Does the community ever have a constructive conversation about RMT?

[UnrealTai]

Rich players don't determine market prices, the consumers do. On a few select servers that might have been the case at one point or another (where the rich people would buy up all the stock and then resell it at drastically higher prices). But over time, and especially now with world visit, that isn't an issue at all.

In the specific case of new items, that is also very, very normal from an economic point of view. When a new iphone is released, it's priced ridiculously high. However, after a some time passes, the price drops and eventually it drops to almost nothing. Same thing with new items in-game. Right away, the supply is very low, so those providing the supply can pretty much charge whatever they want.

However, if you give it a few weeks, those prices come down dramatically.

RMT will exist regardless, no matter the health of the economy. Taxing "rich players" more would do absolutely nothing. In fact, if anything it would increase the amount that people buy gil because the sellers would simply pass off that tax cost onto their products (thus the products would be even HIGHER priced).

Pretty much this.

I contacted an omnicrafter in pf on patch morning to craft me just the left side 450 gear and they quoted a ridiculous amount for it, 25m.
I spoke with my wallet and immediately dropped party and blocked them just incase they were the haggling sales person type, nothing personal towards them. Checked the MB and looking at the mb alone sure, in “that” hour of the day 25 mil was under, because locos had the pieces up for 10 mil each, which didnt sell of course.

Logged in 8 hours later and got the same full left side set off the MB for just 5 mil. So they just lost out on 14 mil profit for over quoting something they damn well knew was not going to be sold for at that price in just a few hours. I wouldve paid 2m per piece, instead they got nothing and I got all of it for just 5.

People gota know their audience.

[Verlyn]

I'm not sure what constructive discussion there is to be had. RMT harms the game, Square Enix knows it, people need to stop buying gil, we can't make people stop buying gil, nothing we say here is going to reach anyone that matters, and even if it somehow did, it would not change their current strategy.

[Nix]

Pretty much this.

I contacted an omnicrafter in pf on patch morning to craft me just the left side 450 gear and they quoted a ridiculous amount for it, 25m.
I spoke with my wallet and immediately dropped party and blocked them just incase they were the haggling sales person type, nothing personal towards them. Checked the MB and looking at the mb alone sure, in “that” hour of the day 25 mil was under, because locos had the pieces up for 10 mil each, which didnt sell of course.

Logged in 8 hours later and got the same full left side set off the MB for just 5 mil. So they just lost out on 14 mil profit for over quoting something they damn well knew was not going to be sold for at that price in just a few hours. I wouldve paid 2m per piece, instead they got nothing and I got all of it for just 5.

People gota know their audience.

Agreed - people are greedy, and once the "Me first" crowd pay ridiculous amounts for things, the prices tumble because the average consumer will not pay anywhere near that much.

[galbsadi]

The solution is simple:

1.) Recognize that RMT is going to happen. There's not an MMO out there where it doesn't happen.

2.) Recognize that supply here is driven by demand. As long as the demand for gil from RMT exists, there will be others who will supply it, regardless of ToS in a given game. Banning the bots doesn't work, because they'll just create new accounts. Banning the cards doesn't work, b/c they'll just buy prepaids elsewhere. Further, I suspect they're probably behind the DDOS that always seems to happen right after a ban wave.

3.) If the demand is going to exist for buying gil...and it's not going away, the solution is for SE to either to either (a) sell it themselves (which would kill demand but worsen inflation) or (b) to create an official method of transfer between players (which would also kill demand without necessarily worsening inflation more than we already face). This is exactly what Blizzard did with the WoW token, and not only does it work...it gives Blizzard extra money (the buyer pays $20 for an amount of gold, the seller collects $15 worth of gametime for that same amount of gold, Blizzard profits $5 every time).

TL;DR: all the problems go away once SE decides to create their own marketplace and effectively drive the bots out of town.

[Katie_Kitty]

RMT is popular because the game is popular, and some are too lazy to earn gil themselves. It is not the fault of older or rich players. I personally can make at LEAST a few hundred thousand a day passively (I don't craft either) so it always baffles me just how lazy some people are that they need to buy gil. Also, things like the bed mount are always expensive for a couple weeks with prices decreasing almost daily. RMT is an issue, but "taxing the rich" will do nothing to solve it. What the game needs is more gil sinks and a more equipped task force to handle RMT and bots. Blanket banning weekly doesn't do much. They need to be more proactive if they are ever going to get a handle on it.

Not everyone has time to grind for gil. I play for a few hours a day at most and there are other things I need to do in that time. Thus I am poor. Got nothing to do with laziness.

[Wanzzo]

The solution is simple:

1.) Recognize that RMT is going to happen. There's not an MMO out there where it doesn't happen.

2.) Recognize that supply here is driven by demand. As long as the demand for gil from RMT exists, there will be others who will supply it, regardless of ToS in a given game. Banning the bots doesn't work, because they'll just create new accounts. Banning the cards doesn't work, b/c they'll just buy prepaids elsewhere. Further, I suspect they're probably behind the DDOS that always seems to happen right after a ban wave.

3.) If the demand is going to exist for buying gil...and it's not going away, the solution is for SE to either to either (a) sell it themselves (which would kill demand but worsen inflation) or (b) to create an official method of transfer between players (which would also kill demand without necessarily worsening inflation more than we already face). This is exactly what Blizzard did with the WoW token, and not only does it work...it gives Blizzard extra money (the buyer pays $20 for an amount of gold, the seller collects $15 worth of gametime for that same amount of gold, Blizzard profits $5 every time).

TL;DR: all the problems go away once SE decides to create their own marketplace and effectively drive the bots out of town.

They could do both. If we can transfer itens and gil through our chars and make a token-like transition for us to get more gil that will surely kill the demand.

[MPK]

The solution is simple:

1.) Recognize that RMT is going to happen. There's not an MMO out there where it doesn't happen.

2.) Recognize that supply here is driven by demand. As long as the demand for gil from RMT exists, there will be others who will supply it, regardless of ToS in a given game. Banning the bots doesn't work, because they'll just create new accounts. Banning the cards doesn't work, b/c they'll just buy prepaids elsewhere. Further, I suspect they're probably behind the DDOS that always seems to happen right after a ban wave.

3.) If the demand is going to exist for buying gil...and it's not going away, the solution is for SE to either to either (a) sell it themselves (which would kill demand but worsen inflation) or (b) to create an official method of transfer between players (which would also kill demand without necessarily worsening inflation more than we already face). This is exactly what Blizzard did with the WoW token, and not only does it work...it gives Blizzard extra money (the buyer pays $20 for an amount of gold, the seller collects $15 worth of gametime for that same amount of gold, Blizzard profits $5 every time).

TL;DR: all the problems go away once SE decides to create their own marketplace and effectively drive the bots out of town.

ORRRRR we can just ban them all