Ieranii
05-05-2005, 03:54 PM
Editor's Note: The following letter was written on April 22, 2005, by a gamer to her EQ2 guildmates and other friends after the Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announcement of the Exchange Servers facilitating in-game sales of in-game items for real life cash.
503Dear friends,
I will be leaving EQ2 as soon as I get the bank items transferred and after I cook up my food and give it away. I've been thinking about this since SOE announced the Exchange server decision. I will try and explain my thinking. If you don't agree or just don't understand that's ok. I'm not looking to be convinced only explaining why I've made this decision.
There use to be only one thing that granted an advantage in this game and that was time. In June with the launch of the exchange servers there will be two: time and real life money.
It has always seemed to me the whole game is about the journey and achieving things in-game through an investment of time in-game, community support (sharing info with each other), a bit of effort and a lot of patience. For someone to completely circumvent that process by buying things with real cash feels like cheating to me and for SOE to support this feels like a betrayal.
I've heard all the rationalizations. "I earned it by working my job 80 hrs a week" (that seems like such a cop out, they just want it NOW without having to wait and work toward it slowly, they want an 'easy' game), "I don't have time to play but I want to play with my level 40 friends" (hello mentoring?). I was even asked whether changing the rules stopped it from being cheating.
I thought about that one for a while and what I decided is that while it may no longer be breaking the rules it is still circumventing the process that this game was built around. It is an advantage outside of the parameters of the game itself and so to me it still feels very wrong.
502They say it's about giving their customers options. Maybe so but why does any company try and make customers happy? They are attempting to increase the customer base of course. And that's what this is, an attempt to further expand their market. The problem is the entire gaming industry is watching and that has a lot to do with why I'm leaving. They are blazing a new trail and I worry where the industry standard is going to end up after this. Ebay tactics use to be taboo for MMORPGs, but not anymore.
If this is successful (meaning they add exchange servers without having to merge any others = expanded customer base), then every other MMO after will include exchange rules in their games. Even if the developers are against it, the economists and executives will dictate that it must be included. After all it's a business and every cash cow must be milked. Since I feel so strongly that it is cheating, I would not be happy with any of those kinds of games.
If this is successful in a small way (the exchange servers are populated but they lose a chunk of their other customers and end up having to merge servers), then at least the gaming industry will see that, even though there is a market for the ebay mentality, there is also a group of gamers who refuse to participate in a game that promotes this type of instant gratification, easy-way-out tactics.
That's why I'm leaving. Even though they "say" they won't bring it to the other servers, I still believe it will affect me in the long term. I am worried not only about the impact on our server but on gaming as a whole. I don't want the next generation of games to be Ebay-centered. There's no fun in that for me and so I am leaving as a personal statement.
I'm only one account, Phylon’s [Ed. note: the writer's husband] is another and in the grand scheme of things we aren't a lot, but it's our statement to SOE and the gaming community that this was a really bad move. That maybe there is a market for the instant easy way out gamer but they aren't all that's out there and the rest of us want something a bit more challenging. If I were to stay I would be saying that I don't care and that's just not true.
My personal opinion is that this is going to hurt this game in the long term but the bottom line is that a game I really enjoyed has become something less and a company I trusted let me down. Every time I log in and that SOE logo flashes across the screen all I think is "SOEbay" and I feel sad and a wee bit angry and not at all like playing so I’m saying goodbye.
See you in the next game as long as it doesn't go exchange!
Ranii (aka Ieranii)
27 healer/34 provisioner
Officer of MoM (Munchkins of Mayhem)
501
UPDATE FROM IERANII: This is a summary of the goodbye message I posted on my EQ2 guild forums. I made it public because my circle of friends was not limited by a guild tag and so it was goodbye to non-guild friends as well. Many of the folks I said goodbye to in-game stay in touch through emails and IMs. Many of them have feelings about the exchange that are similar to mine; some of them have quit already; some of them are waiting until the exchange goes live; some will wait until a new game comes along. Every person I talked to about the exchange felt that it was a mistake and felt that their stay in Norrath was going to be shorter because of it. Only time will tell.
503Dear friends,
I will be leaving EQ2 as soon as I get the bank items transferred and after I cook up my food and give it away. I've been thinking about this since SOE announced the Exchange server decision. I will try and explain my thinking. If you don't agree or just don't understand that's ok. I'm not looking to be convinced only explaining why I've made this decision.
There use to be only one thing that granted an advantage in this game and that was time. In June with the launch of the exchange servers there will be two: time and real life money.
It has always seemed to me the whole game is about the journey and achieving things in-game through an investment of time in-game, community support (sharing info with each other), a bit of effort and a lot of patience. For someone to completely circumvent that process by buying things with real cash feels like cheating to me and for SOE to support this feels like a betrayal.
I've heard all the rationalizations. "I earned it by working my job 80 hrs a week" (that seems like such a cop out, they just want it NOW without having to wait and work toward it slowly, they want an 'easy' game), "I don't have time to play but I want to play with my level 40 friends" (hello mentoring?). I was even asked whether changing the rules stopped it from being cheating.
I thought about that one for a while and what I decided is that while it may no longer be breaking the rules it is still circumventing the process that this game was built around. It is an advantage outside of the parameters of the game itself and so to me it still feels very wrong.
502They say it's about giving their customers options. Maybe so but why does any company try and make customers happy? They are attempting to increase the customer base of course. And that's what this is, an attempt to further expand their market. The problem is the entire gaming industry is watching and that has a lot to do with why I'm leaving. They are blazing a new trail and I worry where the industry standard is going to end up after this. Ebay tactics use to be taboo for MMORPGs, but not anymore.
If this is successful (meaning they add exchange servers without having to merge any others = expanded customer base), then every other MMO after will include exchange rules in their games. Even if the developers are against it, the economists and executives will dictate that it must be included. After all it's a business and every cash cow must be milked. Since I feel so strongly that it is cheating, I would not be happy with any of those kinds of games.
If this is successful in a small way (the exchange servers are populated but they lose a chunk of their other customers and end up having to merge servers), then at least the gaming industry will see that, even though there is a market for the ebay mentality, there is also a group of gamers who refuse to participate in a game that promotes this type of instant gratification, easy-way-out tactics.
That's why I'm leaving. Even though they "say" they won't bring it to the other servers, I still believe it will affect me in the long term. I am worried not only about the impact on our server but on gaming as a whole. I don't want the next generation of games to be Ebay-centered. There's no fun in that for me and so I am leaving as a personal statement.
I'm only one account, Phylon’s [Ed. note: the writer's husband] is another and in the grand scheme of things we aren't a lot, but it's our statement to SOE and the gaming community that this was a really bad move. That maybe there is a market for the instant easy way out gamer but they aren't all that's out there and the rest of us want something a bit more challenging. If I were to stay I would be saying that I don't care and that's just not true.
My personal opinion is that this is going to hurt this game in the long term but the bottom line is that a game I really enjoyed has become something less and a company I trusted let me down. Every time I log in and that SOE logo flashes across the screen all I think is "SOEbay" and I feel sad and a wee bit angry and not at all like playing so I’m saying goodbye.
See you in the next game as long as it doesn't go exchange!
Ranii (aka Ieranii)
27 healer/34 provisioner
Officer of MoM (Munchkins of Mayhem)
501
UPDATE FROM IERANII: This is a summary of the goodbye message I posted on my EQ2 guild forums. I made it public because my circle of friends was not limited by a guild tag and so it was goodbye to non-guild friends as well. Many of the folks I said goodbye to in-game stay in touch through emails and IMs. Many of them have feelings about the exchange that are similar to mine; some of them have quit already; some of them are waiting until the exchange goes live; some will wait until a new game comes along. Every person I talked to about the exchange felt that it was a mistake and felt that their stay in Norrath was going to be shorter because of it. Only time will tell.