I Say Stuff Elsewhere About Stuff

Posted on April 12, 2007 by Scott Jennings| 16 Comments

Specifically on the Escapist news feed: Everything is for Sale: SOE hires IGE exec

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  • http://forge.ironrealms.com Matt Mihaly

    David’s been working for SOE since last June 2006, I think. Not sure why this got announced now.

    –matt

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  • http://overmoderated.blogspot.com/ GreyPawn

    The article reads much like you might actually be in favor of Prohibition as an effective means of curtailing crime, Scott.

    Is it the responsibility of the designer to solve the problems presented by RMT before they emerge in their game, or is it domain of a vigilant subscriber base to abstain?

  • scottj

    As I’ve said often, publically, my opinion is that the prevalence of RMT in a game indicates a game design failure. If people are paying money to avoid part of a game, that’s a sure sign of a design flaw.

    That does not absolve the people who indulge in the act of providing the vice. It merely points at a possible avenue to repairing the damage.

  • http://hgamer.blogspot.com Heartless_

    My thoughts are here ( http://hgamer.blogspot.com/2007/04/soe-hires-ige.html ) and here ( http://hgamer.blogspot.com/2007/04/soe-hires-ige-part-ii.html ). Not that my opinion counts…

    Anyways… as always Lum pretty much sums everything up very nicely. You know a problem is big when Lum doesn’t even have to spell it out for the average interweb reader.

    Maybe SOE is taking PR lessons from the PS3 office?

  • TheeNickster

    SOE has made it quite clear that they will do nothing to stem the tide of RMT. In fact, they will probably go for more pointless grind so they can sell more “levels” on their next version of Station Exchange.

    Oh yes, there will be a new version of Station Exchange, one in which SOE sales items directly to the sheep-er-customers!

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  • aozora

    Thanks for saying it often and publicly Scott, and especially for saying very, very well.

  • naladini

    Is this any different than MMO (or even IT Security) companies hiring hackers to come in and work with their products? Hiring and learning from “the enemy” is a longstanding tradition in business.

  • No.6

    Good point, nal.

    The practice (RMT) exists; the law doesn’t stop it; bannings are as ineffectual as busting a drug dealer on the corner; and nobody is willing to risk what might happen to the whole industry if they put concepts about game-item and -character ownership in the courts where precedent will be set.

    That’s all very well and fine from a business perspective.

    However, as a gamer, I don’t give a rat’s 6 about the business model. What is known is that in every title the RMTers drastically impact the gaming experience.

    I’d like to say eventually it’ll reach a breaking point and gamers will desert the industry, but I don’t think so. The social stigma of ‘buying plat’ is just about gone and in many cases there’s a stigma for NOT buying-in to advance fast enough.

  • Jobrill

    The problem, Naladini, is that there does not seem to be any indication whatsoever that this man was hired to help combat Gold farmers.

  • http://weblog.probablynot.com Jason

    He most certainly will combat Gold farmers… by making everything for sale from the get go! Take that farmers! You can’t farm anything because its only sold in the Station Exchange store!!

  • http://razorwire.warcry.com Razor

    “David’s been working for SOE since last June 2006, I think. Not sure why this got announced now.”

    I’m not sure why this got announced at all. At least the kids who broke into Garriott’s house were stupid on accident.

    And since I’m not as cool as Amber with the link magic, here’s my 2 cents:

    http://razorwire.warcry.com/news/view/70579-SOE-hires-some-guy-from-IGE-and-generates-internet-rage

  • tazelbain

    The only people I know who defeated RMT is Puzzle Pirates Microtransactions. Basically it eliminates the market inefficiency that farmers rely on. Farmers are forced into directly competing with every other Farmer *and* every player with tons of free time. The PwToFT’s time is effectively free and can always undercut the Farmer who has costs.

  • http://www.corpnews.com Andrew Crystall

    tazelbain, you don’t need to “defeat” it, you need to make it largely uneconomical. Take Eve online. Within a month of legitimising GTC for ISK sales, the ebay value of ISK on Ebay had fallen by a factor of fifteen, and the big sellers had dumped their stock and largely pulled out.

  • Aufero

    Not terribly surprising, really.

    From the point of view of a company hoping to take the RMT market back in-house, hiring an expert in developing that kind of business makes all kinds of sense.

    The fact that this action comes from a company that banned thousands of accounts for engaging in RMT and lectured hundreds of thousands of people about the immorality and illegality of RMT in general and IGE’s business in particular shouldn’t come as a shock. SOE management has demonstrated repeatedly that it cares less about integrity than about whether it can pry another dollar out of the customer’s pocket this quarter. Given that they’re owned by Sony, they’d probably be fired if they had any other attitude.