Should players be able to sell Mogstation items?

[Tridus]

You are asking for legitimized RMT. My answer is a hard no.

Prohibition doesn't work. We have literally centuries of evidence of this. In the MMO space, we know the same thing, and have virtually the entire lifetime of the genre as evidence.

If there's a demand for something, people will create supply. That is one of the most fundamental rules of economics. Black market RMT causes all kinds of problems that nobody likes and cost SE money to deal with. Wouldn't it make more sense to bring it in house in a safe way and make some money off it instead? That's exactly why so many other games have brought stuff like play time tokens into existence: if players are going to buy it anyway, it makes more sense to have them buy it from a reputable source and make some money off the transaction.

[Istaru]

Prohibition doesn't work. We have literally centuries of evidence of this. In the MMO space, we know the same thing, and have virtually the entire lifetime of the genre as evidence.

If there's a demand for something, people will create supply. That is one of the most fundamental rules of economics. Black market RMT causes all kinds of problems that nobody likes and cost SE money to deal with. Wouldn't it make more sense to bring it in house in a safe way and make some money off it instead? That's exactly why so many other games have brought stuff like play time tokens into existence: if players are going to buy it anyway, it makes more sense to have them buy it from a reputable source and make some money off the transaction.

Legitimacy.

SE doing it makes it a legitimate and wholly acceptable practice. There are people who would do this now if it wasn’t against the rules. The only things holding them back are moral high ground and possible ridicule from their friends since most of us despise RMT in all of its forms.

Breaking the rules doesn’t stop people since SE doesn’t ban gil buyers, only gives them a vacation.

Yes, RMT happens now on a fairly small scale relative to the mess that would be created from this.

[Moonlite]

SE doing it makes it a legitimate and wholly acceptable practice. There are people who would do this now if it wasn’t against the rules. The only things holding them back are moral high ground and possible ridicule from their friends

I would bet those people that are that close just do it quietly and spread the money out a bit or just aren't that flashy about purchases. Except for the locked servers a quick check shows it's cheaper to buy tonnes gil then to buy the stuff on the mogstation at current per character pricing structure.


Also with the continuing growth of mogstation I would hope one day we get the reverse. And they take gil out of the game and turn it into digital purchases. I feel we are well beyond the moral high ground of rmt with jumps for jobs/quests/retainers. Build a system in the game and let money flow both ways. It is not like they ban paying bots anyways. As every server seems to claim a group of legitimate bots who have played for years with no issues.

[Zojha]

Yes, RMT happens now on a fairly small scale relative to the mess that would be created from this.

The far bigger issue is: The inflation we had all these years would finally become an actual issue as the rich crafters that previously soaked up the gil and made it dead money would suddenly have something to buy with it and thus return the money into circulation.

That'd create a bigger mess of an economy than a data-center wide market board could hope to achieve.

[Tridus]

Yes, RMT happens now on a fairly small scale relative to the mess that would be created from this.

What mess would that be? Plenty of other games have been doing it for years, in various forms. Aside from more profit and fewer* black market transactions (and the support headaches those create), what "mess" was created, exactly?


*It doesn't typically eliminate black market RMT because prices are usually higher, but having a legitimate and built in option tends to put downward pressure on their business.

[Emstidor]

What mess would that be? Plenty of other games have been doing it for years, in various forms. Aside from more profit and fewer* black market transactions (and the support headaches those create), what "mess" was created, exactly?


*It doesn't typically eliminate black market RMT because prices are usually higher, but having a legitimate and built in option tends to put downward pressure on their business.

Does it really create "support headaches" though, since "unauthorized transactions are not enforceable by the GMs" seems like a pretty cut-and-dry approach.

[Tridus]

Does it really create "support headaches" though, since "unauthorized transactions are not enforceable by the GMs" seems like a pretty cut-and-dry approach.

Gil that's sold via black market RMT comes from multiple sources, some of which are stuff like hacking people's accounts and taking their gil to sell. That creates all kinds of support problems, because you now have a customer who needs their account restored, gil that is where it shouldn't be, another customer who has what is effectively stolen gil without realizing it, etc. It costs a lot of money in support costs to deal with that (Blizzard went into this many years ago when talking about it). One of the reasons why they incentivize using the token app is that it makes accounts so much harder to steal, which saves them money (and leads to fewer upset customers).

You also have the costs of tracking down accounts that are used to farm the gil, mules that hold it, and the whole infrastructure behind the operation. It's playing whack a mole with people are making money by doing it, so they have every reason to continue to do so. That's why prohibition never works, in any game, ever. The laws of economics can't be defeated by saying "we really want to ban this".

[Istaru]

What mess would that be? Plenty of other games have been doing it for years, in various forms. Aside from more profit and fewer* black market transactions (and the support headaches those create), what "mess" was created, exactly?


*It doesn't typically eliminate black market RMT because prices are usually higher, but having a legitimate and built in option tends to put downward pressure on their business.

You think that there would not be a second coming of MogStation rage threads out the wazoo like when they announced it? Looking at your join date and your history, you weren't here. It was a shit show.

As for downward pressure, gil isn’t that expensive now. It would only be affected by the addition of legitimacy from SE.

It devalues efforts like crafting and gathering along with RMT too.

I would never have to put forth any effort to get money for glamours or housing or minions and such ever again. Unless you count going to the MogStation and inputting my credit card to be effort.

I will make this as clear as possible, if you ignore everything else and only read this part, ok with me.

My answer today is No.
My answer tomorrow is No.
My answer until my dying breath is No.
My answer until the end of time is No.
There is nothing you or anyone else can say or do that will change my opinion in any way, shape or form.

Save yourself the futility, don’t respond to me about this again. I will extend the same courtesy to you.
Have a blessed day.

[Tridus]

You think that there would not be a second coming of MogStation rage threads out the wazoo like when they announced it? Looking at your join date and your history, you weren't here. It was a shit show.

You mean like with Shirogane? Jump potions? The mog station itself, apparently. The game survived. Forum explosions are always temporary.

It devalues efforts like crafting and gathering along with RMT too.

You can't craft any of the items in question, so no it doesn't.

I would never have to put forth any effort to get money for glamours or housing or minions and such ever again. Unless you count going to the MogStation and inputting my credit card to be effort.

You can currently get those things with a credit card. How exactly is it earth shattering if someone else gets them with a credit card and you get them with gil from said person?

I will make this as clear as possible, if you ignore everything else and only read this part, ok with me.

My answer today is No.
My answer tomorrow is No.
My answer until my dying breath is No.
My answer until the end of time is No.
There is nothing you or anyone else can say or do that will change my opinion in any way, shape or form.

Save yourself the futility, don’t respond to me about this again. I will extend the same courtesy to you.
Have a blessed day.

So you can't name an actual game where this system has caused problems and don't have a logical argument for it except that you really really don't like it because reasons.

Got it. Have a good one.

[Skivvy]

So you can't name an actual game where this system has caused problems and don't have a logical argument for it except that you really really don't like it because reasons.

Got it. Have a good one.

For an example of where this has gone poorly - Archeage. Yes yes, AA has a multitude of other issues, but one of the contributing factors is that you can buy Apex on their website (and other market place items), and then resell it in the market. This has created an enormous amount of whales and has had a major effect on player / game balance. Has made the game majorly P2W.

Now, I realize that Archeage gameplay is vastly different than XIV gameplay. SE has designed the game so you really can't pull too far ahead of anyone else during a patch cycle. So the effects of any "P2W" are going to be substantially less in XIV, but they're still there.

I think one of the main spots you'd see this would be in the market place. Gil isn't a huge factor in this game, but it does for those who craft and like to control the market. And if people suddenly have easy access for tons of gil, inflation could then take over. Inflation will only hurt the players who don't want to have to buy extra gil (via mogstation item sale).

I'm not a fan of the idea.