June 8, 2007

For the last decade one of the most common annoyances in online play has been the real world – or more precisely, the real-world economy. How many players have had to face someone who bought their high-level character and thus had no idea how to play it? Jokes about people purchasing their avatars through systems like eBay have been going around since the early days of EverQuest 1. In recent years a new issue has entered into the mix – the infamous gold farmers. These players spend all their time attempting to amass huge fortunes, massive amounts of in-game cash that they can then turn around and sell for real-life money. As the gold farmers have become more prevalent gamers are coming face to face with an entirely new problem for the online world. This problem is called inflation.

An old adage is this: people only value what they have to work for. The reverse is also true: people don’t value what they get for free. When a person has purchased gold online it is suddenly there, without a cost in-game. There is always a tendency to immediately buy whatever skill, weapon, or artifact they needed before they purchased the gold. Once that is done anything else they have is going to be spent on other things. The important problem is how much they buy an item for. If sellers find that people are willing to pay 4,000 golden coins for a copy of the infamous Sword of a Thousand Truths, someone will eventually try to sell the sword for more. If word gets around that the Sword of a Thousand Truths is selling for 4,250 the price will rise to match it.

For the gold farmers and their customers this is little more than an irritation. The gold farmers will be busier to keep up with the demand and the gold buyers will be forced to pay more for their in-game money. For the rest of the virtual world this can quickly become a major problem. Players trying to farm their own money in-game using their own time, energy, and skill will be pushed harder to buy the items they believe they need. In turn, when they are selling items to other players they will drive harder bargains or ask for more in return for the items they sell. Over time the prices for general goods will climb. As time passes things will continue to get out of hand. Prices will slowly creep ever higher.

Auction houses for World of Warcraft are often found in the main cities

There are several solutions, all of which have been tried before. Back when EverQuest was first experiencing this problem they fought a lengthy legal battle with eBay. Sony Online Entertainment and Verant Interactive turned to the courts to block the sale of virtual characters or items for real-world cash. Eventually they were successful, but that success was temporary. New Web sites sprang up, advertising the ability to purchase items, weapons, or money for a variety of games. Since these Web sites are owned by companies outside the United States, video-game distributors based in America have had limited success battling the companies responsible for the blatant breaches in the terms of service in almost every MMO. Currently most developers are attempting to attack the problem through their control over the servers and the diagnostic tools. They try to locate farmers and the gold that they have sold by scanning through the transaction logs that keep track of every trade made in their virtual world. This is a long, painstaking task that does not always solve the problem.

Lineage 2 is a game that has seen its share of gold farming but NCsoft has
taken a lot of steps to ban accounts associated with the practice

Players also need to take some responsibility for this. Every time one of us buys virtual items or money using a credit card we are making things that much harder for everyone else in the game. When we buy something for prices above the market average we help pull prices higher. For advanced players this might not be an issue, but for new players it can eventually become an impossible hurdle to overcome. We need to remember how many problems the gold farmers create and the harsh tactics used by character-building players – from griefing to actively preventing anyone else from being able to use sections of the virtual world for leveling – and keep that in mind. A strong social stigma, a negative reputation attached to anyone who purchases items, money, or characters can be a strong deterrent.

Finally, the developers need to understand that players can and will amass large fortunes. We have all seen the so-called “money sinks” where developers hope we will spend our hard-earned, virtual cash. In EverQuest II players can rent houses for their guilds. In World of Warcraft players can buy advanced “riding” skills that allow faster travel through portions of the virtual world. Each game has a number of gold sinks. As long as players are building their cash stockpiles inflation will always be a problem. The developers need to stop introducing outrageously priced items that players feel required to purchase. Instead they need to begin using gold sinks that players can choose to use. City of Heroes had one of the best systems I have seen in years to deal with this problem – players could choose to redesign the costume their avatars wore. It was expensive, but it was something the players enjoyed. Things like armor dyes or paint jobs could be not only a good way to get money out of the system, but good fun for the players.

Imagine a world where players could customize how their characters look. Perhaps they have purchased a set of dyes that change the standard steel and bronze look of their armor to gleaming sable and vivid scarlet. What if they could also purchase special effects to surround their avatar. A fiery aura or a mist of shadowy darkness. Players would soon learn that any of these effects costs a great deal of money. In addition to performing a needed duty as a money sink they could also function as a visible status symbol. Assuming the only vendors for these kinds of effects would be NPCs, it could easily keep things in check. New colors, designs, or effects could be released over time to keep the player base interested. As long as these things are respected but not required it should help keep the prices for normal items under control, which means the game will continue to be fun and enjoyable for new players well into the future.

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