Housing exposes a fundamental flaw in institutionalized ethics.

[Vidu]

Are you implying that ethics stop existing because it's a video game? When we're talking about how one person's actions affect another--that involves ethics. It's not like it's a video game in a vacuum.

My guess would be that talking about ethics when it comes to virtual houses feels a bit blown out of proportion... I've taken a few ethic classes at uni and would have gotten really weird looks if I'd wanted to discuss this. Not because my prof wouldnt have understood video games but because "...are you sure this is an issue you want to discuss in an ethics-class?"

Correct me if I'm wrong but your stance seem to be that no one should own more than one house, regardless of circumstances. You're basically asking people to be holier than holy. (I'm excluding houseflippers.)
You seem to forget yourself that this a video game. A place people come to, to (partially) escape real life for a bit. Not a place to ask yourself "Is it morally wrong if I buy this open plot that no one else seems to want because I enjoy decoarting?"
Are you assuming that people owning multiple houses doing this with the ill intend of withholding them from other people (again: houseflippers excluded)?
I dont believe any of those people have those ill intends - and I dont require them to be saints either, what you seem to do.
First come, first serve - no need to get all high and mighty and ethical over a bunch of virtual houses.
Because the only logical conclusion I can draw here is that, ethically speaking, personal housing should have never been a thing and it should have been FC-only all the way.
It isnt - and now everyone has theoretically speaking the same chance to purchase a house. And if someone goes through the trouble of leveling up multiple characters and earning the gil, they're very much entitled to buy a second house as far as I'm concerned. Because they've earned it. And if someone else didnt went through all that trouble, checked for open plots etc. they didnt earn it. Simple as that.

Everyone has an equal chance here - but equal chance doesnt mean equal results.

[JackHatchet]

My guess would be that talking about ethics when it comes to virtual houses feels a bit blown out of proportion... I've taken a few ethic classes at uni and would have gotten really weird looks if I'd wanted to discuss this. Not because my prof wouldnt have understood video games but because "...are you sure this is an issue you want to discuss in an ethics-class?"

One of the beauty points about philosophy is that it's suppose to be the pursuit of ALL knowledge. Not just the ones with higher priority. I would find it awkward for any philosophy class to actively discourage a legitimate discussion simply based on the strangeness of it. Some of the most fun discussions are the weird ones. Spices it up after you've talked about self-driving cars for the better part of 5 years.

[StouterTaru]

(I'm excluding houseflippers.)

I honestly don't understand the hatred of the house flippers.

• They buy a plot, then sell it off, so they're not hogging up the resource.
• Twice as much gil gets dumped out of the economy.
• Someone that really wants a house ends up with it, and has an opportunity to earn it other than winning the login lottery.
• The flipper won the login lottery, and gets a reward for it.

FYI: No, I haven't flipped or bought a flipped house

[JackHatchet]

I honestly don't understand the hatred of the house flippers.

Scalpers in general get a bad rap, because they circumvent the intentions of the seller in order to get personal greed.

Say for example, you want to give back to the community. So you whip up 10,000 glamour prisms, and you decide to list them all for 100gil each. Dirt cheap, but you want to help everyone out. Do a nice thing. Well, someone can swoop in, scalp up all of your product, and then jack up the price. They undermine your act of kindness out of personal greed.

If Square-Enix wanted to charge more for houses they would--but they want people to afford them. So scalpers undermine SE's intention, for greed. That's why it's bannable.

[StouterTaru]

Scalpers in general get a bad rap, because they circumvent the intentions of the seller in order to get personal greed.

Ticket scalping is legal here, as is buying the latest limited edition gaming system/iPhone/whatever and putting it up on EBay. I don't have any issues with it, and certainly don't assign ethics or morals to capitalistic reassignment of limited luxury items.

[AriesMouse]

I don't have any issues with it, and certainly don't assign ethics or morals to capitalistic reassignment of limited luxury items.

Since your icon/selected character is a lalafell, I read this in Lolorito's voice, and it was perfect.
Thank you for that.


On subject to the OP; I think people playing the game the way they want to play it, within the boundaries of the rules is perfectly fine, and not something that should have so much weight put on it. This turns into something of a slippery slope. You say house hoarders should feel bad, because they have something other's don't. That turns into "people with personal houses should feel bad because FCs are homeless", from there it's "X person isn't using their house enough, when someone else that is homeless would use that house more!" and so on. Edit:Personally, I'm on the side of own all the houses you want, so long as you actually do something with them. The amount of houses that sit unused, only visited because the owner got the auto-demo e-mail is sad, and honestly a bigger problem than people owning 2 houses, which are constantly used and cared for.

Edit: Also adding: There is a reason to have more than one home, and for more than just decorating and RP: Gardening. It's not even a matter of having access to the garden, but the amount of access. Someone in a small house will never have the gardening power of someone in a med or a large. Owning a second house on an alt, another small, helps to balance that out a little.

There are also social things with it as well. Some people buy houses for friends because they either: A)Couldn't make it to the plot in time, so their friend secured it for them. B)Might need to take long breaks from the game do to work/school, but would really love to enjoy all the perks of a house, so their more active friend keeps the home owner title, as they can stay consistently active, while the person that actually wants the house does everything with the house while marked as a roommate(basically co-owner in this setup. Something I think they should put in the game.)

Last edit, I swear: Housing shouldn't be a war between the haves and the have-nots. It should be the players demanding better from SE, who made this system in the first place. They intentionally made housing finite, because they wanted it to be special, and look at the mess that has made. They brought this sickness into the community, not the people that bought a second or third house while their server sat with many houses unbought at the lowest possible price.