[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Jeff Freeman]

At 10:38 AM 9/11/00 -0400, Dave Rickey wrote:
>    I think it's safe to say that this is starting to look like a trend.
>Like being a little bit pregnant, once you start down this path, there's no
>stopping till you get to the end (IMHO).  Question is, where's the freaking
>end?  What's the legal consequences of selling, as the operator of a game,
>in game stuff for real money?

I think there are two seperate issues.  One is players selling items to
other players.  The other is the company/operator selling items to players.

Maybe because you're a game company and not an online auction site, eBay
can handle these things better than you can?  I don't think that fighting
the inevitable is a valuable use of time.  If players are going to buy and
sell houses in UO for real money, then I think OSI should provide the
auction and transfer mechanism.  It'd cut down on fraud, OSI would make the
money instead of eBay making it, etc.  Question is if there would be enough
use of this "feature" for it to pay for itself.

I just *still* have to wonder if the sale of in-games items on eBay isn't
indicative of design flaws/limitations in the games themselves.

People buy houses in UO because they are a finite resource.  OSI could have
placed the castles and charged $500 per month for accounts with castles.
$50 for accounts with towers.  $20 for accounts with regular houses
(pulling numbers out of the air here).

But it would be better if there were plenty of room for everyone to own
their own castle, or else an in-game method (only) of acquiring and
defending the castle from other players.  Say, you can have the castle, but
only for as long as you can defend it.  'Wouldn't make any sense to buy it,
since you'll just lose it anyway if you can't defend it, and if you can
defend it, you could win it in-game.

I think people pay to obtain items in EQ because it is *so* not fun to camp
for the things.  I don't think the solution there is for Verant to sell
those items either - I think the solution is to design the game in such a
way that people have fun playing it, and would rather play it than to pay
someone else to play it for them.  If going on a quest for a magical foobar
is fun, people will do that.  If it's not fun, they'll pay other people to
do it.

None of the quests in EQ are fun (well, unless you're in the mood to sit in
one spot and kill the same thing over and over - which I have been from
time to time, but usually am not), and they are they the only way to get
items.  Having those items makes the part of the game that you do play more
fun.  Paying for fun is what its all about - that's what *all* the
customers are doing after all.  I'd pay people to do it for me, too.

What do people sell in AC?  Anything?  Or does the built-in Allegiatwink
system satisfy their desire for kewl things?

Anyway, I think eBay is sort of a diagnostic tool.  If you want to see
what's wrong with your game, you can go see what people are buying and
selling on eBay.  I think that fighting it (trying to ban the sale of items
on eBay, etc.) is futile.  And becoming eBay doesn't address the problems
that cause people to want to pay you money so that they can avoid playing a
certain part (at least) of your game.

I don't think the average customer is really all that stupid, either.  They
might be able to figure out eventually that even though game X and game Y
both cost $10 per month, you have to spend another $500 buying items to
succeed in game X, whereas game Y *just* costs the $10 per month.

--
  http://home.swbell.net/skeptack/




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