[MUD-Dev] banning the sale of items

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2000, Ryan Palacio wrote:

> 
> Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> >
> > We've noticed almost none of this. You just have to be careful of what you
> > sell. You can't sell everything, and nothing you sell can give an
> > overwhelming advantage. I'm not sure it's scalable, but so far, I've seen
> > no arguments demonstrating that it's not.
> 
>     _EVERY_ person I have asked, be it in-house, just in passing with gamers
> who do not play EQ, in a small sampling of EQ players, has had a negative
> opinion towards it.  

Naturally. If I was used to dining at fine restaurants for $10 a month,
and you asked me how I felt about paying a lot of money to dine in them
from then on, my reaction would be negative. I would, however, quite
likely continue to dine in them. Stated preferences are not a very good
indicator of behavior.


>Yes I tend to powergame.  However, my Bartle's quotient
> states that I am type EAS (80/60/40).  In my mind, this makes me more likely
> to take time to figure out the in-game context and environment than
> powergame for "achievement".  This also means that my time investment into
> the game for character growth is long and not necessarily straight forward.
> Cryptic quests, mazes, teleport rooms, etc etc are all part of what I enjoy
> figuring out.  By providing a means of directly exchanging RL cash for items
> comparable to the rewards received for exploring, you would be placing a
> price tag on my time thereby innately devaluing my experience.  

So considering that I can, currently, buy pretty much whatever I want on
EQ, why would any of the people you asked want to play EQ currently?? I
think your argument tries to swim upstream, against reality. 


 My reward
> is now not so unique in itself.  My new toy is not so colorful and flavorful
> as it would have been without the existance of a purchasable counterpart.

Again, why does EQ hold _any_ appeal now, given that I can purchase a
counterpart, if your logic holds true?


> Now instead of enjoying the game and time spent exploring, as a partial
> achiever, I have to weigh time spent vs reward gained.  In some cases, it
> may be better for me to forgo the time working on the quest and just buy the
> item.  Now, you have content the developers spent time on that will not be
> used.  Do you leave it?  You have to, because any change in the quest to
> make it more palatable to explorers would devalue the monetary amount.  Even
> assuming you had the resources to keep up with both the explorers and the
> item buyers, you would be bladerunning at full sprint while trying to
> balance not only risk vs reward but also money vs reward.

Look, this is all very well and good, but it's just unsupported
conjecture. I can give you concrete examples of selling things working,
albeit it obviously not in _exactly_ the same environment as EQ.


> > I distrust this sort of analysis, because you are a hardcore gamer I
> > suspect, and you are not the ideal market. You might be right, and there's
> > no way to know for sure unless it's tried on a large scale, but I suspect
> > that many of the anti-pay-for-item people feel that way not out of any
> > concern for the primary purpose of a large MMORPG (to make money I'd hope)
> > but out of personal bias.
> 
> Note above informal polling.   Of which _ALL_ had negative feelings and
> stated such.

Shrug. What people say they will do is quite often not what they will do.
People DO play games where you buy things. Quite a lot of them.


 
> > I don't see why breakage or loss should be any larger a problem than
> > losing a player file. They are both just records in a database, and if you
> > don't provide any way for bought items to be broken or lost, then the
> > likelihood seems equal to that of losing player files, which, I'm assuming
> > doesn't happen very much.
> 
> This point was made to display the expendable vs one-time purchase theory.
> Obviously I would not want to have to buy an item twice due to some in-game
> item breakage/deterioration.  Leaning towards that, each item is a one-time
> purchase period.  A permanent entry into the world.

Obviously you wouldn't want to have to buy an item twice due to
breakage/deterioration? Do you regularly get upset about your car wearing
out over time? 

> > They clearly are not diametrically opposed, given that Simutronics (which
> > certainly has a more impressive long-term track record than any graphical
> > MMORPG) flagship products charge both a flat-rate fee, AND charge for some
> > in-game things (I don't know if they charge for items, but one of their
> > employees at GDC claimed that a wedding there once sold for US$25,000.).
> > Simutronics has proven beyond a doubt that some
> > paying-for-things-beyond-service _works_.
> 
> Simutronics, specifically Gemstone, had "regular service" and "premium
> service".  This was much more akin to "renting" an expansion than
> purchasing.  People paid extra money for "premium service" which allowed
> them access to special areas and therefore special items and such.  The
> purchase of in-game events I have no previous knowledge of, but I have also
> never heard of items being directly sold to players by Simutronics.  The
> latter of which is the crux of the issue.

See my example of the $25,000 custom wedding someone purchased on
Simutronics. I fail to see how this is any different than selling, say, a
custom house.

You know, I might also point out that not allowing a game to charge for
certain items, etc is quite detrimental to customer service. What if I,
the customer, want a special house? We pride ourselves on customer
service in the model of a nice restaurant or hotel. If you want it, you
can have it (well, with some limitations), but you must be willing to pay
for it. Some people want to eat at McDonalds, which is cheap, and at which
the menu is absolutely fixed and limited. Others, such as myself, would
choose to dine somewhere that will cater to me, and recognize that I, as
a wealthy individual, deserve to get proper service and deserve to get
what I want and will pay for (not that I'm wealthy. You people have been
really slow about sending me money in order to curry favour for when I am
dictator of the world.)


> > Along those lines, assuming you want to reach a mass market.....If you had
> > a life outside of your computer, would you like to be constantly reminded
> > of the fact that some student who is flunking out of college will almost
> > automatically do better than you, merely because he's got no other
> > responsibilities, and nothing better to do than play 14 hours a day?
> 
> Again the issue of time vs money.  In my mind, time should be the ONLY
> determining factor.  As previously stated, everyone starts with the same
> amount and accrues it at the same rate.  Unlike cash, which has HUGE
> variations in both accrual rate and total.  Obviously this is based solely
> on my personal opinion - but, I believe it is one that is widely shared.  I
> have no problem with Bob, who earns a wage equal to mine and performs the
> same task, receiving more money on his paycheck because he worked more hours
> than I did.  I do have a problem if Bob and I do the exact same job but he
> gets more per hour than I do.

So ability shouldn't matter either? Games should be simply a matter of who
can sit down and program a bot to spend the most time in-game doing some
repetitive activity? Sounds quite boring to me. (again, do remember that
I'm playing devil's advocate to some extent)


> > I guess it's a matter of target markets really. I would MUCH rather try to
> > go after adults with fulltime jobs and families, who certainly can't play
> > 10 hours a day, than a bunch of teenagers and college kids (no offence to
> > anyone in those groups, but you're poor, and you have way too much time to
> > spend, costing huge amounts in bandwidth for a large game.) We sell things
> > for a lot of real money, and you know what? The players mainly thank us
> > for the opportunity to buy these things without having to spend tons of
> > time online. Sure, we get a few complainers, and inevitably they are the
> > ones with no money.
> >
> > Clearly there's room for both models, but I highly suspect profits can be
> > increased overall (long-term) by selling things in-game.
> 
> From the business perspective, I completely agree.  But the 18-25 year old
> "kids" (myself included) represent an enormously large population percentage
> in the gaming world and need alot less prodding to purchase or subscribe
> than "adults" with more taxing financial obligations.  Similarly, most
> "kids" don't have children or spouses that feel neglected when they play and
> are therefore more likely to continue paying and playing.  To a young adult,
> $10 is a movie and soda. MMORPG for 1 month - or 2 hours of movie?  To the
> 25+ crowd, $10 is a week's worth of food at the grocery store assuming
> coupon clipping.  Week's worth of food or MMORPG for 1 month?

Erm, no offence as I don't know where you live, but $10 for a week of
food? You must be kidding me. I spent $50 just on cheese and wine today,
and I'm hardly unique or wealthy. Most 25+ I know have plenty of
disposeable cash. The wonders of living in rich countries.


> > Then perhaps the solution is to design a game where things besides sheer
> > "What level am I?" is important. We have players who have spent thousands
> > of dollars, and are easily eclipsed by players who have spent $100.
> > Eclipsed both in level (though level isn't all that important in Achaea)
> > and, FAR more importantly to the players, social standing. There's
> > actually a bit of a negative effect to buying a lot of items....if you
> > have bought a lot, and still suck (not an uncommon case), then you become
> > a bit of a joke.
> 
> Yes, twinks - the people that have all the toys and zero skill/knowledge.
> They are always the butt of a joke.

Heh heh, that they are.

> 
> But as far as the social standing issue, its alot easier to have social
> standing in a community of 200-300 (typical MUD high) vs 70,000+
> (prime-time).  Personally, I agree with the point overall, there needs to be
> more than "what level am I?" or "what are my skills?", but I have yet to
> think of it when looking at a scale of 200,000+ (and potentially over a
> million - gotta think BIG =) ) users world-wide.  Lots of money will be made
> by the person(s) that do it tho - that point I believe is uncontested.

I don't think EQ has a community of 70k. I think you should look at each
individual server as a community, seems there appears to be little
interaction between servers. It's still a lot, granted, but given that
people get social standing in the "real" world, where there are over 6
billion people, I don't see why it can't be done in a mud of any size, if
it's designed with that in mind. 

--matt




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