Online Gold Farming (in China)

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=LinusK]
I agree they own the servers. Are you saying if you sell your own character, that you created - or hell, even just give it away - that you’re committing theft?
[/QUOTE]

Yes.

You don’t own a car that you’re test driving just because you “control” it for a few minutes. Blizzard lets you play with their computer program, but only on their terms. I don’t think many reasonable people would consider it strange or wrong for Blizzard to assert that nobody outside of their company can make real life money from their game.

62

[QUOTE=LinusK]
I’m not a WoW player, but are you sure about that? I thought they made all kinds of decisions about their characters - everything from what weapons to equip to what spells to learn, to what kind of character to create in the first place.
[/QUOTE]

Making decisions is not the same as being creative. When you create a character, you choose a race (from a small finite number), a sex (obviously, finite), and a model (from a finite set of different faces, skin colors, hair styles, etc.). In fact, just last week I was running an instance in which two people in our group had IDENTICAL models… same hair style, hair color, skin color, facial hair, everything. The only difference was one was a mage and the other was a paladin.

Similarly, we make decisions about how to spend talent points and what gear to equip, but that’s hardly a creative work either, because it’s dictated by your play style, and what you’re fortunate enough to find. For instance, my main is a Priest and there’s really only two reasonable ways to play them in PvE, Disc/Holy (mostly healing and support) and Shadow (mostly damage). I assure you that any other high level, raiding priest has a build at least 80% identical to mine, if not more and I imagine that, since we probably don’t have identical luck in finding the same gear, that we at least covet the same gear. When I was Shadow specced, similiarly, I assure you that just about any other Shadow priest was built almost identical to mine and sought similar gear.

All we’re doing is exercising options. When you took multiple choice tests in school, chances are that few of the tests resulted with identical answers, but I think you’d be hard pressed to call one of those creative. All this really is is a larger set of options.

Even still, if it WERE creative, it’s against the EULA, ruins the experience, and is, if nothing else, against the spirit. An excellent example is the Dope itself. We can certainly say that the vast majority of the posts are creative efforts. Let’s even say we have a really well renowned poster, who has been here for a long time, built up a lot of respect, a huge post count, etc. While he may have creative rights to his posts, and write a story about something he posted about, he sure as hell couldn’t sell his account to some random person who wanted to walk right in here and be immediately respected.

Imagine how that would ruin your experience. All of the sudden, you see people with names you seem to remember being respectable debaters, with thousands of posts under their belts, then you try to debate with them, and they can’t even put together a coherent thought. What would be the point of the Dope if your only purpose of coming here is to discuss with intelligent people on specific topics, and all you find are people that SHOULD be, but aren’t?

63

[QUOTE=LinusK]
I agree they own the servers. Are you saying if you sell your own character, that you created - or hell, even just give it away - that you’re committing theft?
[/QUOTE]

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is theft. It would be like if I paid a company $100 to rent a fast boar per hour, then offered to tow skiiers for $500 an hour. The boat is still owned by the rental company, and they are free to revoke the boat if they don’t want me to do so, as they had a clause saying so in the rental agreement saying so.

That analogy doesn’t sound so bad, after all, I’m not directly competing with the boat company, and I am possibly adding value to the rental company’s water ski rentals, but that is where the analogy falls apart, because my water ski example doesn’t rely on exploitation. That is to say, gold farmers benefit from others in game poverty, as no one would buy gold if gold were abundant. To complete the analogy, I would have to be giving water ski rides in the good part of the lake every day during peak hours, and trying to run other boats off into the swampy part. The boat company would be justifiably pissed, because I’d be ruining the experience for all their other paying customers.

Blizzard and other MMORPG’s look at gold farmers, and ultimately decided that they were a net negative for the game as well as possibly not wanting to provide profit to others without getting a cut themselves, and decided to ban the activity, as should be their right.

As for myself, I don’t see it as a huge issue either way, but think that since Blizzard clearly has the right to police play in order to prevent players from ruining the game and driving away customers

64

Are you saying if you sell your own character… you’re committing theft?

[QUOTE=Mosier]
Yes.
[/QUOTE]

In my state, theft is defined as what happens when a person “unlawfully appropriates property with intent to deprive the owner of property.”

According to Wikipedia, in English law it’s what happens when a person “dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”

Do you know if anyone’s ever been arrested for selling his WoW character?

What property is someone who sells his character depriving Blizzard of?

Whenever you write a book, or a song, you’re also choosing among finite elements. There are only a certain number of words, and a certain number of notes. Making decisions is the same as being creative.

If you look at creating a character as taking a multiple choice test, then your attitude toward your character - that it belongs to Blizzard - makes sense. I’m still not convinced that everyone looks at it that way. But like I said, I don’t play, so maybe they do.

It sounds like you see WoW as a competition among players, and that people who buy powerful characters are cheating. I can understand that. If you paid for muscles in a muscle-building competition, that would certainly be cheating.

A message board isn’t exactly a competition the way a muscle-building competition is.

I agree. I don’t think that it’s theft, though.

65

[QUOTE=BayleDomon]
Golf, as dictated by whatever commission regulates it, can be played for pleasure or for money. An MMO such as World of Warcraft cannot be played for money, as Blizzard has instituted no cash prizes for winning tournaments. If real money exchanges hands between anyone other than a player and Blizzard in exchange for use of WOW resources[sup]1[/sup], that is against Blizzard’s rules and for all intents and purposes is illegal within the context of WOW. It’s Blizzard’s house, therefore their rules.
[/QUOTE]

I stand my my ‘It’s a bit like life’ quote from before. Granted you can’t buy golf scores (who would, you’re in charge of your score card?) but you can upgrade your equipment or have gifts of better drivers given to you to help you play better. In an open market you can by anything to help you succeed and many ventures/games. Cheating, although immoral in many peoples’ eyes (including my own) is wrong but happens everywhere, every day. Surely if Blizzard wanted to it could ban gold miners by stopping their practices via software upgrades. But this would change the nature of a very successful game and might mean losing players to other games?

The practice had a demand and supply, plus an authority who turns a blind eye, although makes ‘noises’ condoning the practice. If it was me i’d take the 'can’t beat 'em so join ‘em’ line but i’m not a gamer or passionate about gaming. And who are they cheating really? It’s more themselves than anyone else. At least you can say you worked up your resources playing by your ethics. Trying to force those ethics on others is not, IMHO, good practice in any walk of life. The nature of the game, with so many players, is why there is cheating. It happens when you’re on a single console playing with someone sitting next to you who distracts you at a vital moment. Taken to it’s logical conclusion the only way to rid cheating and have everybody playing by the same rules it to play a one-player game.

66

[QUOTE=JustinC]
I stand my my ‘It’s a bit like life’ quote from before. Granted you can’t buy golf scores (who would, you’re in charge of your score card?) but you can upgrade your equipment or have gifts of better drivers given to you to help you play better. In an open market you can by anything to help you succeed and many ventures/games. Cheating, although immoral in many peoples’ eyes (including my own) is wrong but happens everywhere, every day. Surely if Blizzard wanted to it could ban gold miners by stopping their practices via software upgrades. But this would change the nature of a very successful game and might mean losing players to other games?
[/QUOTE]

Every game has rules. When you sign up for WoW, you agree to the rules of the game. When you sell or buy gold, you’re breaking the game’s explicit rules: you’re cheating. When you create an analogy that involves a game, the analogy should have that “cheating” component.

Yes, the gold farmers are trying to make a living, and yes, they certainly deserve a living. They’re doing it by knowingly cheating at a game. The people who buy from them are increasing their fun by knowingly cheating at a game.

That, I think, is the core issue: what they’re doing is against the rules they agreed to.

Daniel

67

Defining that “anybody who plays from the wrong time zone is cheating” would be absurd for several reasons:

  • people who play in a “wrong language” server in order to learn/practice that server’s language;
  • people who got their accounts while they were living in a part of the world and then moved;
  • people who travel all over for business;
  • people who want to play in their native language and this language’s servers are in another part of the world (the frFR servers have a second shift comprised of the insomniac and the Quebecois).

I got WoW as a present from my brothers when I got an overseas job. The copy I had was european, so I was playing in Euro servers… from Costa Rica. But getting an American copy in an european store wasn’t possible!

Now that you don’t even need the physical DVDs (you can download the game directly), if I was learning Japanese and wanted to use WoW for practice same as I used it for my french… I’d just have to go to the Japanese web, download a copy and create a new Asia-based account. And there’s nothing illegal about using a MMORPG to practice language skills!

68

[QUOTE=LinusK]
Whenever you write a book, or a song, you’re also choosing among finite elements. There are only a certain number of words, and a certain number of notes.
[/QUOTE]
Words and notes are not owned by anyone, though. Again, the assets you use when creating a character on a Blizzard server (character model, hair color, facial characteristics, class attributes, skills/talents, items) are all owned by Blizzard. The abstract concept of Uthgar the Orc, who is dumb as an ox but twice as strong and wields a giant ax, is your intellectual property. The virtual representation that uses Blizzard’s Orc model, black hair color, face #O-32, class Warrior, with 3 talent points in Improved Rend and 2 talent points in Improved Charge, wielding Bloody Waraxe (database #46538)…that’s made using Blizzard’s art, 3D models, and specific game design. You’re renting all that, and as such don’t have the legal standing to sell it yourself.

Numbers have been made up to protect the innocent

69

[QUOTE=BayleDomon]
Words and notes are not owned by anyone, though. Again, the assets you use when creating a character on a Blizzard server (character model, hair color, facial characteristics, class attributes, skills/talents, items) are all owned by Blizzard. The abstract concept of Uthgar the Orc, who is dumb as an ox but twice as strong and wields a giant ax, is your intellectual property. The virtual representation that uses Blizzard’s Orc model, black hair color, face #O-32, class Warrior, with 3 talent points in Improved Rend and 2 talent points in Improved Charge, wielding Bloody Waraxe (database #46538)…that’s made using Blizzard’s art, 3D models, and specific game design. You’re renting all that, and as such don’t have the legal standing to sell it yourself.

Numbers have been made up to protect the innocent
[/QUOTE]

Thank you, I realized I missed two key point of the argument, this being one of them. The other that, while there are a finite number of words (though magnitudes larger than the number of options on a character model) and a finite number of notes, there’s an infinite number of ways to combine them, to produce a work. That is, while there’s a finite number of options for each decision, there’s an infinite number of decisions.

This is NOT true with the game, there are a small finite number of options to a small finite number of decisions. Unlike like a creative work that would require the million monkeys approach to achieve a particular permutation; a model permutation in WoW could be obtained in a very small bounded time with little effort.

70

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]

Yes, the gold farmers are trying to make a living, and yes, they certainly deserve a living. They’re doing it by knowingly cheating at a game. The people who buy from them are increasing their fun by knowingly cheating at a game.

That, I think, is the core issue: what they’re doing is against the rules they agreed to.

Daniel
[/QUOTE]

If you define ‘cheating’ as gaining an advantage in the game by breaking the rules, only the buyers are cheating. The sellers are not gaining an advantage. They’re giving one up.

Chinese farmers might be making the game less fun for other players. They may by breaking Blizzard’s rules. But they’re not cheating, and they’re not stealing.

I was under the impression that players put a lot of time and a lot of effort into creating, maintaining, and tweaking their characters. Maybe I’m thinking of another game, though.

The number of books or songs that can be created from a finite number of words or notes is also finite.

Well, not yet, anyway. If there was a way to do it, though, some corporation would. (Some corporations already claim to own some words.)

So it’s sort of like leasing an apartment, decorating it, and then leasing it out for more than you paid for it?

71

[QUOTE=LinusK]
They may by breaking Blizzard’s rules. But they’re not cheating
[/quote]
Let’s play Spot The Contradiction!

(Yes, you defined cheating as breaking the rules to gain an advantage, but they are gaining an advantage by earning money. Besides, breaking the rules is breaking the rules.)

That, or selling it. It’s just not yours to rent or sell, even if the apartment owner allows you to express your creative self by painting the walls and decorating it however you choose.

72

[QUOTE=LinusK]
If you define ‘cheating’ as gaining an advantage in the game by breaking the rules, only the buyers are cheating. The sellers are not gaining an advantage. They’re giving one up.
[/quote]

Sure, but that’s not the definition. The definition of cheating is intentionally breaking the rules, period.

Another comparison: boxers who intentionally throw a match in order to gain kickbacks from bookies are cheats that ruin the game for everyone, even though they’re giving up an advantage in-game for an out-of-game advantage.

I agree that they’re not stealing, but they’re certainly cheating. They’re also committing contract fraud, inasmuch as they agree to terms of use that they intend to break for financial gain at the expense of the contract party.

Limited only by the eventual heat-death of the universe. You can always add another sentence to a book or measure to a song; in theory, there is no limit. WoW characters have a very clear limit: once you have the biggest bags in the game, there’s a very finite number of things you can fill the bags with.

Daniel

Well, not yet, anyway. If there was a way to do it, though, some corporation would. (Some corporations already claim to own some words.)

So it’s sort of like leasing an apartment, decorating it, and then leasing it out for more than you paid for it?
[/QUOTE]

73

[QUOTE=LinusK]
If you define ‘cheating’ as gaining an advantage in the game by breaking the rules, only the buyers are cheating. The sellers are not gaining an advantage. They’re giving one up.
[/quote]

By that definition, a boxer who is bribed to throw a fight isn’t cheating, either. Which is why that’s a pretty poor definition of cheating.

Totally incorrect. For one thing, there is no “finite number” of words in any given language, nor are there a finite number of meanings attached to any one word within a given language. For another, there is not a preset limit to the number of words one can employ when writing a book.

Such as?

74

[QUOTE=Miller]
By that definition, a boxer who is bribed to throw a fight isn’t cheating, either. Which is why that’s a pretty poor definition of cheating.

Totally incorrect. For one thing, there is no “finite number” of words in any given language, nor are there a finite number of meanings attached to any one word within a given language. For another, there is not a preset limit to the number of words one can employ when writing a book.
[/QUOTE]

:smiley: I beat you to the points, but your post isn’t all sloppyass like mine.

Daniel

75

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
Your point is demonstratably false. Because there are millions of legitimate players playing on Chinese servers.
[/QUOTE]

Your second sentence does not falsify my position.

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
WoW is the most sucessful game in China ever by a Western Developer by a huge margin, and somehow you’re falsely induction that because Blizzard is cracking down on Gold Farmers, many of which are Chinese, they are somehow jeopardizing their potential future marketshare.
[/QUOTE]

Had to put the “Western” in to make that work, right? Because in reality, no western developer has done more than crack a sliver off the ledge on the outcropping of the iceberg of a market so vast it will eventually make the North American look like an ant on a rhino’s ass. Blizzard’s longterm place in that future market is more than in jeopardy; it’s pure speculation at this point. Single digit millions of Chinese is not a success. It’s not even an impressive failure. It’s a fart in a hurricane. On Jupiter. In the red spot.

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
Letting Chinese people farm for gold does not help their penetration of the Asian market.
[/QUOTE]

Ok, and I say it does. So now we’re done, because short of two people doing an objective study on competing western mmogs in the emerging Chinese market, there won’t be an answer. But putting myself in the role of MMO developer: I think when tens of thousands of people in a market ripe for my product want to buy and use my product, pay their own bills by using my product, and probably spend their own time at least mentioning my product, it’s a good thing. It’s a great thing. It’s an awesome thing happening to Team Awesome. It’s a thing many companies spend alot of money on trying to make happen even partially, and here it is, happening to me, for free. It’s an army of guerilla marketers, and they are paying me.

The only counter-argument I’m hearing is that hey, it hurts that product. But be honest: it’s not like you’re going to actually cancel your account over it, are you? MMO players canceling subscriptions over Chinese gold farmers is about as likely as junkies kicking heroin because they don’t want to subsidize Afghan terrorism. You might cancel for other reasons, but if gold farming was a deal breaker for the average MMO player, we’d know by now. And if it was a deal breaker for you, you’d have quit already.

But the truth is that players complain about it, and then just go on playing and paying. This thread proves that if it proves nothing else. If the survival of gold farmers harms the MMO market, the effect is negligible compared to the potential long term strategic gain offered by allowing the farmers to think they’re getting away with something. It’s negligible because few if any of you will actually stop playing my MMO because of it. My profits don’t change. Shit, I’d bet a week’s salary that the gold farmers outnumber the Westerners who have actually quit over gold farming, so just on bottomline alone it’s a sound business decision to let some or most of them continue to exist.

And if I’m really lucky? The disgruntled players won’t even realize I stand to gain something, and will stick up for me when someone points it out. Imagine that.

76

Grossbottom, I think you make an unwarranted assumption. Namely, you seem to assume that if masses of players aren’t quitting the game solely over their disgust with goldfarmers, it’s not a financial issue for Blizzard.

The truth is, people quit the game all the time, and it’s often for a confluence of factors, not just for one. Sometimes people may not even realize that goldfarming is what’s making them quit. For example, if the farming is changing the prices of items at the Auction House, making one of the things they like to do in the game more difficult, they may lose interest in the game and quit.

If goldfarming weren’t an issue, Blizzard wouldn’t be launching a class action lawsuit against the farmers.

And I second a call for you to make your posts with a little less of teh funny: the jokes are making it difficult to figure out what point you’re trying to make.

Daniel

77

A concept that should be introduced to this: Griefing. Griefing is an online crime similar to being a jerk, or disturbing the peace. It is what happens when one player causes other players’ game to be negatively impacted, on purpose. (PvP is not griefing: losing in PvP is part of the game. However, exploiting geometry bugs, ie, being in a location where you can shoot other players but they are unable to shoot you, is.) Gold farmers grief, generally, by leading monsters to other regions, or camping out and essentially strip-mining a location, rendering it useless to all other players.

Griefing is considered a bad thing, and accounts can be cancelled for it.

78

Grossbottom, if you’re reading Blizzard’s motivations correctly, they’ve got to be just about the biggest pack of morons to sit in a board room since they laid off the people who invented New Coke.

You’re right, the people in this thread who play WoW aren’t going to stop playing because of gold farmers. You know why? Because Blizzard takes active measures to curb gold farming to as great an extent as possible, without breaking essential game elements for legitimate customers. If they didn’t do that, then yes, legitimate players would leave the game, because unrestricted gold farming would make the game unplayable for casual gamers. And when there aren’t legitimate players to sell gold to, the gold farmers will also leave the game, because they aren’t playing it for fun. And then the entire WoW franchise goes down the drain, and Blizzard doesn’t make any money off it anymore. Yes, they have to allow a certain amount of gold farming, because the steps necessary to institute a total ban would be just as oppressive to normal players as unrestricted gold farming would be. And I doubt Blizzard is losing any sleep over the money they’re making off farmers from the thousands of accounts they must constantly create in order to ply their trade. But to suggest that Blizzard wants there to be gold farmers on their servers is absurd. Almost as absurd as suggesting that wage slaves grinding for loot to resell represent a significant or desireable penetration into the Chinese market.

79

They should all rot in hell,

Sincerely,
The Alexander community of FFXI.

80

[QUOTE=Miller]
Grossbottom, if you’re reading Blizzard’s motivations correctly, they’ve got to be just about the biggest pack of morons to sit in a board room since they laid off the people who invented New Coke.
[/QUOTE]

But reading the motivation isn’t hard. Blizzard has the money and the power to make the farmers go away. The farmers are still there. Ergo, Blizzard either a) does not want them to go away, or b) does not want them to go away enough. Looking for a more complicated explanation than this is not warranted. It’s just a simple qui bono.

So people think I’m crazy on the PR angle, Blizzard doesn’t benefit, that’s fine. But from my perspective, those are the same people arguing that a for-profit is throwing money away so they can lose big money in the long run. Someone actually said selling accounts to gold farmers was bad for the product. It’s like the government telling an arms dealer that his machine gun gets a bad rap when he sells it to the other side. What’s the dealer gonna care as long as the government still has his check waiting? He won’t.

But I have a problem with motivation analysis. Sheeeeeeit. Okay.

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
And I second a call for you to make your posts with a little less of teh funny: the jokes are making it difficult to figure out what point you’re trying to make.
[/QUOTE]

Then maybe you should skip over them. I’m truly not trying to be rude, but this is pretty much just how I write with a cursory eyeball for spelling and a consideration edit for anything too offensive for SDMB standards. If my posts are confusing, I admit there’s not much I’m willing to do about that since I spend too much time posting here as it is. Sorry for that.