China Tries to Curb Gold Farming

Wow, that is kind of sad that people actually pay real money for online money. Wasn't even aware that this existed. I can see how it inflates the money in the games so that really screws over the average player trying to have fun.

bgres07 - it comes down to how you value your time. Do you want to spend time grinding out money (which is a prime theme in the MMOs) or do you want to spend more time playing the fun parts of the game? You have limited playing time - so you cant do both. There is also the case of where you have a person that can only play 2 hours a day versus someone who plays 6 hours a day. The person playing more is probably going to be far more geared out than the person who cannot commit the time. And in most games, the gear is a big advantage in player vs. player combat or getting around in the game (be it spaceships for Eve, or flying mounts for WOW). So, how do you bridge the time gap and keep close in gear and items to those who commit more time? You buy gold or you can spend more time in the game, spend more time in the game then your going to have to give up time that would be spent on something in real-life.

I agree with China's decision.

LOL we all agree gold farming devalues virtual gold, but in real life we'll still print out more cash when we're in a crunch.

Don't worry, Obama and his Congress will just print more money.

lnwolf41 If people are willing to shell out money to get a more powerful player, why doesn't the company sell premade
characters to download from their website?
50 bucks to play the game and 50 bucks to have a level 90
character with complete special armour and weapons?

There was actually a scare about a year ago where a prominant beaurocrat was talking about taxing virtual income from online games. The thinking was that because a real money value could be applied to the virtual money then the virtual money could be taxed based on that rate.

Imagine what that would do to your gaming experience!

Ok... This news really scared me but I just read a blog regarding this issue. It is not true. Yay!
-- http://www.wowgoldfacts.com/2009/07/06/the-story-behind-the-chinese-brouhaha-lost-in-translation-indeed/

An interesting unintended consequence of this is that virtual gold will regain its value. The last in-game advertisement I saw was 5000 gold for $80. It's highly possible that it will cost much more for people who decide to purchase virtual gold instead of grinding it.

The end result is that the USD value of the service will rise, production will fall, and demand will subsequently will rise.

It's also possible that the net amount of money flowing into China may rise as well.

Which, knowing how far into the future the Chinese like to plan, may have been their intention after all.

Inwolf41:

Blizzard (the company who owns and runs World of Warcraft)specifically prohibits buying gold for cash. It messes up their economy ,which is actually fairly involved. Keep in mind that it is difficult to track the cash part of the transaction so offenders are rarely ever caught. The main goal is to maintain some loose version balance.

I wonder if there is a link between this and a supposed loss of millions of subscribers as written in this artical?

www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/wo...million-users/

Belay the last comment (Link broken)

Link:
www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/world-of-warcraft-loses-6-million-users/

wow china is too much into it

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