Originally Posted by Maxxius

So from my understanding, for a full year SOE made abut 1/4 million dollars off the exchange. Had you added only 1,000 more subscribers for the year you would have made about the same.

It seems to me you would make more money working on the quality of the products you are involved in rather than trying to whore off secondary pixel sales. You will never generate the money companies like IGE do for several reasons. First IGE pretty much "sweatshops" and second, the "blackmarket" will always undercut the "official" market.

Originally Posted by Creediki

Nope, no response to conflict-of-interest.

I predict if this goes further that there will be the following phrase uttered at a dev meeting,

"Well, we could fix the difficulty of x, but then it's pretty cheap to buy online. Let's fix y instead".

Originally Posted by Badass

First off, I would like to congratulate you on having the foresight to experiment with the future recognition of player rights in virtual property. Im curious Mr. Smedley if this service was a way to prepare SOE for the very likely possibility that virtual game players will be deemed to have some measure of rights in virtual property they "create". I think in some measure it is, and I salute you, for once again proving that you are ahead of the curve. (despite what some might say )

A couple points and questions on this:
1. The possibilities are limitless for game developers who realize that allowing their players to own and trade in game virtual property are limitless. It is the future.

2. Did you consider the potentially negative effects these RMT servers would have on any future legal battles regarding players virtual property rights? (ie SOE has all but recognized they exist and that such rights are valuable) I have not read the contracts or EULA's for that server, but as I have argued in other posts on this board, they are meaningless if they fail to recognize the virtual property rights of the player. They might as well be ripped, torn and burned for multiple reasons which I wont explain because I get paid to do that, but im sure SOE is aware.

3. It appears that one of your main arguments against some form of widespread recognition of player virtual rights is that a game must be designed with such capability from the start. I think that very well may be valid, but for different reasons than you stated in the interview. I think game developers should be held to bear some responsability for the stability of a virtual world, a world where its players share in the ownership of the virtual property. It can work.

Originally Posted by whaerf

In my professional opinion as a guy on the intra-nets, from the opinions we see when polls are taken about RMT, they could argue there was more risk in continuing (pretending?) to fight it than opening SE.

I'll always look for games where time/skill are the only "allowable" tools for progression, but it seems like a lot of people are in the "I have a life so I'll just buy gold and everyone's happy" camp.

I'll grant one thing, it didn't seem like much revenue for the effort/publicity that went into it.

Originally Posted by Shodai

From the release...



Unless I am reading something wrong, SoE had 9 thousand people participate during the time period in question. If we are to assume that EQ2 has 150k subscriptions, we can hypothesize that around 6% of your fan base has a general interest in these activities. Now, the 94% who are not interested have all been subjugated to what many will consider "an ill-conceived money-grab" that is apparent to anyone with half of a brain. This is very likely to decrease customer loyalty. Furthermore, by offering this service you break the illusion/escapism effect these games offer and expose it as a vapid time-waste. This realization leads to customers losing interest and dropping out of your subscription base. John, have you ever been playing a game and decided to use cheat codes, only to find out later that by cheapening your game experience you lost interest faster? The same applies for people who buy gold.

In my professional opinion as an MBA, you succeeded in generating a tiny revenue stream while creating a risk that has far reaching effects across your player bases' & potential future user psyches. You were already on tenuous ground with many of the PR/design blunders of Everquest, the extremely poor launch and game design of EQ2 1.0, and Sony's waning popular opinion across all of its business segments. A good amount of those people who stuck with EQ2 after WoW's launch were your die-hard fans--the people who spread popular support and word of mouth. The moment you disenfranchised your hardcore base (by showing your greed at the expense of virtue) you opened yourself to a world of risk. However, since the risk is long-term and not necessarily quantifiable or observable short-term, I am assuming the plan went ahead due to the common desire for short term revenue generation with no thought for long-term ramifications.

While I would love to flesh out this reply I just don't have time. However, I would like to propose that, instead of trying to capitalize on the black market, you sit your VP's down and find legitimate ways to create new revenue streams that do not have far reaching, negative implications upon SoE's dignity & popular opinion. Long-term you are only going to hurt your companies reputation and push your hardcore (and vocal) fan base away...many who may deplore these shady practices. Short-term money grabs are company killers.

Originally Posted by Trebla

I very seriously doubt Mr. Smedley is looking for anything other than "Great job, way to take the market away from IGE." But I doubt you'll get a solid majority that will say that (though I've been wrong before).



Quite possibly because of people like me who cancelled their accounts as soon as it was announced as a solid plan. It's not that I disagree that taking business from IGE is bad, but sanctioning it is essentially sending the message to the player base that if it's ok on one server, it's ok on all of them. So why go to a SExchange server when currency is cheaper through third parties on normal servers?

It's not like the impact on the game hasn't been discussed to death. You know you're compromising the actual game play experience by doing this. It's the pot argument, some people smoke it, some don't... but just because it's illegal. The instant you legitimize it it becomes more widespread. I doubt there are reliable numbers available from third party sites, but I'd love to see how sales on non-Exchange servers changed when the service was launched.

Anyway, I've said my piece. I know many disagree and I may even be in a pretty small minority, but that's how I feel. Design a game from the ground up with currency exchange in mind and it's a different story (I believe SoE announced one), suddenly allow it in a game where resource availability is now removed from designed gameplay mechanics and it's just trouble.

Originally Posted by Samflam

I wonder how tempted you are to open up this service for all servers. Maybe not in this game, but in future SOE games you must be considering it. There's too much money to be made.
The pragmatic side of me realizes secondary sales go on regardless of the company's stance, but the idealist in me finds it sad to see a company embracing it.
In my opinion it's only a matter of time before most developers decide to go this route. It's just sad to see it happen.

Originally Posted by Daelos

Nino, Vanguard Players has auto screenshots of my private tells online. Would have been nice to have known about it

Originally Posted by The Bog

This thread has become a cripple fight of epic proportions. Trust me, I like funny retarded drama, but it's just got to a point where it's "PLEASE TO BE HATIGN VANGORD" "NO U R SO WROGN MANG" "~QUOTE~"