Reality of RMT

[Asriah]

I see threads pop up from time to time complaining about bots or unusual prices on the markets. I like that there is a loud voice against RMT but I personally don't think there is any way of stopping it.

I'm thinking I could give some people an idea of what exactly goes on and why it is so extremely difficult to stop.


First of all, I have RMT'd in the past, both legit and by third party.

By legit I mean by publishers that let you buy into the market through their own systems (Perfect World Entertainment, SOE etc).

By third party, back in middle/high school I sold ladder-only Runewords on Diablo 2 to certain vendors. One of which (I will not mention) gave me a platinum membership for my services which actually used to be worth something (except I understood it as a way for them to make some of their money back so it has been collecting dust for 7 years).

The truth is, the RMT market is too big to stop. I can't really fault SE here because it isn't like any publisher can reliably put a stop to it. At one point the US Government tried to pass a law allowing them to tax WOW gold sold online because of the amount of money that was leaving the country. I haven't looked into it in years but I remember at one point WOW gold was worth more than the Mexican Peso.

Some of you might think "Well, it can't be impossible to design a system that goes after gold farmers" and this is actually true. But it isn't the farmers that keep the RMT going... It's the buyers.

SE can brag about closing 4000 accounts at a time, but right after you see a train of 20 bots "asidgaisheraser" floating around right? This is because the amount of money they are making heavily outweighs how much they are spending to register new accounts. Not to mention the money they make from phishing player accounts(and using those accounts to farm more) and key gen'ing product keys (can you imagine buying FFXIV and finding the key already banned?).

Now the websites themselves advertising game currencies for real money vary rarely do any of the farming themselves. These sites are ran by people who you can consider the "middle man". The business of farming currency is open to anyone who then uses these websites to split profit on what is sold. This right here happens to be my biggest issue with the whole system. The truth is, people who buy game currency from these websites are enabling a business that uses children and other unacceptable measures, all working in abysmal conditions, while only paying them cents a day. Considering how much money is left over it makes you wonder where it all goes?

These "Middle man" websites are literally a front for who knows what really? Buyers could be funding drugs or even arms dealing.

It also isn't just China like most would think. These kinds of places are run all over the world. They find English speakers who try to build a report with players in games sometimes too to try to get them into it, adding them on Skype or MSN and giving them updates.

An example of one such person who approached me
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...t/Aion0154.jpg

Ultimately my point is that the only people that can put a stop to RMT are the people buying into it. There are too many of them, and sadly they don't care. Most will give the excuse that they work too much or don't have time to farm what they need to support their "gaming" but we all know that's crap. Personally even on limited time I find farming for myself to be a part of the game. It is part of the fun. If I had the gold handed to me I'd be desensitized to any accomplishment.

Disclaimer: The money I earned selling ladder-only Runewords on D2 went towards PC hardware upgrades... and maybe a few happy meals