[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Ban selling of in-game items for real cash?

[Matt Mihaly]

From: Yumiko

> I'm involved in the administration of a game that has about 500
> simultaneous users.

> The owner of the game accepts "donations" from players to help
> "keep the server running", and gives them in-game items in return
> for their donation. After the server costs are covered, the extra
> donation money goes into the owner's pocket to keep him interested
> in developing and maintaining the game.

Heh heh. I notice you don't mention the name of the game. Nothing
like being flamed by the DIKU flagwavers! ;)

First of all, let's dispense with the donation crap. He's selling
the items. When you get a good in return for money, it's called
purchasing something, and the owner is making a sale. That kind of
dissembling is a waste of time.

So, having said that, that's the business model our games use and it
works well.

> Recently, we have noticed some players selling in-game items for
> real cash. Many times, they sell the same items available via
> donations but for a cheaper price. Speaking from a business
> standpoint of profit maximization, would it be a good idea to ban
> such practices? The arguments I can think of are:

I tell you what we do to virtually eliminate this: Stop those items
from being transferred between characters. Then, if they want to
transfer the items to someone else, they have to flog the whole
character for whatever they think the character and all his
locked-down purchased items are worth. Much less liquid market for
that.

I've heard some people make arguments that we should allow players
to sell items to each other and take a percentage of the price as a
transfer fee for providing a secure trading mechanism, but not only
is that gameable (by using out of game method with a trivial in-game
credit transfer) but isn't going to make you as much money as having
players buy directly from you is.

> Ban:

>   Selling of items can make players who don't have money to spend
>   like that feel like they are treated unfairly, and stop playing
>   as a result. (Well, accepting donations for items does this too,
>   but at least in that case the server owner gets money.)

Hey, if they leave because someone else is helping support the game,
why care? When we get players who complain about this, I tell them,
more or less, to be grateful for the players who do pay because it's
due to the payers that the nonpayers are even permitted to be in the
game, using our resources. Playing for free is a privilege, not a
right.

> Don't Ban:

>   A ban on such practices may cause players to resent the
>   administration for not letting them dispose of their in-game
>   assets as they see fit.

It's about setting expectations. We rarely get complaints from
people about not being able to transfer their real-money items
because that was the expectation when they bought them. If players
ask why, I'm happy to be honest and tell them it's because I believe
if we allowed that practice to proliferate there'd eventually be a
floating supply of real-money items in the game (due to player
turnover, and players selling their items before leaving the game
permanently) and the way we pay for the operation of the business
would be too damaged to continue.

--matt
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