The Ethics of Optional Item Sales

[GenJoe]

4. Here's where your argument starts to falter: what are the majority of characters that do the DoL gathering classes? RMT bots. There's plenty of legit players (including myself) that use the DoL classes to get a starting capital to level their crafting classes. However there's a reason why RMT bots abuse mining: shards and crafting materials. You can make 120k-300k with anywhere between 2-4 hours of nonstop gathering as a level 1 miner if you know where to go. That's how the bot portion of RMT does it.

So yes, while players do see the benefit of more profits coming in from even gathering classes, so does the RMT bots. They all get as much of a gil increase as the rest of us do, and in less time. Their stocks of gil rises, which allows them to be far more flexible with their prices than you think.

5. There is no "restart" when this actually happens. Everything inflates in price because suddenly more people have more money to throw around, and again "I want it and I want it now" leads to a vast majority of buyers to purchase whatever they please at any price. Those higher prices become the norm. And eventually, your dream of gil changing hands more freely grinds to a halt once more because players coming into the game starting at zero gil suddenly don't have the money to get in on the same marketboard games.

Let me make myself clear here,
The whole idea of money changing hands, everyone starting from scratch, that's just an ideal, I don't think it'll ever happen no matter what change is made to the system (for one thing, people simply value in-game money differently and some are just not interested in it at all). I just would like even an illusion of its mere possibility. Because I hate sitting on my current stockpile of gil, it's making me lose interest and I hate even more how there's simply nothing to do with it.. I've given away and spent about 50m gil in the past month or so since I stopped actively trying to make gil, bought 2 houses for friends, made some donations to server events etc.. crashed a couple markets for shits and giggles.. But there's really nothing else I can do with it.

your point #4. I understand there will be inflation, BUT in most other MMOs, bots rely on green gold farming strategies. In FF14, green gil farming is very tedious and inefficient, also very limited compared to other games.. So I believe that the inflation will be in check by those measures. It'll be a near zero sum game, not exactly zero sum, but the amount of new gil introduced into the pool will be a smaller proportion every day and eventually may even settle at a stable number once enough gil sinks have been implemented. By that point, gil cannot inflate anymore.

As for your point #5. Well, like I said, I'd like to see that happening, but I don't see it being feasible, I'd just like to know that there's something I could do with my gil other than just giving it away..


Do you believe that gathered mat prices will inflate so much that its relative value will remain similar to what it is right now?
For example, right now, I think you can gather about 1.5m gil worth of shards a day if you go at it all day long. In $ that would be about $5. Let's just say that a botter makes $5 a day. (In reality, it's probably a bit more, but for simplicity's sake)

i.e. Do you think, if what I described was implemented, adjusting for inflation of gil and the drop in its exchange rate, a simple gathering bot would still make $5 a day? I don't think it will, gathering in general will become a less profitable venture in terms of relative wealth. I think it'll drop at least half, maybe even more.. Below the point of profitability = RMT company moves on to something easier.


P.S. Sound argument by the way, I agree with most of what you're saying.. I simply predict things to move slightly further on the spectrum and that would be enough for many RMTs to move on.

The only way your system would work is if Mog Station itself had both a pay by cash or a pay by gil option, so that people could directly purchase the item through SE themselves. no middle man at all, not even us the players.

I'd also be very interested in how that would play out.. I think that WOULD eliminate RMT almost completely. RMT simply will not be able to compete in the market against SE who can just print out items for zero cost.. Depending on how they would determine the gil <-> $ ratio, and if it'll be a constantly variable exchange rate, I would be behind the idea..



P.P.S. I think I'm hi-jacking the thread into an anti RMT thread and I apologize, but I think a well implemented cash shop could really combat RMT well. Not that anti-RMT measures would be the main purpose of a cash shop, of course not.. My opinion on cash shops is, I don't need it, I don't want it (the items), if others want it, then so be it.
Thus, if it can be used to solve another problem, albeit a work around, I'm all for it.