42 replies to this topic

[Flecko]

Don't take this the wrong way. I love devmaster. Its a great site. But why is it that the news page ONLY has the same news as gamedev.net?

I mean, gamedev.net has been around a lot longer than devmaster. The devmaster forums are a MUCH nicer place to visit, and the devmaster site isn't just a hole for advertising...so what gives? There is a lot of game development news going on out there...but the news page here seems to just echo what gamedev.net posts.

It doesn't hurt the this site to mirror what gamedev.net has, news-wise, but I'd love to see some additional news items.

Thankyou, and keep up the good work everyone!
-Flecko

[fireside]

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Hope this helps and wish you will like it. By the way, we are a professional wow gold online store have been created for many years, we supply cheap wow gold for local customers.

I would hope people seek professional help with their problem before doing something as stupid as buying imaginary gold. Do you get paid to spam boards like this? How in the world can there be so many people stupid enough to buy imaginary gold to pay your wages? Have we dropped that far as a society?

[Nick]

fireside said:

I would hope people seek professional help with their problem before doing something as stupid as buying imaginary gold. Do you get paid to spam boards like this? How in the world can there be so many people stupid enough to buy imaginary gold to pay your wages? Have we dropped that far as a society?

Good luck arguing with a bot. :sleeping:

Anyway, aside from the fact that this is clearly spam, buying imaginary things for real money isn't that stupid. Why pay for a video game in the first place if it's mainly going to waste some of your time by projecting interactive images? Right, because it also provides some enjoyment. Buying extra gold for WoW is exactly the same thing. If people are willing to spend hard-earned money for more gaming fun then I don't see much wrong with that per se.

Just because you can't touch it doesn't mean it's imaginary. The feeling it provides is real for the person buying it. And things you do can touch aren't necessarily real. Why pay for a nicer looking car when there are less expensive but uglier ones that can get you from A to B just a well? Is your money even real? It's pieces of paper with numbers on it or even just a number your bank keeps track of.

[fireside]

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Good luck arguing with a bot.

Had to get it out of my system.

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Buying extra gold for WoW is exactly the same thing.

Not really, no. You are actually losing play value by buying the gold, plus you are showing what a complete idiot you are if you do something that stupid. It's not at all the same thing as buying a game. The game is giving you a challenge, the gold is escaping the challenge that you paid for when you bought the game by paying some addict to do the game play for you. A loser paying a different type of loser. Both need to find a life. Although, you have to give a little credit to the guy selling the gold, but that's why you get spam like this. They stop at nothing, but it's the moron buying the gold causing the trouble. It's like that saying, a fool and his money are soon parted. Arguing with a bot is completely different, btw. Someone told me they actually pay people to get past the people checker, but looking at it, it does appear to be a bot. Don't they use those number things, or don't those work anymore?
Anyway, if you buy gold you are a complete honking idiot causing all this spam and short changing your game play.

[Nick]

fireside said:

You are actually losing play value by buying the gold...

Not necessarily. Saving up gold for a certain object/capability can get pretty boring at times. Personally I don't see any "play value" in farming. I rather go on another quest and I certainly don't encourage just buying the gold, but I can definitely understand that some people just want the bling and not the journey that leads to it.

People certainly have to make an educated choice. But if they got what they paid for then I don't see the issue.

[fireside]

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People certainly have to make an educated choice. But if they got what they paid for then I don't see the issue.

I think people are starting to lose the difference between the imaginary worlds of MMO's and reality. Take the people that come here and decide they are going to write an MMO without knowing anything about programming, modeling, or sometimes even having decent communication skills. Buying gold like this is just another example. People really can't have that much extra cash lying around. There is a negative savings rate going on in the U.S. Most of us are actually spending more than we are taking in.

[starstutter]

[.oisyn]

Nick said:

Good luck arguing with a bot. :sleeping:

Anyway, aside from the fact that this is clearly spam, buying imaginary things for real money isn't that stupid. Why pay for a video game in the first place if it's mainly going to waste some of your time by projecting interactive images? Right, because it also provides some enjoyment. Buying extra gold for WoW is exactly the same thing. If people are willing to spend hard-earned money for more gaming fun then I don't see much wrong with that per se.

Just because you can't touch it doesn't mean it's imaginary. The feeling it provides is real for the person buying it. And things you do can touch aren't necessarily real. Why pay for a nicer looking car when there are less expensive but uglier ones that can get you from A to B just a well? Is your money even real? It's pieces of paper with numbers on it or even just a number your bank keeps track of.

How true that might be, it fails to meet common economy criteria. We trade things for other things. Whether that is 12 eggs and pig against a cow, or $15 to see a movie, the thing that you are trading against is not free, so aside from profit you also pay for the other party's cost. We do buy videogames for enjoyment, but the amount we need to pay depends on two things: the cost for making a game and how much we are willing to spend. Creating and distributing a game ain't free, so it's all fair that you have to pay for it.

Which brings us to the gold in WoW. It doesn't cost anything. It has zero value. It can be created with a click of a button in unlimited amounts. Of course, you could argue that it isn't really the gold itself you are buying - you are merely exchanging your money for another currency, one you can use to buy other stuff in WoW (further referred to as "content"). Content has to be made by the Blizzard folk, so things do have a cost. HOWEVER, you are not paying Blizzard for the gold. You pay Blizzard with your WoW subscription, which they use to create the content. You do not have to pay anything else to anyone in order to get that content. What you do when you are buying gold is paying other people who have invested time to gather the gold for you. Now you could see that as a service worth paying for, but that brings me back to my first point: gold has no value! It merely allows to you use what you have already payed for with your WoW subscription.

Now, if Blizzard chooses to get in on those shady deals they can make a lot of money. Because they do have the magic "generate a gazillion gold" button right under their fingertips. The Wow economy would crash instantly, because it is based on absolutely nothing of value. An internet bubble, if you will. A decent economy in general disallows you to create money out of nothing (well, ok, the latest stock crashes might suggest otherwise ), but that's not true for WoW. They literally create gold out of nothing. And I, for one, will never subject to a virtual economy based on nothing and without any strong and enforced rules.

[Nick]

.oisyn said:

They literally create gold out of nothing.

Wrong. It costs months of farming to get a pile of gold. So in exchange for the gaming fun of spending that gold why would it be wrong to pay the farmer who put his precious time into it?

Yes, Blizzard holds the 'gazillion gold button' at its fingertips, but this is no different from the real world. The money you pay for food, clothes and a roof is worth nothing without everybody agreeing upon its value. It represents the work you had to do to make that money. You're trading with virtual value every single day. And to get back to blizzard, if they ever pushed that button the entire World of Warcraft would collapse, making people emigrate to other MMO games. In the real world there are also a few people with the power to just make more money, but the value (which is entirely virtual) would drop so low that they'd be stupid to do that. And the reason it drops in value is simple because people no longer agree upon a higher value.

So I can see no fundamental wrong with buying WoW gold from an honest farmer. If the buyer agrees upon the ratio between the real money (or actuall his labour to earn it) and the pleasure he'll get from the WoW gold (or actually the work put into obtaining it), who is to say that this is a bad thing?

I'm sure that the first paper bills also caused lots of confusion and discussion, but today I don't have to explain to you that it drives the economy even though it's a piece of paper. So I have little doubt that we'll be seeing more types of 'virtual' currency in the future, that is very real to the ones using it...

[JarkkoL]

There has been multiple occurancies of hyperinflation even in the real world.

[Reedbeta]

.oisyn said:

It has zero value. It can be created with a click of a button in unlimited amounts.

Governments that issue currency also have the ability to create unlimited amounts of it for essentially no cost (the cost of printing/minting is much, much smaller than the value of the currency produced). The currency becomes worthless if this is done, but the currency has value so long as the amount available is limited (and people want to use it as a medium of exchange). It doesn't become worthless because someone could produce an unlimited amount of it.

I don't see a fundamental difference between trading real-world currency for WoW gold and trading one real-world currency for another. Not many people have a problem with the latter.

[Blaxill]

.oisyn said:

How true that might be, it fails to meet common economy criteria.

Which brings us to the gold in WoW. It doesn't cost anything. It has zero value. It can be created with a click of a button in unlimited amounts.

The basic concept is true with any currency and the same rules apply to WoW gold. WoW probably falls into the category of a 'Hands-on' Private-oriented System.

Nick has the right idea.

JarkkoL said:

There has been multiple occurancies of hyperinflation even in the real world.

Reading the figures of Zimbabwe's inflation always makes me smile before guilt of the realisation of the effect it has had/ is having.

[fireside]

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I don't see a fundamental difference between trading real-world currency for WoW gold and trading one real-world currency for another. Not many people have a problem with the latter.

Because one is real, which is my point. There is beginning to be a disconnect between the real world and the virtual. The trouble is that MMO's are societies where everyone plays someone, so I think people are having problems distinguishing the difference. The gold in the game becomes more important than it should be. Video games can cause anxieties just like real world problems cause anxieties which can be a little weird. It's not OK. These people have a problem. They have real bills to pay and they need real money for it.

[.oisyn]

Nick said:

Wrong. It costs months of farming to get a pile of gold.

Wrong. It costs the farmers time. It costs Blizzard nothing. The whole point is that Blizzard is not a government under the watchful eye of it's inhabitants. In a way, they can do whatever they please (like either decrease or increase the in-game value of gold) without themselves being affected (well, ok, aside from the fact they might lose users). Because they do not get payed for the gold. It's not their economy. It's the economy of the farmers and the users. That is in essense very different from a local governemt IRL. Also, it is unrealistic to think that WoW will go on forever. In time there will be better mmorpgs out there, so the support for WoW will stop eventually. You can't really say that for a real government.

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Yes, Blizzard holds the 'gazillion gold button' at its fingertips, but this is no different from the real world. The money you pay for food, clothes and a roof is worth nothing without everybody agreeing upon its value.

I'm not saying that gold and only gold has no value. I'm saying that that what the gold represents has no value itself. Thusly the items you can buy with it. IRL, this is not true. Sure, we agree upon the value of money, but the point is that with that money I can buy things that are not simply "up for grabs" and created out of nothing. If something can be created out of nothing, the value of that thing (and thus the value of money) is severely reduced.

I guess my whole point relies on the fact that I think it's naïve to think that Blizzard will continue to treat WoW's economy as a real economy. Now I'm not a wow player myself, but I thought the EULA said something about not being allowed to sell items, but I could be wrong on that. But if that is true, it's not unrealistic to think that they ever find a way to stop that. Also, you can simply run a bot that farms gold for you at no cost (well maybe like $30 for the bot). Of course that is also not allowed, but hey, worst thing that can happen is that you are kicked from the game. Which is another big difference from a true government - there are no severe punishments that scares people from not breaking the rules.

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I'm sure that the first paper bills also caused lots of confusion and discussion, but today I don't have to explain to you that it drives the economy even though it's a piece of paper. So I have little doubt that we'll be seeing more types of 'virtual' currency in the future, that is very real to the ones using it...

Well paper bills are a bit outdated. There's more virtual money on bank accounts around than there are goods to back that up. Not that this is a counter-argument btw, it makes it even more like wow gold than actual paper money .

Blaxill said:

The basic concept is true with any currency and the same rules apply to WoW gold. WoW probably falls into the category of a 'Hands-on' Private-oriented System.

Well thank you for giving some ammo to shoot with . Because I would severely rather NOT invest any money in such economies. Luckily for us there are laws against forming cartels and monopolies and such. But who's watching over wow's economy? Absolutely no one.

[JarkkoL]

I have never played WOW, but doesn't people get gold in order to buy items in the game? And you buy items in the game for your entertainment? To get gold you have two options 1) do work to get gold 2) buy gold. I can see that some people rather take the shortcut to buy gold to increase the entertainment value of their time rather than work to get the gold which they may not find as entertaining.

[z80]

.oisyn said:

Which brings us to the gold in WoW. It doesn't cost anything. It has zero value. It can be created with a click of a button in unlimited amounts.

Then software has no value either... The code you write can also be created in unlimited amounts with a press of a key.

[Blaxill]

When you buy into any currency you are taking a gamble on how its exchange rate will fluctuate and also on its purchasing power parity.

.oisyn said:

It costs the farmers time. It costs Blizzard nothing. The whole point is that Blizzard is not a government under the watchful eye of it's inhabitants. In a way, they can do whatever they please (like either decrease or increase the in-game value of gold) without themselves being affected (well, ok, aside from the fact they might lose users). Because they do not get payed for the gold. It's not their economy. It's the economy of the farmers and the users. That is in essense very different from a local governemt IRL.

Blizzard can print money for nothing but so can any government in an economy, and as with any economy it is possible to flood and devalue the currency. If they under value the WoW gold they will cause inflation, but the effects may be different from a other economies due to NPC traders, which wont change their prices. It will however effect players (as you agree) but as players get richer in the game the exchange rate will change (i.e. buying WoW gold from blizzard will no longer be worth it.)
Governments are not stuck to their currency and the value of their currency does not directly affect them. An example of this is government deficit. At first look it would seem that Blizzards economy would be running in constant deficit as there is no form of in-game tax but this isn't necessarily true as players have to pay a subscription fee. So whether or not it runs in deficit is really down to how they handle in game money sinks, which unfortunately we don't know.
My main point is, although not a common economic system, I don't see how WoW's economy is not a real economy.

.oisyn said:

Well thank you for giving some ammo to shoot with ;). Because I would severely rather NOT invest any money in such economies. Luckily for us there are laws against forming cartels and monopolies and such. But who's watching over wow's economy? Absolutely no one.

You are confusing economies and enterprises within an economy. Economies are regulated by the state, as is the economy of WoW(which is the owners/runers of WoW), and there is nothing stopping the government creating monopolies within its economy (public sector.)

[.oisyn]

z80 said:

Then software has no value either... The code you write can also be created in unlimited amounts with a press of a key.

Oh come on, how old are you? You don't actually think that is a valid argument, do you? I hope for your sake I don't have to explain writing software is not about producing code...

Blaxill said:

You are confusing economies and enterprises within an economy. Economies are regulated by the state, as is the economy of WoW(which is the owners/runers of WoW), and there is nothing stopping the government creating monopolies within its economy (public sector.)

Fair enough, but that doesn't really change my point, which is in the paragraph you chose not to quote.

[Nick]

.oisyn said:

Wrong. It costs the farmers time. It costs Blizzard nothing. The whole point is that Blizzard is not a government under the watchful eye of it's inhabitants. In a way, they can do whatever they please (like either decrease or increase the in-game value of gold) without themselves being affected (well, ok, aside from the fact they might lose users). Because they do not get payed for the gold. It's not their economy. It's the economy of the farmers and the users. That is in essense very different from a local governemt IRL. Also, it is unrealistic to think that WoW will go on forever. In time there will be better mmorpgs out there, so the support for WoW will stop eventually. You can't really say that for a real government.

Blizzard gets raging critique for making unpopular changes in the gold system, resulting in people cancelling their subscriptions. That's real money. So rest assured, Blizzard is a lot more like a government under watchful eyes than you think. And just like any government Blizzard would be mad to press big red buttons, for its own sake, its own economy.

And I don't think it's unrealistic for WoW to go on for quite a while. They actively create new content and patch the graphics and gameplay regularly to keep things exciting. So if they can keep doing that and keep the value of WoW gold intact (some fluctuation is expected) there's no reason for it to dissapear.

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I'm not saying that gold and only gold has no value. I'm saying that that what the gold represents has no value itself. Thusly the items you can buy with it. IRL, this is not true. Sure, we agree upon the value of money, but the point is that with that money I can buy things that are not simply "up for grabs" and created out of nothing. If something can be created out of nothing, the value of that thing (and thus the value of money) is severely reduced.

Ok, I think I see what you're getting at, but you're viewing things differently. What bothers you is that Blizzard can create new items, making existing items less valuable, and making certain people want to buy WoW gold with real money to obtain these items. Correct? I can see why that appears wrong at first but there are two sides here and they are in balance:

The gamer gets new excitement from obtaining the item. Some find the quests the most exiting, putting time into reaching achievements and making gold. Others just want the item for bragging rights. Competition and bragging is present in every human in certain amounts and it gives them pleasure. And we pay for it every day in real life. Personally I would never buy jewelry for myself; a diamond is about as precious to me as a pretty shard of glass I found on the street. I would also never pay money to collect used stamps. I might however consider paying extra for matching shiny black computer parts even though mauve ones probably work just as well. :ninja: > :cool2:

From Blizzard's side of view it might look like they create items out of nothing. But let's not forget that they have to pay real artists, real programmers, real IT specialists, etc. All this adds a lot more real value to these virtual items. And the paying subscribers expect nothing less from them than to keep creating new content and excite them. So it's a complete circle.

Also, note that the value of the items is actually mainly determined by the gamers. I've seen medium rare items that lower your stats sell for hundreds of gold, extremely rare items that sell for silver because somehow nobody wants it (this can change overnight if you create some sort of hype around it), etc. Although I don't participate at that level I can certainly see how it's all pretty exciting for the big gamers (not so different from competition and hype surrounding competitive sports). But it doesn't help Blizzard to create an item so rare that nobody can afford it in an honest way, or items that are abundant and valuable at first but drop in value real quickly (both leading to frustration and critique). So there's a fine balance that needs to be respected which is no different from real world economy.

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I guess my whole point relies on the fact that I think it's naïve to think that Blizzard will continue to treat WoW's economy as a real economy. Now I'm not a wow player myself, but I thought the EULA said something about not being allowed to sell items, but I could be wrong on that. But if that is true, it's not unrealistic to think that they ever find a way to stop that. Also, you can simply run a bot that farms gold for you at no cost (well maybe like $30 for the bot). Of course that is also not allowed, but hey, worst thing that can happen is that you are kicked from the game. Which is another big difference from a true government - there are no severe punishments that scares people from not breaking the rules.

Since you're Dutch: Jongeren veroordeeld tot werkstraffen wegens diefstal virtuele goederen.

You're partially right though, legislation and criminal justice is seriously lagging behind on this front. For Blizzard it's a full time job to prevent and stop foul play, within the limits of their powers. But when looking at football or cycling or other sports people pay real money for to watch I don't think the problem is that much worse in the electronic entertainment.

Anyhow, all my above arguments assumed buying WoW gold with real money from an honest farmer. And I think that in the future we'll see a lot tighter control of trading virtual goods.

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Well paper bills are a bit outdated. There's more virtual money on bank accounts around than there are goods to back that up. Not that this is a counter-argument btw, it makes it even more like wow gold than actual paper money ;).

See, you're starting to flip that switch in your head that sais it's not real money. :happy: After all, value is all in your head, no matter if we talk about real or virtual goods. Percentage-wise a lot of people consider virtual goods of very low value, but for a select group it's as real as it gets. But no matter to what group you belong there are always things you value more than others and things you value less. All you need is a bit of understanding why some people find certain things valuable, irrespective of how you value them.

[.oisyn]

Nick said:

Blizzard gets raging critique for making unpopular changes in the gold system, resulting in people cancelling their subscriptions. That's real money. So rest assured, Blizzard is a lot more like a government under watchful eyes than you think. And just like any government Blizzard would be mad to press big red buttons, for its own sake, its own economy.

Yes I guess that is true. Maybe it matters more to Blizzard that I originally thought. It would be nice to see some figures of the amount of people on WoW buying the gold from the IRL market and the amount of people who don't care about it or farm themselves.

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And I don't think it's unrealistic for WoW to go on for quite a while. They actively create new content and patch the graphics and gameplay regularly to keep things exciting. So if they can keep doing that and keep the value of WoW gold intact (some fluctuation is expected) there's no reason for it to dissapear.

Then we simply differ from opinion. As with everything, sometimes you need a fresh start to progress, and Blizzard might do that just as well.

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Ok, I think I see what you're getting at, but you're viewing things differently. What bothers you is that Blizzard can create new items, making existing items less valuable, and making certain people want to buy WoW gold with real money to obtain these items. Correct?

Well, aside from that piece I made bold, yes. Why does Blizzard want that people buy bold on the public market? They don't gain (or lose for that matter) anything with that. Blizzard couldn't care less how you get the gold. As long as you keep playing.

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From Blizzard's side of view it might look like they create items out of nothing. But let's not forget that they have to pay real artists, real programmers, real IT specialists, etc. All this adds a lot more real value to these virtual items. And the paying subscribers expect nothing less from them than to keep creating new content and excite them. So it's a complete circle.

Well, no, it's not . The point is that Blizzard gets payed with the subscriptions. They will make those items whether you pay for your gold or harvest it yourself (either manually or using a bot). They would even make the items if they were never for sale but only available by doing certain quests (of course, then these items will in turn turn up on the public market aside gold themselves).

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Since you're Dutch: Jongeren veroordeeld tot werkstraffen wegens diefstal virtuele goederen.

Being an active tweakers.net visitor of course I have already read about that , and I think this is very good news.

For the non-dutch members here, two teenagers (14 and 15) had taken some Runescape items from another teenager (13) by force and intimidation. They have been convicted in Dutch court for the crime of robbery (in other words seizing property through violence or intimidation), as the court ruled that virtual property is property just as well. The sentences were 2 months probation and 200 hours of community service for the 15-year-old and 1 month probation and 160 hours of community service for the 14-year-old