Broken
Toys
Random comments about
games and tractors
Is CCP about to cut out the middleman?
Sure looks like it. For those just joining us:
* CCP (Crowd Control Productions) are the developers of Eve Online.
* Eve Online is one of if not the most popular “niche” MMOs, with hardcore PvP and even more hardcore in-game economy.
* As part of that economy, until recently, there was a thriving grey market trade in RMT for ISK (Eve’s currency). The way it worked was that, in the quest for the One True Perfect Game Economy, CCP allowed players to exchange ISK for in-game subscription time.
This effectively made ISK convertible since, of course, you could purchase in-game subscription time for out-of-game currency (you know, the stuff in your wallet). Apparently, this was an unintended consequence. To quote CCP’S “Kieron”,
We allowed the trade of ISK for Game Time as an extension of the policy allowing the trade of ISK for game related services like TS server rental, forum signatures, etc. When we discussed allowing the trade of ISK for Game Time, the thought that we were inadvertently allowing the ‘sale of ISK for RL cash’ didn’t occur to us. The decision to allow the trade was not profit driven.
When Sony came out with their microcharge servers (sale of game items for RL cash), the internal CCP discussion lasted about 2 minutes. The discussion about Second Life’s business model lasted longer, but the results of the discussions were the same. We do not have, nor do we want to have, the ability to clone Tranquility and start up a microcharge server.
That was two years ago. Then a cryptic in-game message of the day appeared this past week alluding to/threatening bans for RMT trading in ISK. Why? Well, apparently things change.
The recent MotD mentioning the sale or purchase of ISK for real money generated some questions about how Game Time can be traded for ISK, Game Time that was purchased with real world cash. In some of my replies, I was unclear. This wasn’t by intention, but because of the information I am authorized to release at this time.
In the future, CCP will introduce a billing solution replacing the current system that allows the purchase of game time from third parties for in-game ISK. In essence, it will be possible for a time and ISK-rich, but financially challenged player to purchase game time directly from CCP. Game Time codes will still be available for purchase, but the trade of game time codes for ISK will no longer be an approved payment option.
We still have a number of details to work out, as well as implementation and integration, but that will hopefully clear up some of the confusion created earlier.
Well (as this ongoing F13 thread points out), that explains almost nothing. However, whenever your community manager uses the words “authorized to release at this time”? That means the players are about to get. Really. Damned. Pissed.
My theory: if CCP were simply to close the in-game currency for game time cards option, that would not make players Really. Damned. Pissed. Therefore, Occam’s Razor applies. What’s the simplest solution in this case? Simple… CCP cuts out the middleman.
Which will have… reverberations. This will make CCP one of the first, and definitely the largest first-party seller of in-game currency in the Western market.
| Print article |
about 3 years ago
I’m not exactly sure what they’re aiming at, either. But, I do indeed hope that this is a step for CCP to start selling ISK directly to their customers.
The only reason that more major MMO companies aren’t waking up to this type of solution is the outdated protectionist notion of purity of an MMO world (i.e. purity of “the vision”).
Those MMO’s plagued by gold farmers should especially consider these kinds of solutions. They won’t in the near-term, of course. They will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming — and over the backs of designers with grandiose notions of being “Builders of WORLDS!” — to the horrible horrible place of making money.
about 3 years ago
Unfortunately, that can’t be the only reason not to have RMT. My original position stands, and on this I will not waver. It goes as follows.
You have a big-economy game and sell in-game currency for money, you are asking to get sued. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day it remains a possibility.
Sure, push it to third-party suppliers if you think that will absolve your liability. But fraud is still an issue. Hell, combat is still an issue. You think there won’t ever be a lawsuit over in-game currency bought with real money and taken by any means available, if someone thinks it’s unfair?
Does anyone really want a judge to decide whether a game is fair?
We’re not four months away from CCP’s own GM Darwin incident. CCP doesn’t walk on water, not that they ever did.
about 3 years ago
I’ve read that second post from Kieron five times trying to figure out exactly what he means. He appears to contradict himself at least twice in one paragraph.
If that’s clearer than his previous replies, someone is taking hallucinogens on the job.
about 3 years ago
A decent-sized company is going to get sued, repeatedly, over many issues. The likelihood of a lawsuit over a particular course of action is one of many factors to take into account rather than a universally overriding factor.
My company is much smaller than CCP, but considering we’ve had officially enabled RMT for the past 8 years and have seen double-digit growth every year I think it’s fairly hard to credit your rather extreme argument that enabling it cannot be a good thing for a games company.
Whether to enable RMT and risk a lawsuit is a decision with pros and cons, no different from any other decision.
–matt
about 3 years ago
tbh it’s kind of sadmaking to see kieron state that they stumbled onto the right solution without even understanding what they were getting into. Really, though, I find it extremely hard to believe that they were “just trying to do something nice for the players” and then people abused it. CCP is a lot of things, but they really are not that dumb.
The market they set up has been and will always be the right decision, though, simply because RMT is going to happen whether you like it or not, and it’s much better and safer for it to happen in a market that you regulate so that you can strictly control the impact of the “farming companies”, rather than having them own the market. When you create a zero-risk method for transferring $$ -> in-game currency, but not the other way around, you severely damage the market opportunities for those companies since the “player gains in-game currency” side of the transaction is risk-free as long as you DON’T deal with the farmers, but the “farmer gains $$ from in-game currency” side of the transaction remains high-risk.
Any attempt at dealing with RMT that doesn’t involve manipulating the risk of transaction is just pointless idiocy, tantamount to holding your fingers in your ear and singing ‘la la la la la’ while IGE makes tens of millions off your property.
about 3 years ago
It’s interesting that the more talked about issue is the effects on RMT and not the major revenue loss CCP will face letting a big portion of their poopsockers play for free
about 3 years ago
That’s because everyone is assuming that kieron is on crack or confused, seeing as how none of his posts are exactly… intelligible.
about 3 years ago
On the trade chat channel that I occasionally frequent the talk was essentially:
“WTS as many GTCs as I can, while I still can.”
“Good ’cause WTB as many GTCs with ISK as I can, while I still can.”
Trading was fast and furious. The majority was done thru the CCP secure trade system. A lot of players that subsist purely on ISK for game time were already pissed off.
about 3 years ago
Freakazoid,
I think that’s part the whole point here, by cutting out the middle man CCP starts gaining MORE money b/c they’re now the ones getting the real world cash in trade for ISK instead of someone else.
Right now with the middlemen involved they don’t see $.
I also think Matt’s quite right, the potential of a lawsuit is something that’s ALWAYS going to be present in anything a company does. So long as the company acts responsibly when dealing with problems that arise, lawsuits shouldn’t be an issue.
about 3 years ago
Of course, if one were to take a look at this with a jaundiced or paranoid eye…
- The alliance with proven ties to corrupt CCP devs & GMs is Band of Brothers (BoB)
- BoB are currently at war with, amongst others, Goonfleet.
- The Goonfleet leadership currently have a referral program with one the of (presently legitimate) time-card resellers, which earns GF a decent amount of ISK every month.
Net result of the change: An alliance currently battling against BoB will lose part of their income, making BoB’s e-life slightly easier.
Now, this is almost certainly not the reason why…but it does make for a fun tinfoil hat theory.
about 3 years ago
My company is much smaller than CCP
Yes, it is, Matt. And I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s not possible in your games to have cataclysmic shifts in economy the way Eve does.
Seriously, I take it for granted that some companies are going to carefully work RMT into their games from the get-go without any doubletalk and it’s not going to hurt anything. But incidents like the above remind me that company goodwill is a potential factor in the equation that no spreadsheet can manage.
On that note, I’m glad I’m not Kieron.
about 3 years ago
What the hell, my brain folded on those multiple conversions. Someone can explain me better?
BEFORE:
You can trade in-game money for subscription time. This isn’t really RMT as the “real money” can only be utilized to play the game. I mean, you could buy in-game money from IGE by giving them Game Time Codes, but what the fuck IGE would do with game bonus time? It’s a loophole, it’s not like you can sell isk to get real money and buy an hamburger. The bottom line is that the money remains into the game, it doesn’t get transfered to the real world.
AFTER:
So CCP lets you buy game time on your account by selling in-game money (works as a in-game money sink, I guess). And so? How can this be converted so that they sell in-game money for real money?
What’s the difference from before? That instead of a game time code the game time isn’t anymore transferable?
And how can this be abused?
about 3 years ago
“but what the fuck IGE would do with game bonus time?”
Sell it on ebay like everyone else?
about 3 years ago
“…I think it’s fairly hard to credit your rather extreme argument that enabling it cannot be a good thing for a games company.”
I’d cancel my sub to any game that generated loot for sale of IRL $. Period.
Argue the merits of stuffing your corporate wallet with money that otherwise would go to gibbering fucktards like IGE, but I’m still not going to buy that it’s a good thing.
If I farm ‘x’ mob for ‘y’ hours to gain cash I’m still following the normal economic rules of the system. MMO economic models that weren’t devised by lemurs can cope with this all-too-common passtime of the poopsock set. Magically conjuring game items outside the normal rules of the system completely undermines that system. I could give two shits for who has what giant codpiece of wench-lusting +5, it’s not as if I’ve ever been the #1 lootmaster of all time in any game I’ve played. Everyone following the same rules is part of what makes it, you know, a game. The rule of law pandering to people who can afford the $300 makes any enterprise far too like IRL and frankly, I get enough of that I R L. Equality and a level playing field are not impossible Utopian ideals inside the game.
Eve’s mechanics do NOT violate the economy 6 ways from Sunday. Nothing is generated that wouldn’t already exist normally. Time is time and gamecards aren’t MONEY per se, they’re time. The ISK being delivered in exchange was already farmed, legitimately, in the past.
about 3 years ago
Forward/back munged that paragraph.
My kingdom for an edit button…
about 3 years ago
In the future, CCP will introduce a billing solution replacing the current system that allows the purchase of game time from third parties for in-game ISK. In essence, it will be possible for a time and ISK-rich, but financially challenged player to purchase game time directly from CCP.
“Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!”
about 3 years ago
Abalieno, I think I can explain.
As it stands now, if I have ISK but no dollars, I can still play: I give that ISK to someone who bought a game time code that they spent money on. Net result for him is that he spent however much real money on the card to get however much ISK I paid for it, I didn’t have to pay real money to play the game. Under this system, the only way to turn ISK into cash is to sell the game time code on eBay or similar, and that carries a risk for the card buyer (they don’t know they’ll get a working code, after all).
Once they change it, I can just give ISK directly to CCP to pay for the game. The guy who bought cards to sell them, using the cards as a stepping stone to real cash into game cash? Well, he’s just up shit creek. As a side effect, the “turn ISK to cash” loophole is also closed. This assumes, of course, that paying ISK results in account time, rather than a code which is then redeemed for account time.
Hopefully that helped and didn’t just make things worse.
about 3 years ago
The main issue with your explanation MechaCrash is that you don’t make the allowance for the 3rd party vendor to adjust his prices. If CCP is selling game time ($14.95) for X million ISK there is nothing stopping Mr. 3rd party from selling an equal amount of ISK for X-1 ($13.95). A non discriminating buyer will go to the lower price if the goods are equal. People will be able to buy game time from someone other than CCP under any model that allows ingame items to be exchanged for something of RL value.
about 3 years ago
So the next time one of their programmers decides to shill out game items to his or her buddies, we can charge him with real world theft… Or just sweep it under the table like last time.
Works great, less filling.
about 3 years ago
J wrote:
Yes, it is, Matt. And I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s not possible in your games to have cataclysmic shifts in economy the way Eve does.
You’d be wrong.
A gold-duping bug causes a shift just as damaging as in Eve.
–matt
about 3 years ago
JJC, you’re not wrong, but under MechaCrash’s system CCP can declare all ISKmoney transactions to be illegal, which if of course not easy to enforce, but gives the company a few more options than they had when there was a sanctioned loophole.
about 3 years ago
Funny, and I was thinking that selling game time codes for ISK was CCP’s elegant solution to gold sellers.
about 3 years ago
“I think that’s part the whole point here, by cutting out the middle man CCP starts gaining MORE money b/c they’re now the ones getting the real world cash in trade for ISK instead of someone else.”
I don’t think so.
CCP, right now, essentially is collecting a monthly fee from people who buy timecards in isk, through the third parties that buy the time cards to trade with.
Cutting out the middle man cuts out the revenue they get, as there won’t be any reason for third parties to buy time cards anymore and the players who pay in isk aren’t going to net profit at all to CCP.
The money gotten from third parties that convert isk to cash can be done by CCP, but the rate at which money is gained would have to exceed the losses CCP would encurr by not collecting from people who buy time cards in isk. I’m willing to bet that selling isk themselves isn’t going to make up the losses from not selling time cards to third parties.
about 3 years ago
By ‘cutting out the middleman’, I assumed CCP was going to do something akin to tokenizing the GTCs and standardizing their in-game trading. As an example, you could start selling players in-game one-time use ‘Time Chips’ at a cost equal to or at a slight premium to the normal subscription rate. Make them add a month’s subscription to a player’s account on use and then let players trade them amongst themselves for ISK. You remove the risk to GTC sellers, retain the extra profit you were getting from them in the first place AND make it easier for new players wanting to participate on either side of the GTC trading fence to do so.
Changing to a system like this would make more sense to me than CCP starting to take ISK to pay for subscriptions. Unless, of course, the game has such a problem with inflation that it would behoove them to slash their monthly income to remedy it. Which I doubt.
about 3 years ago
Hermes, that would also mean that can trace all trades of GTC as they happen on the Eve servers. That makes ebay sales of them much harder to get away with, as they’d all have to be linked to a character. I think you’re right.
about 3 years ago
What’s interesting now is that we’re onto the second working day after the May Day weekend, and there’s still been nary a peep from CCP about what they’re really planning, or clarification on Kieron’s autocontradictory posts.
about 3 years ago
The reason to fear any developer selling their virtual items for cash is that they control All access points for the virtual item. There’s too much temptation to make getting the item as painful as possible to “encourage” RMT sales.
about 3 years ago
Most of these comments and Scott too have this completely wrong.
Current system:
Bob gives money to CCP for GTC. Alice gives ISK to Bob for GTC.
New system from second linked post:
Alice give ISK to CCP for GTC.
Can someone please explain how is CCP selling ISK? It’s impossible for CCP to be selling ISK if players are giving CCP ISK. CCP is buying ISK. If you followed Eve at all you’d know that CCP is trying to reduce the flow of ISK. This provides one heck of a sink.
I’m not quite sure why they’re doing it as it’s going to cost them some RL cash.
about 3 years ago
Game time = ISK. Selling one is selling the other. When you artifically create an imbalance, which will be the case, you create all sorts of problems. The market will find equilibrum and if the overseeing body tries to prevent it the black market will take over.
about 3 years ago
It’s impossible for them to be selling ISK.
1. ISK is being destroyed.
2. RL money is not involved.
Taking your statement of “Game time= ISK. Selling one is selling the other.” They’re allowing trading between the two. Where are they selling either? Where is the RL money?
This isn’t RMT. There’s no Real Money invloved. They’re going to loose money on this since the people playing for isk still generate revenue indirectly. Under the new system they are eliminating the revenue from anyone who pays with ISK.
about 3 years ago
>>>Where are they selling either? Where is the RL money?
RL money comes in when GoldFarmers start selling ISK and it becomes cheaper to buy ISK from them then to pay monthly fee.
about 3 years ago
Buying game time from CCP = $15 or ISK
Buying game time from Alice = $13.
CCP will be artificially creating a price for ISK. The black market will be setting a lower price. The price differential is value creation via savings. Money is being created. And since money can save ISK via monthly fees, they are going to create more ISK and RL money wealth for everyone but them over time.
about 3 years ago
Does the game still look like a 1998 star trek screen saver on crack? Just curious. Every 2-3 years someone convinces me to get a trial account, and I spend the next 12 hours trying absorb the GUI, at which point I may in fact figure out how to mine the newbie boulder.
How this game survives and JG withered is completely beyond me.
about 3 years ago
Yup.
The only thing that’s changed is character generation is a bit more generous. You can roll a character with as many skill points as you used to have after 2 or 3 weeks, which really does help get you out the gate. Assuming you can prevail over the PvGUI aspect of the game.
about 3 years ago
Yes you are correct CCP will be pegging the price ISK based on what they charge.
However that is significantly different than:
“This will make CCP one of the first, and definitely the largest first-party seller of in-game currency in the Western market.” [sic]
That statement is completly untrue, which is the point of my original comment.