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Player-to-Player Sales Round Table
Virtual item selling in the MMO industry has become one of the most heated topics between both players and developers over the years. The trading of virtual goods and services for real world money is not a new topic and has become one of the key elements for MMO success in the Asian markets. The idea of providing free to play games and selling character upgrades (such as items or skills) for small amounts over time has revolutionized MMO gaming in countries such as Korea. So can this model be applied to new and upcoming MMOs here in the states? And more importantly how could this be achieved without removing the "fun" from MMOs? Sam Lewis, who worked on Star Wars Galaxies among other games, set the round table on a road to try and discover the answers to these questions.
Sam proposed to the group that there are 3 major concepts to solve the problem of player-to-player sales; the first is the most widely used approach by current generation developers call the "Magic Circle". The Magic Circle concept is basically the developer of the game doing what ever they can to stop or prevent player-to-player sales (most often waving the EULA around). The second concept was a middle ground where developers work to find ways to profit from this market by adding transition fees or limiting the range of items or locations where virtual properties can be sold so both players and the developer are reworded (such as the Sony Exchange for EverQuest 2). The final example is developing the game so that the developer has complete control over all virtual sells and only they will collect the profits. While its no surprise that no one solution could be agreed upon, the group did decide to focus on the Korean model of having the developer control all transactions.
Throughout the course of the discussion many issues where exposed including legal ownership, the power of the EULA, technical issues in maintaining the in game market and the cost of customer support which has been estimated as high as 50% of all customer support costs in some games. Issues aside however, the goal for the group was to build a design around the item sells vs. subscription fees. Imagine a world where gamers would be charged $.15 to list an item in the in game auction system or charged $.50 as a toll charge to take your wagon on supplies over a bridge. What about paying $1.25 for a spell power-up? While these example may be shocking to some, it could very well be the future for many MMOs.
As the round table came to a close the group agreed that while these models are here to stay, there is no easy answer to how it can be best achieved within games like World of Warcraft or City of Hero's. While the groups final design ended up being far to economically centered and not very fun, I have a strong feeling that this discussion will continue next year.
- Sean Neubert
-- Sean Neubert
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