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

[Matt Mihaly]

Vlad Cole wrote:
> "Matt Mihaly" <matt at ironrealms.com> wrote:

>> 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.

> So the assumption here is that the growth of a strong secondary
> market for items will reduce demand for primary-market offerings.

Yeah.

> Is that a valid assumption?

Yes.

> I don't know the game at all, but might a thriving secondary
> market be an asset or feature of the game? Might a liquid
> secondary market increase demand for primary-market offerings? If
> the financial markets are any model, then liquid markets increase
> investor demand for both primary and secondary offerings.

Players know what's available and already have friends with the
items.  They don't need to see players selling items in order to
desire to buy them from us.

> I don't buy the argument that secondary trading between players
> (for in-game or out-of-game cash) will harm your item purchase
> revenues. A liquid secondary market may actually increase your
> player base's willingness to invest in one of your items in the
> first place in much the same way that my donation to charity isn't
> completely altruistic: I expect a partial refund of my taxes in
> exchange for my gifts to charitable organizations. To put it
> another way, player demand for your items may increase if they
> know that they can sell these items when they tire of using them
> (or of playing the game).

Player demand for the items would go up. However, at a certain
point, it then becomes cheaper for them to buy from outgoing
players. We get nothing in that case. Demand isn't the goal:
Satisfying that demand with only the primary market is.

> By restricting trade on your items you decrease the total utility
> of those items and therefore the demand for them.

By not restricting trade on our items, we would increase the demand
somewhat, decrease the size of the primary market, a lot.


--matt
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