We all know that RMT (Real Money Transactions) have taken off in various online games. That also brought in a few problems, such as “gold farming” and “black market” trading. Now someone has come up with a possible solution.
Mitch Davis, currently at Brash Entertainment, has formed a new company called Live Gamer. Its purpose is to provide a safe trading platform for virtual items. In any MMOG whose publisher signs up for the service. Among the companies that have already endorsed the program is Sony Online Entertainment, a name not unknown to many ;)
The main thing is that trading will be done in a controlled environment, with rules set by each publisher on how much and what kind of trading can be done. That’s to keep games balanced and people honest. Heh.
I don’t know how well that will work out. Much depends on how many publishers come on board. And how many players would prefer that controlled environment to “free trade” with no restrictions.
However, it is nice to see someone taking a positive approach to the matter, rather than the usual heavy-handed response from corporate when they don’t have “total control”.
Anyway, check out the article on Gamasutra and see what you think.
not sure i can support that. Turbin went to a more secure/safe mode for folks that helped a lot. sure you can still be cheated if you not observant but for the most part it ended 90%, or more, of the trade theifs.
lately some of the mmorgs have gone to places like EBuy and said the folks selling said items don’t “OWN” then so please stop listing the sales. In my opinion not so much to stop trading but to stop the pharming and cheating to get some stuff and then sell for a un-reported proceeds. Then you have the whole korea/vietnam sweat shop issues where they aren’t so much as playing the game as they are working the system to get objects to then sell - occurred a lot more prior to ebuy’s (yeah i know it’s ebay) ban on selling online virtual game items.
**off topic**
Just wanted to stop by and say Merry Xmas to Scorpia and everyone else.
Tyger
I understand they already turned down requests from companies like Lucifer Inc., Diablo Duo, Satan Forever, and Scorpia Unlimited to list for some reason.
Been nice knowing you all, because I just saw one of the signs of the Apocalypse…the Duke Nukem Forever teaser trailer is going to be released tomorrow.
http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29639
Xian, heh. I saw that. Let’s see, it took them 10(?) years to produce the trailer? So maybe it will only take - hmmm - five more for the game? Or perhaps they thought this was April instead of December? ;)
Tyg, nice of you to drop by. Happy Holidays to you and yours, too!
Ag, yeah, I posted some time back about eBay killing off all the VRE auctions. Many just went elsewhere, of course.
Nice that it worked for Turbine. I’m just wondering if that will hold up across a variety of MMOGs.
Duke Nukem Forever will suck if that teaser is any indication. How dare they ruin such fond memories of multi play and pole dancing.