Blizzard is bringing real-money auctions to Diablo III

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Wow (no pun intended), interesting point, sir. I guess that's why we keep you around

I'm sure others have thought of it before

I certainly wouldn't put it past the suits….

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Can we read from players eager of buying items and tons of, so that gamers who are willing to make money from playing the game can make their dream come true?

I was thinking about this and it occurs to me that buying through microtransactions is one of those things that I think few people will readily admit to, though obviously there are many people doing it. I read a statistic the other day that iPhone/iPad apps make more money through microtansactions than in direct sales of that app and that's obviously the case for the Facebook games because they don't charge to play them. Zynga is a multi-million dollar corporation that everyone, including EA, is scrambling to emulate and all of their games are 'free', so yeah, people are making these microtransactions.

As far as talking about it? Well, among gamers it tends to be looked down upon because in some cases it's basically sanctioned cheating while in others it amounts to little more than frivolous vanity items that serve no real purpose beyond showing off. It's also doubtful that many non-gamers would understand the concept of paying real money for virtual currency and/or virtual items.

It seems that most microtransaction partakers are in closet so to speak. While I've seen many a person brag about earning real money in a game, I don't think you will see very many people bragging about spending real money in a game.

Originally Posted by dteowner
It would be a year or two down the road before our hypothetical "gaming for profit" folks got that first unpleasant call from the IRS. They would, of course, plead ignorance and point the finger at Blizzard, which would get them exactly nowhere except pissed since the EULA would undoubtedly be written to keep Blizzard as clean as possible. Blizzard would shut down the auction house (quietly keeping 2 years of profits, mind you) due to "unforseen legal complications" and some handfuls of gamers would have to deal with tax evasion problems on their own.

Oh great, now I'm looking forward to the EULA more than the game! Do you think they will let me have a copy early if I pre-order?

Originally Posted by dteowner
I don't doubt for a second that they've had their legal team digging into it. My thought is that the corporate response (which would be supported by existing tax and contract law) is that all those "pesky tax problems" would belong to the gamers. Not sure how well that stance would hold up internationally, but the extra complexity can't help. You Euros have been known to throw out contract law in the name of "protecting the public" so I wouldn't say Blizzard would be ironclad on an international front even when they're all lawyer'd up.

It would be a year or two down the road before our hypothetical "gaming for profit" folks got that first unpleasant call from the IRS. They would, of course, plead ignorance and point the finger at Blizzard, which would get them exactly nowhere except pissed since the EULA would undoubtedly be written to keep Blizzard as clean as possible. Blizzard would shut down the auction house (quietly keeping 2 years of profits, mind you) due to "unforseen legal complications" and some handfuls of gamers would have to deal with tax evasion problems on their own.

Even if Blizzard comes out legally pristine, they're going to have a PR nightmare to deal with. Blizzard's lawyers aren't paid to worry about PR; all they care about is the contract law. Just seems to me like a huge gamble against the public's goodwill for what very well might be chump change (or could be a gold mine, I suppose, but that just shifts the odds of the gamble).

This scenario reads very funny. Blizzard probably aims at money making players buying back their copies first and all to increase their sales volumes. How much money one could be made out of this Diablo scheme is something to be followed.

The idea of the IRS (or any taxation authority) giving a ring to people about tax evasion is really funny, especially in these times when governments are chasing for revenues sources.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
They can dance around pretending that this is something else - but I can't see it as anything but a less random kind of legalised gambling.

Well, maybe I can quit my job and sustain myself on playing Diablo 3?

At least for a decade or so…

Hmm….

When EverQuest first came out, my roommate became completely addicted to it. To the point that his girlfriend dumped him, he'd stay up all night playing, then fall asleep at work, etc. Eventually, he heard about someone selling his account for something liek $5k on eBay. He quit his job, took all of his money out of his 401k (retirement funds) to live on and set about doing the same. Not sure if he ever succeeded as I threw him our a few months later when he realized he had not paid rent for two months (and our landlord somehow did not notice). Guy ended up moving to San Francisco to live with two people he met in the game…. and had never even spoke to outside the game. No idea what ended up happening to him.

Originally Posted by blatantninja
When EverQuest first came out, my roommate became completely addicted to it. To the point that his girlfriend dumped him, he'd stay up all night playing, then fall asleep at work, etc. Eventually, he heard about someone selling his account for something liek $5k on eBay. He quit his job, took all of his money out of his 401k (retirement funds) to live on and set about doing the same. Not sure if he ever succeeded as I threw him our a few months later when he realized he had not paid rent for two months (and our landlord somehow did not notice). Guy ended up moving to San Francisco to live with two people he met in the game…. and had never even spoke to outside the game. No idea what ended up happening to him.

Yeah, that's pretty much what my concern is based on.

I tend to think of these things as very long-term stuff.

Diablo 3 is not the first game to play around with RMT for the in-game economy, but it has the potential to be one of the most popular - and a total industry-changer.

The concept of actually making a living playing a game might seem incredibly far-fetched to a lot of people, but I'm not at all convinced it's all that futuristic.

What will ultimately be the consequence of money changing hands in a fantasy universe with nothing real being produced or consumed? I'm not sure.

But it really does have the potential to change things at a much more profound level than I think even Blizzard have considered.

Money is, very sadly, what makes a lot of the world go round. If fantasy gets mixed up with reality in this way - then what happened with WoW (and to the people getting addicted) could be very minor compared to D3 and beyond.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
What will ultimately be the consequence of money changing hands in a fantasy universe with nothing real being produced or consumed? I'm not sure.

If we're going to get philosophical here, is there really much difference between this and Wall Street? The financial sector doesn't actually produce or consume anything, and it could be said (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that those folks move their monopoly money around in a place only moderately connected to the real world. Those people are spending/moving millions on arbitrary pieces of paper that generally only exist on a bank server.

Originally Posted by dteowner
If we're going to get philosophical here, is there really much difference between this and Wall Street? The financial sector doesn't actually produce or consume anything, and it could be said (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that those folks move their monopoly money around in a place only moderately connected to the real world. Those people are spending/moving millions on arbitrary pieces of paper that generally only exist on a bank server.

While I largely agree that they don't always produce or consume anything of particular value, they do tend to invest in something that's supposed to represent very real commodities or companies. People have jobs and means of survival based on these semi-fantasy dealings.

With 100% fantasy items - I'm not sure reality as we know it could be sustained.

That said, I'm not exactly a financial genius - and I find it very hard to predict what would happen if this kind of thing really took off.

I wouldn't say I'm "scared" - and I actually find the prospect somewhat intriguing. But I do think there's enough here to warrant us taking a real interest - and not just shrugging it off as something that won't mean anything that matters.

I doubt that the majority of investors, both large and small, actually pay much attention to the "guts" of the stocks they're trading. Just as a +4 Longsword of Elemental Bane has a market-driven perceived value which is subject to various stimuli that can be analyzed and predicted to some extent (prices will go up if there's a new quest full of elementals that everyone wants to play), shares in Bob's Bug-B-Gone are evaluated without the traders knowing a thing about Bob or bugs. It's not like the investors actually care what Bob does or how Bob intends to run his business.

It's all about the stock price being higher tomorrow than today. Sure, savvy investors can look at predicted insect counts in the Tri-State Area and get a feel for whether Bob is positioned to make a profit, but ultimately stock price is only partially linked to performance and only barely linked to company health anyway. Note how easy it is for the CEOs to manipulate stock prices, often to the detriment of the company. There's a kernel of reality at the core of Wall Street, but the real movement of money is no less fantasy/perception-based than Diablo. For instance, GM stock should have gone to zero decades before Obama took it over. Why didn't it?

Originally Posted by dteowner
I doubt that the majority of investors, both large and small, actually pay much attention to the "guts" of the stocks they're trading. Just as a +4 Longsword of Elemental Bane has a market-driven perceived value which is subject to various stimuli that can be analyzed and predicted to some extent (prices will go up if there's a new quest full of elementals that everyone wants to play), shares in Bob's Bug-B-Gone are evaluated without the traders knowing a thing about Bob or bugs. It's not like the investors actually care what Bob does or how Bob intends to run his business.

Why do you talk about them not caring as if that was the only potential issue?

It's all about the stock price being higher tomorrow than today. Sure, savvy investors can look at predicted insect counts in the Tri-State Area and get a feel for whether Bob is positioned to make a profit, but ultimately stock price is only partially linked to performance and only barely linked to company health anyway. Note how easy it is for the CEOs to manipulate stock prices, often to the detriment of the company. There's a kernel of reality at the core of Wall Street, but the real movement of money is no less fantasy/perception-based than Diablo. For instance, GM stock should have gone to zero decades before Obama took it over. Why didn't it?

I'm not talking about the actual movement of money being less real - but what the money represents. There's NOTHING being traded - it's all fantasy. I don't think the fact that money is just a symbol of value and not actual value is the relevant or new thing about the D3 auction house. It's that the symbol is no longer used in place of anything tangible or real.

I just find it interesting.

I don't give a shit if Wall street suits invest in what they're actually doing - because I'm far away from having faith in humanity in that particular way. I'm talking about the difference between trading something real and then something that's absolutely unreal.

Also, I don't think you're necessarily right about everyone not caring - but it's really not the point.

However, this fantasy/reality mix-up is not necessarily a negative. It's just something I don't think we're particularly prepared for. I'm just bringing it up - because I think being prepared in your mind is a good thing for potential D3 players.

I'm doing a poor job of communicating the point. It's kind of an esoteric tangent we're playing with and you and I tend to operate in different frameworks anyway. Let me give it one more shot, because I do find the thought interesting and I'm more receptive to some navel-gazing than usual.

I believe you're saying that an economy based on something that doesn't exist is a novel concept. In particular, I'm focusing on this statement:
"What will ultimately be the consequence of money changing hands in a fantasy universe with nothing real being produced or consumed? I'm not sure."
My point is that, fundamentally, Wall Street is already doing that. Much of my rambling was preemptory responses to potential arguments about whether the parallel holds for "fantasy universe" and "nothing real", which probably just confused things more than helping.

Originally Posted by dteowner
I'm doing a poor job of communicating the point. It's kind of an esoteric tangent we're playing with and you and I tend to operate in different frameworks anyway. Let me give it one more shot, because I do find the thought interesting and I'm more receptive to some navel-gazing than usual.

As opposed as you generally are to "navel-gazing" - it's pretty amazing how much thought you actually put into things before you resign to your "upbringing" or whatever it is in your life that takes you away from what you share with the rest of humanity

I believe you're saying that an economy based on something that doesn't exist is a novel concept. In particular, I'm focusing on this statement:
"What will ultimately be the consequence of money changing hands in a fantasy universe with nothing real being produced or consumed? I'm not sure."
My point is that, fundamentally, Wall Street is already doing that. Much of my rambling was preemptory responses to potential arguments about whether the parallel holds for "fantasy universe" and "nothing real", which probably just confused things more than helping.

I'm sorry if I articulated that poorly. I think the concept and its implications haven't quite dawned on me - and I'm not sure I can accurately communicate EXACTLY why I think this is an important issue, and why I think what Diablo 3 may (or may not) come to mean to the industry - or even the world - is interesting.

I just have this "thing" inside me, telling me that this is the first significant step (that I, personally, recognise) towards a future where things will be quite different than what we've been used to.

I guess that sounds a bit crazy or stupid? Yeah, maybe.

But there's something about this whole RMT auction house thing that won't let me go. If I ever get my head around what it is, exactly, I'll be back to rephrase.

I don't feel strongly against this or for it. I DO think that it would be incredibly stupid to pay money for in game items at an auction house (there's a sucker born every minute), but I also know that irrational compulsive addictive disorders can make smart people do dumb things.

Originally Posted by dteowner
My point is that, fundamentally, Wall Street is already doing that.

I agree.

Even although I don't like it at all,
I must say (kind of admit ) that the current money streams around the world (and what Wall Street does, basically) is actually kind of "virtual money", too.

And - according to an article I once read - this all began with un-connecting the actual money value from the gold reserves of the U.S. (under Reagan, the article said) - and then elsewhere, too.

Noooo. Stock markets go back at least 200 years. We can thank Holland for them.

It wasn't Reagan that took us off the gold standard, either. That happened under Nixon.

Okay, I see. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
According to The Guardian (I think it was there where it appeared), wow gold farms are partly "driven" by corrupt prison heads, who force the inhabitants there to go out farming for gold.

I thought those things were bots. But I guess they have lost their minds.