Recently I read in this article that eBay has banned auctions of items existing solely in online games. The virtual goods market, I suspect, was previously fairly healthy on eBay. People would sell online game accounts, chock full of often rapidly leveled-up characters equipped with plenty of enticing inventory. There were sales of a single uber piece of armor, or a special weapon, or a pile of sparkly and shiny jewels. A large portion of these auctions consisted of virtual currency. Sure, there are plenty of people out there that do not want to invest the time required to raise a character to its maximum level, and people that would rather spend actual money on a sure thing than hope they are lucky enough (or can raise the virtual cash) to land that amazing piece of gear, but for those that play online games, in-game currency is something everyone can always use.

As the article points out, this decision will tremendously increase the already lucrative business of IGE (I’m purposefully not giving out the URL here, for I don’t like them and wish to crush, crush, CRUSH their heads in the vein of Kids in the Hall), a company whose sole purpose is to gain in-game money (OK, and other stuff) in every server for every game where they find it profitable and then sell it to players. For real life dollars!

One might wonder why this bothers me so. After all, this mythical wonderer could point out, their business is not really hurting me or negatively affecting my personal game-playing experience. Or is it? I play EverQuest 2. Across the last nine months or so, I have noticed a marked increase in the number of unguilded, oddly named, following-around-one-guy-that-is-likely-2, 3, or 4 boxing them, uncommunicative players. Try to envision this scene:

Narrator (in an appropriate tone sprinkled with a bit of caution, a dash of phat lewt expectations, a dollop of excitement, and a general air of ominousness, which the dictionary is refusing to acknowledge as a legitimate word, to the obliviousness of the narrator): The wish-they-were intrepid group of damage dealers, a tank, and a healer so everyone does not die, battles their way tooth and nail and wing and fur to a dank, cold corridor. They have been here before, and they know just what awaits them around the next bend…

Damage Dealer 1: Aw crap dude, that Agorx guy is here again!
Healer: Alas! Mayhap we shall reason with thine evil spirit, and persuade him to let us attacketh thou really large boss named mob with potentially grand armor and/or spells this time!
Damage Dealer 2: Bah, since when has THAT tactic worked? Face it, these guys all suck, and they aren’t sharing anything.
Tank: Hrm…I see Agorx, Dogrx, Bogrx and Tgorx, but no sign of Fogrx today. Maybe they won’t be able to kill the named and we can dance on their only-here-to-farm-fake-money asses!
Danage Dealer 1: Let’s just go to the next big area in the dungeon and hope that Slrrg, Mlrrg, Blrrg and Drrg aren’t there tonight.

Narrator (changing to a despondent tone): Sadly, the group was once again denied in their attempts to battle a contested monster by those who make their living by fighting this monster (and its nearby relatives) all day long to get money to sell to hard-fighting players just like them. Better luck next time, funseekers!

This is my beef. The customers that once used eBay to buy their virtual items (and perhaps bought them from players not all that dissimilar from myself, aside from that whole selling your online stuff for money thing) will now likely turn to IGE. To keep up with the demand, IGE will in turn send out more employees to get as much virtual money as they can, as fast as they can. This is why ‘players’ like Agorx spend their time in one location, camping named mobs over and over, and making it so that legitimate players cannot do so.

Some time ago, Sony sent a survey to its EverQuest 2 player base, asking them their opinions on real-money trades (RMTs) for virtual goods. I was surprised by the number of people that hated the idea of this being regulated by Sony, and did not want to have anything to do with it. I figured it would give everyone a chance to make some money, securely, from the game they enjoy, if they so desired. Even better, I assumed it would negate the scenario I described above. I voted for all servers to participate in this bold new venture, a choice soundly in the minority. In the end, Sony decided to make a server (maybe two) where RMTs would be legal and run by them. I’ve never visited that server, so I know nothing of the economy there, or if their dungeons are a happy place where everyone takes turns fighting the big boss mobs and then high-fives are exchanged all-around, but I do know it has not stopped the negative activity on my server.

So I will wait, and hope that more players coming into my server are there just for fun and to have a good time while socializing, instead of making money. We have enough Agorxes already, thanks.

NOTE: These names, while based on the ones I have seen in game that I am sure came from some random number generator or are just named so ‘they’ can all keep track of them easily, are NOT real character names. As far as I know, anyway. No offense to anyone that may actually use these names for their character.