[THEORETICAL] Reverse cash shop?

[tocsin]

Woo, post limit extended!

So, first I want to than everyone for having such constructive opinions. I expected a lot less.

I updated the OP with some of the major facts of such a thing, to keep the conversation relevant. I believe that a lot of this comes down to the question of "is tradeoff to win the same or as bad as pay to win?"

Personally, I cant see tradeoff to win as being such a bad thing. I find a bigger win to be getting out of paying 12 dollars a month in real life, rather than winning by having a couple mil worth in cool stuff. if you see it this way, this makes not paying to win a thing, which makes pay to lose in a way.

any opinions on this?

[Aussir]

So, you're talking about the same we can do in RIFT or Tera (or a lot of other games out there).

I'll just say this:

Person in town: Need MELD
Other person in town: Sure thing! Give me 3 <sub item from cash shop>

I've left more than one game over this type of crap happening. If this is allowed the economy WILL swap from gil to cash shop (aka, from gil to real money) and the economy will go belly up because it will be based on the perceived value of the cash shop items. Be careful of what you wish for.

[Aylis]

Also, people saying this would remove RMT are simply wrong and I say so with experience. Rift and Wildstar are both examples of games that allow you to do this and both are still full of RMT and bots.

hm, funny cos I've played Wildstar since launch up to now and granted yes the first month was bad on RMT but now and even far before the mega server merge for the life of me I can't remember the last time I ran into a BOT or seen an RMT spam mail, whisper or shout. What server were you on?

[xxAtticusxx]

So, you're talking about the same we can do in RIFT or Tera (or a lot of other games out there).

I'll just say this:

Person in town: Need MELD
Other person in town: Sure thing! Give me 3 <sub item from cash shop>

I've left more than one game over this type of crap happening. If this is allowed the economy WILL swap from gil to cash shop (aka, from gil to real money) and the economy will go belly up because it will be based on the perceived value of the cash shop items. Be careful of what you wish for.

It depends on how the system is implemented. If there is free trade allowed with the items, then yes, this will eventually creep up in the game. However, if the items were restricted to market board sales and purchases only, then it only has a gil-value, and no trade-value.

[Moqi]

If buying a sub with gil bought from RMT were cheaper than paying the sub with real money wouldn't this encourage RMT?

[Nimras]

I would be worried about such a thing playing havoc with the economy since the other end of that deal is nothing but an official way of buying gil.

[tocsin]

If buying a sub with gil bought from RMT were cheaper than paying the sub with real money wouldn't this encourage RMT?

only if people are willing to say that they risk getting banned for using the non legal rmt, vs isung the legal rmt from SE. also, since the market determines the price of a 30 day sub, the RMT price would have to be low enough to encourage use by people that it would not be feasibly profitable to do so. the margins would become too thin.

[Jandor]

I'd support this idea. I wouldn't mind the cash shop to much if it was like Eves New Eden store, i.e everything in it is tradeable in-game.

Cash shop vanity for trade has some pro's.

People with more money than Gil can just buy them.
People with more money than Gil who specifically want Gil can buy them to sell.
People with more Gil than money can acquire them in game.

SE still gets the same amount of money as every cash shop item in game still had to be bought.
Everything created in the future patches is available in game.
Less gil sellers as people don't need them anymore.
Helps gil circulate through the economy a bit more.