Online games may have many unusual features and fantastical cultures but one feature shared with the real world plays a big part in progression - this is the relative scarcity of money.

Life for novice characters in games such as World of Warcraft, Runescape and Tabula Rasa can be quite tough especially when in-game cash is very scarce.

While characters can still improve their progress via quests and monster slaying, in the end it comes down to a point in the game where they need a certain amount of money or gold to progress onto the next level.

This is when many gamers look to ‘gold sellers’ to help fund their advancement. These gamers offer in-game cash in exchange for real world money.

However the terms and conditions of many games ban the buying and selling of in-game gear for real money. Yet people still do it and if caught, their account could be suspended and even closed.

With online gaming becoming more popular more players are turning towards ‘gold sellers’. Various websites have even started appearing advertising gold selling.

Geoff Iddison, chief executive of Runescape maker Jagex, stated that during 2007 the company took more than 525 billion farmed gold pieces out of its game world. Which in real money that virtual gold is worth more than £1.3m ($2.6m).

The main source of gold selling he says is China. "We had tens of thousands of accounts in China that were just bots working the game to make gold and then sell it."

Criticisms of gold selling include; spoiling the experience for many players by camping out near monsters with the most loot, filling chat boxes with spam, inflating prices for gold and also recieving the real world money without handing over the virtual gold.

Runescape has recently under-gone changes to stop rogue gold traders. In a bid to stem the trade, Jagex changed the Runescape mechanics to make unbalanced trades much harder to do.

Early reports even suggest the changes are having an impact, with complaints about "gold farmers" well down on usual numbers.

Many game makers unsurprisingly agree that with the right design, it should be possible to make a game that embraces real-money trade that does not damage game play.

This however fails to impress the more experienced gamers suggesting that any real-money trading creates an uneven playing field. Hense only the rich in the real world will be successful.

I leave the questions and discussion to you:

Have you had any experiences of "gold sellers"?
Should real-money trade be allowed when gold sellers aren’t?

Tags : Gold Farmers : mmorpg : Runescape : Tabula Rosa : World of Wacraft : WoW

Comments

By: boa On: 10:23 Feb 19th, 2008 Offline	If it was allowed, it should be none PvP, just to allow the idiots with more money than sence/patience to shortcut to better PvE gear. And even then, the list of item to buy should be prohibitivley crappy, better than standard drops nothing anywhere near epic. That, or you should be able to gain real money for your hard won items, therefore levelling the playing field somewhat. Perhaps an AH that deals in real money rather than in game gold?

By: Evren On: 10:52 Feb 19th, 2008 Offline	Maybe you should be able to just buy gold in the game world yourself, from the online store. I dont think It's fair to charge stupid amounts for a small amount of gold. It's like the drug of the MMORPG world. sighs Though, another thought. People should word freaking hard for thier gold, like the rest of us.

By: Corrine On: 07:30 Feb 20th, 2008 Offline	Gold sellers and spammers akin to them, are extremely irritating. Granted, I've seen less of them in WoW lately, but they still exist. Especially if you're on an RP server, let's say, it can really be a pain. I don't think people should be able to buy gold. That just.... negates the whole game experience. When the game is built around that concept, such as Second Life, that's different. The game creator controls that and it's not quite a progressive game like MMORPGs.