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.
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.