Let’s normalize changing our minds in the face of better evidence and data, eh?
I grew up in MMOs when it was fine and sometimes even legal to buy and sold gold and accounts and characters. I sold my own accounts on Ebay when that was still allowed. I used the official Electronic Arts brokerage system (this existed!) to buy an Ultima Online account to deal myself back into the game after I sold my original accounts and missed it. This was pretty normal, and it stayed normal in some of those old games for years. And when some MMO companies started cracking down on it, it made me super mad, even if I wasn’t planning to participate. I liked the idea that we could cash out of a game! And I did not like the suspicion that the companies wanted to tarnish and then abolish RMT only so they could get a cut!
I was right about that last bit in the end, but along the way I’ve become convinced that RMT black markets are still a net negative for the games; the more lucrative (and illegal and risky) it became, the more it stopped being Trab selling his old account on Ebay or buying some gold so he could keep up a steady stream of PvP consumables… and more about bot rings, dupers, credit card thieves, account yoinkers, and overseas sweatshop farming, and it’s far harder to justify.
Which deeply held MMO belief have you totally changed your mind about?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
