Let's talk about: RMT!

[Lyniaer]

I thought I would do a little Q&A on what RMT is and why it exists in it's current state.
(I am so most likely going to get banned for this.)
[Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only. I do not condone nor encourage anyone to partake in any RMT practices. I am not an RMT; this is all mostly educated guessing.]


What is RMT?
RMT stands for Real Money Trade. You can spend your hard-earned real life currency on currency found within the game. Some RMT companies also do Power Leveling, spawn-camping and item-farming using your account.

How do they do it?
RMT has many strategies used in order to function, but we'll talk about those in further detail later. For now, let's look at the steps they use to get started:
1. A Task Force. The RMT has to employ anywhere from a handful to dozens of people.
2. Game Access. The RMT will either exploit the short amount of Free Access time granted to new accounts or, once they are profitable, pay for actual access to the game. If a game is F2P, this attracts RMT in droves.
3. A Plan. All RMT must institute a reproductive way to make money quickly in the game.

What strategies does an RMT need to employ?
Spamming
RMT often use Spamming, either in zone chat or direct private messaging, to advertise their services. (The reason for this is unknown as some of the most profitable RMT specialists do not employ these efforts.)
Bots
RMT also use Automation Software or "BOTs" to perform repetitive tasks that are simple, small currency earners but take a considerable amount of time and focus. Bots are not a %100 guaranteed trademark of an RMT. Some players that are either particularly lazy or unable to dedicate an amount of time required for certain Time Sink devices (see FISHING) often use Bots.
Market Manipulation
RMT must keep themselves aware of current market trends. They actually do have to play the game to understand and keep aware of what players are going to need in order to progress throughout the game. Using their Bots or small army of employees, the RMT will then usurp all methods of obtaining that item fairly. They then monopolize those items (and the materials needed to make them if it's a crafting item) and set a High Price trend that other players selling those same items will ignorantly follow. This includes buying out other players who list them for cheaper and relist them at their own price.
Some smaller methods of market manipulation are simply filling 'Void Items' or items that are in small supply on the market and listing them at an inflated price. Often this leads to an overabundance of the item as other players try to share in that same profit all at once and cause the item to completely lose its value.
Avoid Detection
RMT have to be fully aware of the current practices a game developer is taking against them. This can be anywhere from using F4k3 W0r|)s to bypass spam-tracking software using keyword filters to analyzing average income and taking action against those with/trading/earning large quantities of currency.

Why is RMT bad?
Everything listed above causes some form of harm to an MMO and it's player base.
Spamming is annoying, disruptive and often can cripple certain forms of communication. It can even lead to a periodic collapse of the chat server, forcing the host to restart it.
An advanced Bot can manipulate the game to such an extent that it provides near super-human qualities to the character. This leads to features like; inhuman reaction time, teleportation, item manipulation or 'douping' (a hack or exploit that can create multiples of an item or currency) and 'glitching' (exploiting a known or unknown bug or issue in the game to achieve an undeserved reward). Some Bots can even be used to attack the game's launcher or login screen to steal login information to steal characters, credit card information, personal addresses and phone numbers, etc. Players can no longer farm the items that they need or kill a certain monster to progress in the game, ruining a player's experience and encouraging them to leave the game.
Market manipulation can seriously disrupt or damage a game's economy, often irreparably. Players can not afford their prices and can not outwit their bots to farm the item on their own and find themselves unable to progress in the game. Items become so cheap there is no profit to be made. Anti-RMT procedures at this point could cause more harm as the economy could 180 over night and suddenly everyone has so little money and all of the prices have gone way or, or everyone has so much money and the prices have gone way down - emptying the shelves and crafters and gatherers alike have no interest in restocking as it is no longer profitable.
As the RMT continue to erect barriers for the developers to overcome, this takes attention away from updating the game and bringing about new content which could cause a loss in player interest and a loss of income for the publisher - which can lead to a Free To Play basis which would encourage more RMT activity - the MMO Catch22 of Death.

What can I do to help stop this?
Obviously purchasing RMT goods is not only against the Terms of Service of many online games, but it reinforces the practice of RMT. Just like training a dog, you do not reward bad behavior.
Never give out any information to an RMT.
Report RMT activity to the developers. DO NOT JUST BLOCK THEM!
They will never go away if you do not do your part to stop them. The Publisher cannot ban an account just because it has the name "asdj sgujsas" (a typical naming strategy for RMT characters is just mashing buttons on the keyboard. A typical RMT individual will create hundreds of characters in a single month).

So what if I do? I need money now!
Remember, when you buy from RMT you are giving your credit card and billing information to PROFESSIONAL HACKERS! Not only putting your game at risk but your Personal Finances and Credit Score.
Many RMT are employed by countries that are enemies of NATO and use the incoming funds to supply themselves with weapons they could possibly use against us, our loved ones and/or our friends and countrymen.

These people are literally Hitler! Are they ALL this Evil?!
I will NOT LIE. There ARE some reputable RMT companies out there which do not employ any of the above methods mentioned; but are often a tad on the expensive side. Unfortunately, it would be a ban-able offense to list any of them.

Please game safe. We've all been tempted, some of us have even jumped; including myself. You can and will get your account banned if you are caught, so all in all it's better off not to risk it. The game is designed to be fair and balanced, but RMT practices disrupt that. I will reiterate how important it is to do your part and take the time to report them and not just Blacklist them.

[KagatoAC]

i just wish that instead of banning the characters which can be recreated 5 seconds later, SE needs to burn the DVD keys and the IP they log in from, That might at least slow them down.

I ban and report every gilseller that sends me a /tell and I have to add 3-5 names to my blist a day. to the point where I have filled and deleted my Blacklist 3 times over (over 600 names in the last 6 months)

[joshsecret]

(The reason for this is unknown as some of the most profitable RMT specialists do not employ these efforts.)

i honestly think they spam adverts for competition reasons. ive see them get into biding wars plenty of times. i dont think anyone who wouldnt use their services will be swayed by shouts/tells. it seems pointless because anyone with the mind-set to buy from rmt can simply use google and do whatever.

i see tons of threads complaining about rmt but rarely do i see people post things beyond ideas to stop the adverts. to me, chasing after the shout bots is pointless. again from what i said above. i think the only way to really stop or slow down the practice of rmt trading would have to come from restricting the way we trade gil in-game. preventing the bots' ability of giving out gil would have a bigger impact imo. why in the world do we need the ability to send 500k to a person face-to-face or through moogle mail? i have never been in a situation to where i needed to give that much money to anyone.

my suggestion would be to reduce the amount of gil to 1-5k for face-to-face or moogle mail transactions. with this restriction you could still be nice to a friend and send a few bucks to help them out or tip a crafter for melding but i doubt rmt would continue to use these methods to give the buyers their gil due to the massive number of transactions it would take to give 1 or more million that they buy. with this in effect they would have to go back to/focus on MB scams of buyers putting worthless items up for sale and the rmt buying them. the special task force could then streamline their attention to one place and track odd or massively over priced sells and hammer both parties.

the harder it is for rmt to give buyers their gil = less tranactions = less bots

[Sove92]

i just wish that instead of banning the characters which can be recreated 5 seconds later, SE needs to burn the DVD keys and the IP they log in from, That might at least slow them down.

Bans are applied to service accounts, not characters, so they do lose their key. IP bans have been worthless for about a decade by now, and can lead to innocents being banned (you can get the IP a banned player has previously used).

[Edeline]

What concerned me about RMT is, after I read it in-game chat, that players selling items to players who got their Gil through RMT, will get you involved in the RMT chain resulting your account being affected. I really don't know if this is true or not, but it is making me refrain from selling anything. I know people could use this method to transfer RMT'd Gil to another character and getting away with it, but affecting a large population because of this, doesn't seem a good option to me.