@captain.teemo
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Real Money Trading: The Grim Reaper of MMORPGs
In today’s world, more and more economic opportunities are arising every single day. We often hear the saying, “Time is Gold” or “Time is Money” which reminds us that we should spend our time to the fullest and use that precious time in grabbing those opportunities such as earning money, learning new skills and honing those existing ones and many more. However, as the world around us evolve, this saying also transcended into the virtual world, especially in video games and specifically in the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).
MMORPGs are types of games where a player creates and controls a character and assumes a role in a fantasy world or a sci-fi world, usually with swords and magics. Such games allow players from all around the world (assuming that video game is available worldwide) to interact with each other real-time. Players form parties, groups and even guilds to gain friends in-game or for common reasons like leveling their characters faster, conquering dungeons, fighting monsters especially those who drop valuable loots.
These loots may include rare items such as consumables, equipment, artifacts, and others which can be traded between players or sold to Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in game. However, such feature became a way for many players to do Real Money Trading or RMT. Items of RMTs typically include services like: 1. Leeching - a method where one player fights monsters or mobs to gain experience points for another in exchange for real money. 2. Pilot services - a method where one person(the one selling the service) uses the account of his/her client(the buyer of the service) and do specific tasks like finishing quests and leveling the character in exchange for real money. 3. Account buying/selling 4. Trading of in-game items which is basically the exchange of loots, especially rare ones, for real money. What’s the issue of doing this? Looking at the situation, it may not seem harmful, isn’t it? It’s just players buying and selling items and services from one another. However, this affects the in-game economy much worse than you can imagine. The following are some of its negative effects: **1. Possibility of Inflation** Since MMORPGs have this character leveling feature, players are somewhat forced to play for a very long time for their characters to progress which is very exhausting and sometimes not worth the time especially those who have works in real life. Because of this, the use of bots (computer programs that function or play in behalf of a human being) became eminent. These in-game characters controlled by bots automatically attack monsters and even harvest or collect materials or loots dropped by those monsters without or with minimal effort exerted by a human. Because of this, legitimate players (those who play the game without bots, cheats, or hacks) are at a disadvantage since it will be harder for them to generate in-game currencies. A small amount of in-game currencies is usually one factor why the prices of in-game items dramatically rise up. **2. Creates an unfair environment** The presence of RMTs makes it unfair for those who put effort into grinding and making their characters stronger. Wealthy players will just simply buy those mentioned services, buy rare items acquired by other players and with just that, their characters will now become one of the strongest in the game with minimal effort. **3. Players will eventually lose interest and the game dies** Unfair competition and bad economy are only 2 things but are enough to make free-to-play players feel hopeless which then results to losing interest and eventually quitting the game. If such situation goes on, more players surely quit the game too and guess what happens next? Yes, the game will die **How about incorporating cryptocurrency in MMORPGs, will that be a possible solution?** Actually, I’ve been thinking about this recently and I’ve noticed that some games are really doing this kind of stuff already, let’s take for example, Mir4 and the soon to be released Labyrinth of Ragnarok, NFT version, and other MMORPG NFT games. This idea is I think possible but will somewhat change some things on how MMORPGs will be played. I’ll be trying Labyrinth of Ragnarok in the future and may as well update you guys on my experience. **My Final Thoughts:** As a gamer, it’s very sad and painful for me to see this situation of MMORPGs. I’ve played a lot of MMORPGs like Diablo, Cabal, Ran Online, Aura Kingdom and my all-time favorite, Ragnarok Online but because of RMT, those servers that I’ve played eventually died and I became a server-hopper, someone who constantly jumping servers hoping to find the one with the best possible gaming environment fit for all types of players. There are things that the Game Developers can do to address such issue however, I think it is impossible for them to permanently prevent RMTs from happening. They may implement sanctions like account banning for those who are caught doing RMTs, but players will just create another account and do those things all over again. Disclaimer: I am not promoting the games that I've mentioned, I only used them as examples to my points clearer.
7 comments
I never tried this RMT but I do see people selling their accounts. I think they should really create games where you can eatn to avoid this kinds of trading. They should also make such games accessible too.
Depending on how you view it, RMTs has its advantages and disadvantages to both the player and the game itself. Play to earn games are great too but those will definitely change how players view the game - a shift from "having-fun purpose" to "play to earn purpose"
I see your point. But I think we can play to earn and play to have fun too.
I've also played countless MMOs. There is competitiveness and to reach the higher tiers in items you have to spend an unreasonable amount of time. Some players have work or school and simply want to level and gear up easily without having to farm five hours daily and they have two options. Either buy the over-valued material or in-game gold from the in-game marketplace or buy from the gold farmers a very smaller amount. I don't judge the players that become gold farmers and make money from games. The system is difficult for them too, since the gaming companies find and ban their accounts. But I can't blame them, most are people having found a way out of the terrible wages they receive or the hyperinflation of their national currency. Trading game virtual goods for money was happening since the first MMO games appeared. The evolution would be to introduce NFTs and create marketplaces inside the games. I think there is no other way for games and 3D universes will succeed inside the Metaverse. There will be a big production one day by the gaming corporations, perhaps an MMORPG like WoW that will bring NFTs and a game-token operating in a smart contracts network, and this will be game-changing for the game industry as it will attract tens of millions of users.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this topic and thank you also for pointing out some of the reasons why people do RMTs. Honestly, I didn't thought about RMTs as an alternative way for people to earn because of terrible wages. In my mind, I thought they are just being greedy and they just want to take advantage of this feature of MMOs before the game actually dies. I've been playing Ragnarok Online for years now and from my gaming experiences, I learned that some wealthy people even had under the table deals with the admins of the game in exchange for in-game advantages. The competition became unfair, players started quitting then the server closes. Weeks or months after, another server opens and the same thing happens. This is the reason why I viewed RMT as a negative thing.
If the game is unbalanced this is up to the admins to fix it. Eventually good MMOs can succeed by allowing even f2p players finish all quests/dungeons and get all the gear required. In my opinion MMOs become unbalanced and just a money grab if they don't allow players to reach top-tier gear with just the basic subscription or even as F2P. > I learned that some wealthy people even had under the table deals with the admins of the game This will always ruin the game. There should be no shady deals if the admins care for their game, otherwise they damage it irreperably. The entertainment factor, the learning curve, and the rank-up factors should be priority, all in balance. I've found such games in the past, and the RMT was happening but wasn't destroying the game since the model of the game allowed all items and material to be found in the game. It was just a quicker process for those that didn't have enough time to spend. I see it in this way a positive for games, as people working want to have entertainment and not spend all their freetime working to farm ingredients. However, I never paid for game items. In the mmo's I played (FF XIV, Tera, TESO, WoW and more) I just paid for subscription and enjoyed the games just fine. They were balanced games with some offering F2P. Eventually many F2P players would buy a sub, but not because the games were forcing them. All of them have a vast network of gold sellers, there was some Chinese websites offering to buy gold from players for a low price and resell on the internet. And this will always happen, since companies can't stop players getting in games just for the money. Instead, they should allow this in their game, and get a small percentage of transaction fees for their marketplace. This is a win win instead of allocating resources to find those breaking the RMT rules. NFTs will change this, but not within Ethereum since fees don't allow this. Not on Polygon since the network delay is too much to handle. Maybe an internal system of a centralized marketplace that will proceed with the blockchain transactions independently to reduce the time requirements for validation. Although it should be on a cost efficient blockchain not one with $50 fees.
After thinking for some time, I agree with you on the part where game companies should just allow RMTs and just implement a system where they can earn from those transactions through fees, in that way, the game developers and the players will be benefited both. I still lack knowledge when it comes to NFTs but I'm hoping to learn more about them through your articles. Again, thank you for sharing your time and insights.