Quote Originally Posted by Gilraen View Post
The Japanese players hate RMT even more than we do and, quite frankly, avoided buying gil from the start. Period. They don't care if it could give them a leg-up on other players because that's not how Japanese players think.
Positive stereotyping is still stereotyping. Japanese people are still people, and that means that some of them are better players than others, some of them are less patient than others, some of them are less honest than others. There are Japanese gilbuyers, I guarantee it. They aren't some pack of hive-mind aliens with perfect societal harmony. They are human beings, just like you and me. When you read Japanese literature or watch Japanese television shows or movies, the characters and their motivations are all quite relateable to people outside of their culture. Japanese people don't think as differently from people from other cultures as some folks like to insist. They have plenty of jerks, glory hounds, and trolls to go around, just as other cultures do.

I don't know whether it's actually true that JP servers have less RMT spam than other servers, or whether it's a "grass is greener" thing and people only percieve it to be so, but even if it IS true, I don't think the reasons for it have anything to do with the stereotype of Japanese putting group before self. In fact, even if you buy into the whole "group before self" thing, that's all the more reason to buy gil - if you're failing to properly support your group, it's your obligation to shell out extra money to fix yourself up; not for your own personal glory, but for the good of the group.

There's a tendency among players to idealize Japanese players. It's not healthy, and it's also not accurate.