As long as they are the one farming the gold.
Continue reading “Fractured Online Embraces Legal Real Money Trading”
Tag: Real money trading
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Jagex Introduces Microtransactions In RuneScape
When Jagex introduced the Squeal of Fortune, they did so with the premise that the mini-game was balanced. Powerful and expensive rewards were relegated to untradeable and extraordinarily rare chances, and each player was only offered one spin per day (two for members). Today, however, Jagex has reversed years of outspoken anti-real money trading policies by introducing an update allowing players to purchase extra spins.
Spins can be bought in packages of 10, 20 (with 5 bonus spins), and 40 (with 35 bonus spins) for $5, $10, and $20 respectively. Jagex has denied that this constitutes paying for an advantage as players are not buying a specific item. The company has also denied that this constitutes gambling as there is no chance of “loss,” as players will always win something, even if it is a cheap 50 coin payout.
The gambling issue, however, stands to be a very important one. This update puts Squeal of Fortune in a similar bracket with lotto bags that many free to play games offer, and depending on if anyone decides to bring question, may constitute gambling and be subject to varying restrictions, laws, and even bans depending on the country.
Regardless of any potential and currently unknown legal implications, this move is sure to draw fire from the community, thanks in part to Jagex’s extreme stance over the past decade against any form of extra payment in return for advantages, and the justifications from developers (see above) as to how this does not violate the core principles is not being received well.
Hopefully more to come as this story develops.
Real Money Trading In Korea: In Plain English
In violation of my court order to only use the gold image a maximum of twice on the front page, many MMOers are probably aware of South Korea ruling that real money trading, the conversion of digital cash to real cash, is now legal. Your gold pieces, kinah, plats, gil, influence, adena, credits, ISK, whatever you call that cash in your pocket, may be traded for real life cash. There appears, as most news stories have this effect, to be a fervor among MMOers (players and developers alike) as to what this means for their favorite titles. Will City of Heroes be encumbered by Koreans? Will Aion become even more saturated with this gold farming menace? Won’t somebody please think of the children?
As always, when there is a legal question to be asked, MMO Fallout’s “In Plain English” is here to explain it to you. To put it down in plain lettering, what this law does is turn the businesses into legitimate operations, that will pay taxes and refer to themselves in a way that would actually describe what they do.
What the law does not do is make gold farming legal, nor will it prevent companies from banning gold farmers. Swearing is legal, but it can still get you banned if you do it in an MMO. Although this bill does run up the possibility of there being a lot more gold farming companies to deal with, now that the scope is no longer limited to shady businessmen running a small building full of gold farmers off the books, and is more along the lines of a legitimate (questionably) business.
In all likelihood, the increased presence of bots and gold farmers will be minimal, unless you’re moderating the MMO Fallout comments and have to deal with “Hey, great website. I agree with all the things you said here and, by the way, I no this guy who powerlevels fishing. You shud try out his service, very cheep.” on a daily basis, or have to deal with magical pingbacks that don’t lead to a valid website (I do check the links in people’s comments before I approve them).
Happy MMOing.
MMO Fallout 