allowing their players to own and trade in game virtual property are limitless. It is the future.

2. Did you consider the potentially negative effects these RMT servers would have on any future legal battles regarding players virtual property rights? (ie SOE has all but recognized they exist and that such rights are valuable) I have not read the contracts or EULA's for that server, but as I have argued in other posts on this board, they are meaningless if they fail to recognize the virtual property rights of the player. They might as well be ripped, torn and burned for multiple reasons which I wont explain because I get paid to do that, but im sure SOE is aware.

3. It appears that one of your main arguments against some form of widespread recognition of player virtual rights is that a game must be designed with such capability from the start. I think that very well may be valid, but for different reasons than you stated in the interview. I think game developers should be held to bear some responsability for the stability of a virtual world, a world where its players share in the ownership of the virtual property. It can work.

[Shodai]

Originally Posted by whaerf

I'll always look for games where time/skill are the only "allowable" tools for progression, but it seems like a lot of people are in the "I have a life so I'll just buy gold and everyone's happy" camp.

I certainly don't think this issue is black and white, but catering to people "who have lives" in this mannar would most likely be dangerous in the "raiding" MMO market. While WoW has proved that there is a significant "casual" fan base out there, I would be hard pressed to agree that they are the ones buying the majority of the gold. My point, being this post, is that I would bet casuals have a much shorter subscription time period, promote a game far less, and buy the least amount of 3rd party goods, so why cater to them? Over time your going to disenfranchise the hardcore, long-term base and the casuals will move on. There will be little clout gained by SoE by going this route, IMO.

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Miele

I'm against RMT because it discriminates people and that shouldn't happen in a game where skills and time investment are the 2 main parameters to base on for a measure of success.

Time investment is the biggest discriminating factor in most MMOGs.

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Samflam

I wonder how tempted you are to open up this service for all servers. Maybe not in this game, but in future SOE games you must be considering it. There's too much money to be made.
The pragmatic side of me realizes secondary sales go on regardless of the company's stance, but the idealist in me finds it sad to see a company embracing it.
In my opinion it's only a matter of time before most developers decide to go this route. It's just sad to see it happen.

That's absolutely not what we intend to do. i just wrote a blog which you should see up soon, but basically I think the future is allowing customers to express creativity and sell to each other. I also want to completely limit the type of things people can sell.

In addition, we're aggressively spending money on combating farming. Yes it's a real problem and we're not going to sit by and watch people ruin our games.

Smed

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Trebla

I very seriously doubt Mr. Smedley is looking for anything other than "Great job, way to take the market away from IGE." But I doubt you'll get a solid majority that will say that (though I've been wrong before).



Quite possibly because of people like me who cancelled their accounts as soon as it was announced as a solid plan. It's not that I disagree that taking business from IGE is bad, but sanctioning it is essentially sending the message to the player base that if it's ok on one server, it's ok on all of them. So why go to a SExchange server when currency is cheaper through third parties on normal servers?

It's not like the impact on the game hasn't been discussed to death. You know you're compromising the actual game play experience by doing this. It's the pot argument, some people smoke it, some don't... but just because it's illegal. The instant you legitimize it it becomes more widespread. I doubt there are reliable numbers available from third party sites, but I'd love to see how sales on non-Exchange servers changed when the service was launched.

Anyway, I've said my piece. I know many disagree and I may even be in a pretty small minority, but that's how I feel. Design a game from the ground up with currency exchange in mind and it's a different story (I believe SoE announced one), suddenly allow it in a game where resource availability is now removed from designed gameplay mechanics and it's just trouble.

Totally agree with you.

Smed

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Shodai

From the release...



Unless I am reading something wrong, SoE had 9 thousand people participate during the time period in question. If we are to assume that EQ2 has 150k subscriptions, we can hypothesize that around 6% of your fan base has a general interest in these activities. Now, the 94% who are not interested have all been subjugated to what many will consider "an ill-conceived money-grab" that is apparent to anyone with half of a brain. This is very likely to decrease customer loyalty. Furthermore, by offering this service you break the illusion/escapism effect these games offer and expose it as a vapid time-waste. This realization leads to customers losing interest and dropping out of your subscription base. John, have you ever been playing a game and decided to use cheat codes, only to find out later that by cheapening your game experience you lost interest faster? The same applies for people who buy gold.

In my professional opinion as an MBA, you succeeded in generating a tiny revenue stream while creating a risk that has far reaching effects across your player bases' & potential future user psyches. You were already on tenuous ground with many of the PR/design blunders of Everquest, the extremely poor launch and game design of EQ2 1.0, and Sony's waning popular opinion across all of its business segments. A good amount of those people who stuck with EQ2 after WoW's launch were your die-hard fans--the people who spread popular support and word of mouth. The moment you disenfranchised your hardcore base (by showing your greed at the expense of virtue) you opened yourself to a world of risk. However, since the risk is long-term and not necessarily quantifiable or observable short-term, I am assuming the plan went ahead due to the common desire for short term revenue generation with no thought for long-term ramifications.

While I would love to flesh out this reply I just don't have time. However, I would like to propose that, instead of trying to capitalize on the black market, you sit your VP's down and find legitimate ways to create new revenue streams that do not have far reaching, negative implications upon SoE's dignity & popular opinion. Long-term you are only going to hurt your companies reputation and push your hardcore (and vocal) fan base away...many who may deplore these shady practices. Short-term money grabs are company killers.

So this was the big question - would we lose a bunch of people from this, and the answer was no. The longer term impact is something else we were worried about, but because of the way we implemented it (on specific servers) I don't think this turned out to be as big a deal as people thought it would be. I can't go into details, but the percentage you had isn't on-target.

In any event, we needed to try something. This is about how we steer the future of MMOs and what involvement RMT has in it.

Smed

[Smed]

Originally Posted by whaerf

In my professional opinion as a guy on the intra-nets, from the opinions we see when polls are taken about RMT, they could argue there was more risk in continuing (pretending?) to fight it than opening SE.

I'll always look for games where time/skill are the only "allowable" tools for progression, but it seems like a lot of people are in the "I have a life so I'll just buy gold and everyone's happy" camp.

I'll grant one thing, it didn't seem like much revenue for the effort/publicity that went into it.

One thing I can absolutely tell you.. in no way are we paying lip service to fighting farmers. It's really, really hard and very labor intensive. We've heavily invested in tools to track people. I have personally worked in CS and tracked them myself. Don't kid yourself.. it's not always easy to spot.

Smed

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Badass

First off, I would like to congratulate you on having the foresight to experiment with the future recognition of player rights in virtual property. Im curious Mr. Smedley if this service was a way to prepare SOE for the very likely possibility that virtual game players will be deemed to have some measure of rights in virtual property they "create". I think in some measure it is, and I salute you, for once again proving that you are ahead of the curve. (despite what some might say )

A couple points and questions on this:
1. The possibilities are limitless for game developers who realize that allowing their players to own and trade in game virtual property are limitless. It is the future.

2. Did you consider the potentially negative effects these RMT servers would have on any future legal battles regarding players virtual property rights? (ie SOE has all but recognized they exist and that such rights are valuable) I have not read the contracts or EULA's for that server, but as I have argued in other posts on this board, they are meaningless if they fail to recognize the virtual property rights of the player. They might as well be ripped, torn and burned for multiple reasons which I wont explain because I get paid to do that, but im sure SOE is aware.

3. It appears that one of your main arguments against some form of widespread recognition of player virtual rights is that a game must be designed with such capability from the start. I think that very well may be valid, but for different reasons than you stated in the interview. I think game developers should be held to bear some responsability for the stability of a virtual world, a world where its players share in the ownership of the virtual property. It can work.

We have a solid legal argument about our ownership of the IP so that didn't factor into our thinking at all.

Smed

[Nattac]

Originally Posted by Smed

So this was the big question - would we lose a bunch of people from this, and the answer was no. The longer term impact is something else we were worried about, but because of the way we implemented it (on specific servers) I don't think this turned out to be as big a deal as people thought it would be. I can't go into details, but the percentage you had isn't on-target.

In any event, we needed to try something. This is about how we steer the future of MMOs and what involvement RMT has in it.

Smed

Im glad I was able to sell my Main Berserker for 600 bucks before EoF came out. "station exchange took 60 of it!!! 540 total" But not bad at all..

I miss my toon alot.. But im glad i didn't ebay it.. I loved the fact it changed the name and transfered the toon with no real hassle

[Kolle]

I supported this when it was announced and I still do. I don't participate in any buying or selling at all, though.

Either you control the market yourself and make profit or you allow companies like IGE to profit off of your game. There is no option of, "I'll condemn buying and selling so companies like IGE go away".

[Pinski]

Originally Posted by forge

A lot of the views on this board are going to vary here on this point. But I've personally always been against no drop/binding/bop items. I've always believed that it creates more of a market when you can buy any item if you can find a seller for it. You won't be able to get the best dragon loot if there are no sellers. But if there are and you've saved the money, why not. Most dev's seem to be strongly against this. Standing firm on the you have to put in the time to get the reward. You have decent sales for both money and characters but very little in the way of items. Most likely for the reason I stated above. There simply are not many hot items which you are allowed to trade. There is alot of money to be made by SOE if you'll be able to sway future developers from the no drop religion.

Well, the thing is, items probably just sell for plat, which in turn can be changed into revenue at a much easier method(since you don't need to have a sale for every single item you end up with more $ to you rather than having to pay for the fee everytime, plus the fee to list an item is rather high I believe, so you would be better off selling it for plat in-game and selling that plat).

[Kolle]

Oh...and as for the idea that making something illegal automatically means activity increases...that simply is not true. Making pot legal doesn't mean thousands or millions of people will suddenly start smoking pot. Making buying/selling on all servers legal doesn't mean tons more people will start doing it.

You can easily do those things now with very little risk. People on this board buy gold all the fucking time. People who are inclined to participate in this market are already doing so, legal or not. My choice to not participate has zero to do with it being against the rules.

[redjunkopera]

Originally Posted by Smed

I just wrote a blog which you should see up soon, but basically I think the future is allowing customers to express creativity and sell to each other.

Maybe you've heard of a sandbox called "Second-Life". If you could create some sort of algorythm, to assign building cost, material/labor requirements to items, and drop that plus Second-Life's content creation ability, into a game like Eve...

Quite possibly because of people like me who cancelled their accounts as soon as it was announced as a solid plan.

And me

So why go to a SExchange server when currency is cheaper through third parties on normal servers?

LoL @ sexchange.

[Drave]

i just wrote a blog which you should see up soon, but basically I think the future is allowing customers to express creativity and sell to each other.

This sounds little "Second Life-ish", with the middle man getting a cut, if I get this right.

...like having trade-crafters/raw resource gathering, etc being paid in real-world currency (instead of in-game currency) by players (via a PayPal-type method?), and building a player-consumable game model dependent on the consumable trade items (?)

If I have this correct, please let me know... Would players have a taxable income? ...and what's your cut?

[Shodai]

Originally Posted by Smed

So this was the big question - would we lose a bunch of people from this, and the answer was no.

I respect your outlook, but I think it is too narrowly focused. I tried to make it clear in my post that this is something that would have implications long term, not short. I absolutely believe that people see these types of practices, and while some (see: small minority) may embrace them, the majority are going to deplore them. If this effects your popular opinion in the MMO community, long-term you will see red. Will you make up potential lost revenue through these new revenue streams? Maybe. But you will be backing yourself into an nonsustaining niche in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Smed

In any event, we needed to try something. This is about how we steer the future of MMOs and what involvement RMT has in it.

Smed

Why do you need to try something? Is this about steering the future...or a short term money grab? It's no secret Sony is in bad shape. But I digress...Character transfers, name changes, and other services were a good, legitimate start and I congratulate you for implementing them successfully. However, your argument breaks down as soon as I flash WoW's yearly gross.

There are other ways to increase revenue, and they're called investing in your employees, hiring talented people, and creating GOOD games. The market has been expanded for you, by Blizzard, so why not try to capitalize that by not shoveling out unfinished products such as Vanguard and EQ2, and instead garner subscriptions and mind share through quality...Also, as a quick aside, good luck getting A+ developers if your popular opinion is in the pits. All of this is circular and interrelated...long term...

You can increase revenue however you want, but I would seriously consider as to whether or not your strategy is self-sustaining.