[MUD-Dev] Sony to ban sale of online characters from its populargaming sites

[S. Patrick Gallaty]

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Sony to ban sale of online characters from its
populargaming sites


>On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Ryan Palacio wrote:
>
>>
>> Maddog at best.com wrote:
>>
>> > item farming is not a profitable business.
>>
>> Commodity farming is most definitely a profitable business.  If this were
>> not true, why would EQ platinum and UO gold have higher US dollar
exchange
>> rates than currency from many countries?!
>
>This fact is _utterly_ irrelevant. Does the fact that the English pound
>trades at a premium to the dollar mean that English goods are inherently
>more valuable? Of course not. Likewise, does the fact that the Japanese
>yen trades at a deep discount to the dollar indicate that Japanese
>goods are less valuable? No. Comparing arbitrary currency amounts doesn't
>mean anything, except in terms of changes in the relationship between the
>two (as I understand it at least).
>

Ah, you are missing a critical point.
The english pound is a national currency, backed by guarantee.  This gives
it real-world value.

The eq platinum piece has a real-world value now, demonstrably so.   His
point was crystal clear I believe, and that is that the exploitive behaviour
is immensely profitable.  Make 1000 platinum any way you can and sell it on
ebay for $75.  How fast can you get 1000 plat?  That depends on how
efficient the item collection methods are.  For some people who have the
right characters to exploit certain faction manipulations to allow them
unmolested access to rare mobs and high hitting power, a single item can
bring them several thousand platinum pieces.   The situation ryan is
describing involves groups of high level players who literally 'control' all
of the rare spawns on some servers, locking them down around the clock and
then selling the items on ebay.

Trust me pal, some of these people are making a lot of money.  We do know of
people who have quit their day jobs and made more money selling items on
ebay.

>I'm not disputing that commodity farming is profitable, incidentally, just
>that your example has no relevance to it being profitable.


Again, I wholly disagree.  His example demonstrated that eq virtual money
has real-world value.  This real-world value is what makes this business
profitable.

>
>That is a poor analogy. In a movie theatre, _any_ interaction with fellow
>patrons (for the most part...I'm not talking about the Rocky Horror
>

I have to back up ryan again.  His point was that paying to get into the
theatre doesn't give you license to disrupt other people's experience, and I
thought his point was made.  You've just said essentially the same thing
less clearly while objecting to his example.


- nox





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