I have recently been reading blogs from Tobold's MMORPG. I must admit that I am intrigued by the arguments that have been raised recently. The latest posts concern the ethics of RMT (Real Money Trading) within the world of Final Fantasy XI, WoW, and other massively multi-player online games.
Ethics of RMT? Many would rather shoot their own dog than even consider engaging in such an act. It has become the self-righteous evangelist's drum-beating tune of the MMORPG world to hate anything RMT, including an exploration of the mere viewpoint of those engaged in the practice. It is indeed hated by some players. But those who actually engage in RMT are not likely to speak up, mostly because of the threats and ridicule that are likely to ensue. But times are changing. It is estimated that millions of dollars change hands each year in the free trade of virtual currency for the various major MMORPG games. If millions of dollars (not to mention Euros and Yen) are trading hands, then just WTF is happening?
The short answer is this - many people are engaging in RMT. Enough people, in fact, that there is an entire market built around this industry. Why is this? One reason: time.
There are 2 types of players of MMORPGs - full-time and part-time players. How much time do you spend playing the game? Many students can spend 40+ hours each week playing. Older people with full time jobs and/or children often don't have that kind of time or energy.
My hypothesis and experience has been that most people who are completely enraged over RMT are the younger players who play the game for the longest hours. Older people with higher incomes and less disposable time, are open to the idea of trading a small amount of cash for virtual currency - which would otherwise require excessive amounts of time that is simply not available.
Younger players, who often have very little disposable income, have a hard time understanding the motivations for trading real money for virtual currency. The time value of money has not yet been realized. It is often considered cheating - as though one person's trading of money for time is somehow dis-enfranchising to other players. And many ignore the fact that most of these games are not directly competitive in nature (they are cooperative style games), so one's trading of money for time is not detrimental to other players.
It becomes apparent after playing these games for any significant length of time, that the currency earned vs. time spent is incredibly low - equating to a low value of experience for some players (many players). This is essentially why RMT exists. It simply isn't worth the time for many people to play the game, and the enjoyment factor rapidly diminishes.
So this leads me to the answer to this dilemma. People with time to earn virtual currency often disapprove of those who lack the time to earn their own virtual currency (damn those pesky, real world jobs). Those who lack time, but still want to enjoy the game, must often resort to trading time from another source - the real world.
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2 comments:
Ok, I have found something that is completely unacceptible behavior by RMTs - in-game spamming. I have never actually run into this in FFXI. I did experience it while playing WoW for the first time.
I can understand the anger - spamming any kind of advertising is an intrusion of in-game experience. I agree that such activity lowers the value of the game and all type of that activity should be completely banned. This is something that should be a sue-able offense. Any type of attempt to gain free advertising inside any medium without permission is treading on U.S. law.
This is unacceptable behavior. I have not seen this kind of thing in FFXI, and it really bugs me. No wonder WoW players especially hate RMT.
More unethical behavior by the chinese sellers - click fraud. They are outright ripping off the competition via click-fraud in order to gain the upper hand in paid search results.
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