Blizz gold-selling?

[Alikh]

Or is it in fact activision who's behind this?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/10/1 ... old-buying

If they're going to ask e.g. 10 euros for that pet, then at the goldsellers rate of about 1 euro per 1k gold or something, that would mean the pet should sell close to 10k gold ingame.

Still, it's the same thing as goldsellers do, only then with a lot less effort involved (no grinding at all as opposed to poor chinese workers that have to work all day). Blizz can just copy-n-paste another pet to some account and cash another 10 euros via automated processing.

Blizzard also says that "it's ok" if they do it. I see no difference with normal euro-to-gold conversions that goldsellers do. It's the same thing, only the money now goes to blizz.. *cough* activision *cough* ..ard. I wonder if they're now also ok with gold farmers that don't steal, but grind herbs/veins all day and just sell those on the auction house to later sell the gold for real money.

[Bastille]

Yup, they are testing this how it functions and trying to undermine the gold sellers. I'll say that in a year we have more micro transactions for 2 x XP while questing and stuff like that + direct gold selling for $$.

I wonder when that Diablo 3 real money AH is going to come to WoW...

[Alikh]

Can't wait to leave activision behind on this. I really hope sw:tor delivers what it promises now.
And then there's the question whether sw:tor will also go this way.

I don't have a problem perse with microtransactions, but they should actually be 'micro'. Somehow some idiots (but not dumb) thought up that those microtransactions should cost about the same as a whole game now. As an example, in EVE online they sell a garment/suit which has no purpose whatsoever except as clothing, for around $60 or so. The reasoning behind it being that people also spend a lot of money on designer clothing in real life, while they could also just spend less than 10 euros on clothing with the same purpose, but want the more expensive one because it's a certain brand which makes them cooler.
Like buying nike shoes for 250 euros instead of just shoes for 30 euros or paying 100s of euros for some hobby like golf or tennis or whatever.

They think that as people apparently find it to be worth 250 euros, then people would also find ingame clothing/activities to be worth more than a few bucks.

The problem ofcourse is that, unlike in the real world, they have a monopoly on anything that's sold ingame. It would be like a big company that gains revenue on anything sold in the whole world. That's also the reason why they think they can ask more money. There are no competitors anyway.

The people that think these macrotransactions up should be put against the wall and shot.

[Jimmble]

I don't see the problem here. Until they don't sell useful stuff for RL money, I'm perfectly fine with it. If you don't want to pay 25$ for a shiny lion, don't pay. Neither do I. Normally I ride on a Pinto and fly with the Flying machine because it suits my character best. Riding on an glowing pony? Please... -.-
Also this is not the first BoE thing buyable for RL currency (TCG mounts are sellable since patch 3.2). This will be easier to obtain, so the price will be lower. Supply and demand.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... ?page=2#34

[Alikh]

I don't see the problem here.

Yes, 'here' the problem is not so big *yet*. It is just the start of what might be to come and, knowing activision, they will do everything in their power to make more money for less.

If they go the way of eve online with $60 for some stupid piece of clothing ingame which they simply copy-n-pasted into your inventory, then at some point you can hardly play games anymore without paying for automated content generation.

Money paid should be directly proportional to work effort. If it costs a workweek to make some glowing pony, then it should make around 40 workhours worth of money, not 10000 times that, just because you can copy-n-paste it to a lot of users as if they all pay you for 40 workhours. So, if the userbase that's going to want it is about 100.000 people, then it would be reasonable to ask 40/100.000=0,0004 workhours worth of money. Let's say a workhour costs $160 + counting in some maintenance costs at $40 (whatever), then that would mean that 8 dollarcents or even 8 eurocents would be a reasonable price to ask for the item. NOT 25 euros / 8 eurocents = 312 times as much!

8 eurocents IS a microtransaction, 25 euros is NOT. Hell, you can often buy 1-2 whole games for that money that cost a whole lot more to develop than some shiny pony.

[Jimmble]

Buyers set value, not the sellers. People buy shiny lions for 25$, that's it's value.

[Alikh]

The sellers do in fact set the value if they have a monopoly and the game is changed so that pretty much all normal things cost money.

If you have to go by train (lacking other transportation) and there's only one train company, then it's not your choice that the damn ticket costs 50 euros. Prices that make you want to shoot a bazooka up their ass are simply bad prices and only bent on making money rather than providing value for a decent money reward.
If I sell tickets for 10 cents for you to visit the peak of a mountain and then when you want to go back down you have to pay 100 euros and have no choice to pay up, that is not value for decent money but abusing the situation.
If there's sudden starvation and I make bread, I abuse the situation if I inflate my prices by 1000%. There is no real reason why I should make more money for the same effort. Work effort should always be in proportion to money reward.

They know that people will be semi-forced to pay up extreme amounts just out of social pressure, just like kids at school have to buy nike shoes or they become outcasts.
That's just extortion.

Anyway, you don't have to agree with me and you can defend capitalism all you want and how the ignorant sheep bring it on themselves by paying for the damn stuff anyway (and therefore setting the price so high themselves), but I'm not going to be convinced of its merits in any way.
But maybe you don't praise its merits and you simply acknowledge the sombre truth.

[Jimmble]

I don't feel forced to pay any additional money. The "train" is free in this game, only they charge you for the shiny train. When they charge me for using my Pinto I will join your raging. Until then...
*jumps on his Pinto and clippity clops away*

[Bastille]

I don't see the problem here. Until they don't sell useful stuff for RL money, I'm perfectly fine with it.

In theory they already are selling useful stuff in sense of real money -> pet -> gold, which then buys you crafted gear. And if Blizzard really starts selling gold, we have huge inflation on server, even more than every single major patch/expansion. If you buy gold you can skip the gold/crafting material grind to get geared. At some point buying gold becomes mandatory for example raiders (well, for the hard core raiders anyway). And this starts to favor those who have the money and are willing to toss it away for pixels.

This is why I don't like the fact that you can buy gold with real money too easily. If you really really need to buy gold, you should accept the risk of getting banned and account theft.

[Rezag]

I ques its time to finally preorder swtor. Its only question of time when they start thinking outside the box....



Soon your Pinto will get it

[Alikh]

I think that's quik's pinto right there on the left about to be stomped!
Better pay up!

[Jimmble]

Hey, give me back my horsie, you evul, evul people in funny hats! *shakes gnomefist*