Aug 08 2008
Serious Academic Analysis of RMT
A major research paper has just been released that is making a log of noise in the online gaming/virtual world blogosphere. Richard Heeks of University of Manchester has done extensive on just about every aspect of gold farming that is popular in current MMOs.
This paper reviews what we know so far about gold farming, seeking to provide the first systematic analysis of the sub-sector. It assembles available data at the sectoral, enterprise and worker level. Five main analytical lenses are then applied. Economic analysis shows how exchange rate variations and scale economies do and do not impact gold farming; and the strong influence of information failure in the purchase of virtual items: known as “real-money trading”. Analysis from the perspective of industrial sociology charts the commoditisation and globalisation of the sub-sector, while value chain models identify resource dependencies and power inequities. Enterprise analysis investigates enterprise entry, existence and progression, and outlines the competitive forces shaping the sub-sector’s development; particularly threats. Developmental analysis investigates the impact of this sub-sector in macro and micro terms. Finally, there is a sociological analysis of the role played by perceptions and other social forces.
He conservatively estimated annual worldwide RMT sales at around $1 billion US. Considering the fact that most forum, blog, and discussion posts (from players) evince a negative attitude towards RMT, who is buying all that gold? I think there is a great deal of “protesting too much” across the internet regarding this issue.
A billion?!?
Is it any wonder there are so many illegal operations farming gold and developing hacks for get gold?
I know this is kind of old, but the only problem with RMTs being run by the gaming company themselves is that then you will likely see a combining of the Pay-to-Play system and the Free-to-Play but Pay-for-Items system that is very popular in Asia at the moment. All sellable epic gear could be bought so there would be even more social stratification than there is already between players- except right now people are divided into “people that have tons of time to play” and “peopel that don’t” but then it would become “people that have money to blow on epic gear” and “people that don’t”. I seriously think that it would reduce the value of in-game currency by a LOT. Developers might see a reason then to raise prices on things like mounts and abilities to counteract the addition of un-gained gold into the economy. Yes, it’s being fed into the economy already, but so much more of it would be in the system if it were a socially accepted norm. Now it may never come to that because of the “You bought your gear with real money? What a Jerk ” fact. There’s even the idea that people would stop playing since any kid with a loaded parent could purchase far better gear (and even character levels?) in 5 minutes than someone would have to work 20 hours to earn.
I don’t know how many countless people would have simply purchased their epic flying mounts in WoW with real money since the in-game expense is exceptionally steep. Holiday gifts to people could even come in the form of in-game money to buy the mount and now i’m having visions of the virtual world merging with the real world in the lives of susceptable children everywhere!
Goldfarming stirs strong emotions, says Mr. Heeks.
He is quite right, and I will read his paper again tomorrow.
I belong to the hardcore faction that is strongly against RMT. Though I admit, I would rather see the game companies sell the money and players buying it legally than gold farmers making the cash.
But as I believe in an utopian perfect world MMO, that would make RMT totally useless, I will leave it at that for now.
JediOfTheShire is quite right, as soon as you allow people to buy what they could alternatively earn through ingame playing/time spent ingame, things will get VERY ugly. Envy and hatemongering towards the noob who has too much money at hand are guaranteed.
I am discussing something similar with Saylah the Mislead and Tesh the Fallen at the moment, by the way…^^