October 9, 2009

Gold spammers can ruin a game
By Michael Lafferty

Gold farmers and those advertising power-leveling services should be banned permanently

NCsoft’s Aion released several weeks ago, and while it started off fine, it has become the latest victim of the gold spammers who have been overwhelming the chat channels with advertising for their wares.

Gold spammers are those individuals – typically from Asian countries and representing larger companies – who farm for gold and then sell that as well as power-leveling for real-world coin through Web sites not affiliated. For these people, this is a source of income and they find it necessary to advertise their wares, and what better place to do it than in the same ‘marketplace’ where they hope to attract customers. Ok, that part is understood. However, these people, with their constant barrage of chat channel spam is ruining an otherwise enjoyable experience. It is hard to wade through their garbage to hear the questions, answers or even groups looking for members to achieve common quest goals in a game.

It’s almost enough to make you wish to change sides in the game and hunt them in the player-versus-player areas. They are an annoyance, a nuisance and a detriment to the gaming community.

Understandably it is hard for the game publishers to ban them and keep them out of the games. With the proliferation of this spam in Aion, it is apparent just how widespread these players are and how they are willing to change accounts that are banned and re-engineer their business anew. That alone says how much money is yanked in. Obviously there is a market for what they offer. Players are too lazy to experience the game for themselves and thus buy power-leveling so they can be ‘uber’ without the effort actually attaining the rank. Of course, some of these players who are power-leveled have no true concept of their class and that can show in the game.

Sure, part of the problem is the financial model in games that create money sinks. The NPC merchants charge outlandish prices for goods that are needed, and without the healthy competition, the player marketplace – whether they are in the form of auction houses or brokers – tends to start to ramp up to prices that are far from affordable. And when economies go awry, worlds crash. Look at Wall Street – didn’t exactly crash but stumbled enough to almost totally cripple a country. When a game economy spirals out of control, players who are smart enough to not play the money-sink game will simply leave and find something else. The community is transitory, and they pay a monthly fee as it is. Where is the sense in dropping $15 a month and then another $30 or more (or whatever) for coin that is spent on items that are far-too-overpriced to begin with.

But regardless of what a dev team does, the farmers will find a way to exploit it. If, for example, there was no marketplace, and all the best in-game items were crafted, they would likely find a way to charge for materials for the crafting process.

And while players have various ideas for putting the banning power into the hands of the players, that wouldn’t really work either simply because of the potential abuse of the power. Get 10-20 clan mates together and conspire to ban someone you simply don’t like because they are a thorn in your side for whatever reason. Nope, about the only remedy is for pubs to either come up with a new way of dealing with coin exchange in the game, or do what they are already doing – banning the accounts of farmers through the tireless efforts of in-game managers (GMs) – who already have enough to do answering players’ questions and problems. Yes, these people need to be banned – permanently. They are affecting the game in adverse ways and that should be rewarded with a permanent lifetime ban.

The only other solution is way too obvious, and simply won’t work. Players stop using them. If there is no demand, there will be no supply. It’s a business, after all, and if you don’t do business with them they won’t have a business. Until then, we have to put up with blocking users from our individual chat channels. And that is a pain.

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