Quote Originally Posted by Interstella View Post
By replacing monthly subscription with tokens that can be purchased with in-game currency, you are in effect reducing RMT costs, which they can then use to buy new game versions to bot with.

More bots = more in-game currency = reduction in real-money price = more people buying illegally generated in-game currency = more money for RMT = more game version being bought = more bots...

SE charges: 130,000gil = 1 token = 1 month of subscription
But due to the above scenario, RMT can charge: $10 = 130,000gil = 1 token = 1 month subscription (Nice, legacy prices!)

And SE will see none of this money...
= less money for game development
= more items in the cash shop to try and generate real-world money (because let's face it, it makes the world go round)

With this system, you are in effect putting SE in direct competition with RMTs, who do you think is going to come out on top here?!



Also, pay-to-win: isn't just buying gear, it's buying a spot on a raid team that will clear content for you.
Except it's not like how you described at all. Players would buy the monthly sub tokens with actual money and receive an in-game item, and sell to people in-game as trade. RMT? Yes. Is it bad? No.

Now, the people saying "this is pay to win because people can just buy raid clears with gil they got from real money." Okay. What's stopping them now? Oh right, a little thing called the TOS. The one that is blatantly ignored by people who go out and buy gil so that they can buy raid clears with gil they got from real money. And even those that don't, there's a clear demand for them so people must have the gil somehow. How is either scenario different?

And to others, ruin the economy? Think about it for a minute. You're trading an item for gil that's currently circulating on your server. This adds no extra gil to the economy. What happens when that guy who's all like "haha I have credit cards with no limits" goes and buys gil from the RMT? Let's say they buy 30M. That's 30M instantly introduced to the economy that wasn't there before, because you can be sure as hell the RMT aren't buying anything with it, and most likely the person that bought the 30M already has plans for that same 30M and buys things, spreading the gil around. The more money in an economy, the less the value. When more money is circulating throughout, that's what we call "inflation." RMT could not win with this. Most likely, if a legal form of RMT were available, the players who would much rather have the safety of keeping within the TOS, and RMT would see a lot less as the people who buy these tokens would lean away from the current RMT. What happens when the RMT find out it's not worth it to stay? They leave. Their piles and piles of swimming gil in their vaults would go *poof!* And that neither adds or takes away from the economy, because it was never circulating.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a video to record in which I'll probably be complaining about how much this thread makes my head hurt.