Curse

The Air Revenger · Jun 30, 2009, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Seems like a dumb move China just made. They took out (for now at least) a bussiness that could have been making $1,000,000,000 a year. Its such a great time to be taking out bussiness that are going strong.

I dont give a hoot if someone wants to spend real life money on in-game gold its doesnt ruin my gameplay in anyway. Let them buy all the money they want. Its just to make their e-peen look bigger.

Also even if china follows up with the ban its only one of the countrys down, it may mean the biggest supplyer is out but thats good for other gold sellers because they can now skyrocket there price and make even more money. Its a great time to be a gold seller out of China! Might even make more money selling gold than being a Somalian pirate.

Tramp · Jun 30, 2009, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

This has less to do with WoW gold, and more to do with "QQ coins" which was growing at a faster exchange rate than the yen. (70%!)

http://online.wsj.com/public/article..._20080329.html

Money quote:

"Then last year something happened that Tencent hadn't originally planned. Online game sites beyond Tencent started accepting QQ coins as payment. The coins appeal as a safer, more practical way to conduct small online purchases, because credit cards aren't yet commonplace in China.

At informal online currency marketplaces, thousands of users helped turn the QQ coins back into cash by selling them at a discount that varies based on the laws of supply and demand. Traders began jumping into the QQ coin market as an opportunity to make a quick yuan off of currency speculation.

State-run media reported that some online shoppers began using QQ coins to buy real-world items such as CDs and makeup. So-called QQ Girls started accepting the coins as payment for intimate private chats online. Gamblers caught wind, too, and started using the currency to get around China's anti-gambling laws, converting wins in online mahjong and card games back into cash. Dozens of third-party trading posts sprouted up to ease transactions, turning the QQ coin into a kind of parallel currency."

This is the real reason for the ban. The Chinese government is trying to stop parallel currencies from popping up inside the country. If they lose control of their currency monopoly, they lose control of the ability to collect taxes. Taxes are a huge issue in the country because it is a corrupt archaic communist government trying to keep control over a rapidly expanding capitalist society. Having been there many times, I can tell you the system of taxes is a joke. The economy is primarily cash based since credit cards and checks are virtually non existant. I have been there at paydays for a factory I visit and the 1200 workers line up and are passed handfuls of cash out of wheelbarrows. The Chinese governement cannot let "virtual currencies" start to be used inside of the country. The system of taxes now is impossible to enforce. No one I know there pays taxes. They are required to fill out a card each year stating how much they earned. It is easier and cheaper to put unemployed rather than state how much you really earned. The factory owner jokes with me how for the last 5 years he has not earned a profit (for tax purposes) and yet he is worth over 15 million U.S.A. dollars. Eventually that will change and the governement will be able to track what people earn more accurately, but if virtual currencies become commonplace, they have no hope of monitoring wages for taxes. This will have ZERO effect on MMO gold farming as that is not the aim of this law from what I can see. They have 250 million people along the coast employed in factories and several billion to the west living in third world conditions hoping to get a factory job. Right now to get a job in the "industrialized zones" you need a work permit which conveniently enough you buy from one of the corrupt communist government officials with cash. They are not going to kill off any jobs. They need a billion more factory jobs whether it is gold farming or sewing or furniture making. This is all about keeping control of the RMB currency and taxes. They do not want to put the gold farmers out of business. I suspect the governement would love it if the gold farming business doubled as long as they sellers use some form of payment that the governement can monitor and tax. (Oh, and as a side note, I completely agree with Inde when he said there is little difference between gold farmers and anet selling us stuff with microtransactions. Anet is just like the Chinese communist government in that they both want to have complete control over their businesses. The communists do not want parallel currencies cutting into their ability to control and tax the RMB. Anet does not want other companies cutting into their customer base and competing for our money selling us gold vs. whatever anet is micro'ing us. I can understand and agree with Anet's position and the Chinese governement, after all, it is all about money.)

Longasc · Jun 30, 2009, 06:07 PM // 18:07

4thVariety summed it up nicely: There will still be gold farmers in China. They will just get new (better) working conditions and STILL farm and sell money to Americans and Europeans. And the chinese government will profit from the extra taxes!

Besides that: It does not matter to the gold buyer if his gold comes from Malaysia, Taiwan, New Nazi Germany or Soviet Canuckistan.

It will not reduce the buyer potential and shady RMT deals at all.

maraxusofk · Jun 30, 2009, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Doubt this would affect Guild Wars very much at the high end since those are primarily funded by the remaining duped armbraces and people who have bought them wouldn't need to sell them. This would probably affect the middle to high end more likely, where the amount of plat needed to buy something would not translate to over 1000 usd.

Bastian · Jun 30, 2009, 09:17 PM // 21:17

My guess is that this will not be enforced at all. Most likely China just trying to look good. Let's face it, the USA isn't getting rid of tobacco because it makes a crap load of money for the country. China isn't going to get rid of something that makes a significant amount of money.

refer · Jun 30, 2009, 09:24 PM // 21:24

I hate China, but at least this is one good thing they're TRYING to do.

Antares Ascending · Jun 30, 2009, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

I guess that explains why there was so many wow subscriptions in china

Interesting thought. Might explain some of the 3.5 million Aion subscriptions the first month.

deluxe · Jun 30, 2009, 09:42 PM // 21:42

All you gamers think this is about gold farming in games, do you really think China cares about gold farming services?

Black Metal · Jun 30, 2009, 10:06 PM // 22:06

I'm seriously shocked the Chinese gov't made this decision. It would seem that they actually caved in to pressure from the major game devs, which are generally Western or Westernized (aka Korea, Japan) countries, which is something China generally abhors doing.

China almost always cares about itself (the Communist party) first, it's people second, and everything and everyone else last. By tacitly allowing gold farming (as in previous practice), it siphons off money from overseas into it's own economy, and keeps however many of it's own people employed. Employed people are happy people, and happy people don't demonstrate for reforms or liberalization (threats to the Communist party).

I don't see what's in it for the Chinese gov't to cut off this flow of overseas money, and either leave the gold farmers unemployed or driven underground. There's an important point missing, and I'm interested in what it is.

edit: just read Tramp's post. I think that may be the point I was missing. Thanks.

Martin Alvito · Jul 01, 2009, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

Martin, ironically yours is an assumption as well. There's no way to know what the farming companies will do with the news, how they will adapt, how they will change, or what they may do.

Inde, I work with a scholar of Chinese politics and have studied their politics. If you want to call the notion that you can infer future data patterns from historical patterns an assumption, fine. (There are those that argue this, eg: Taleb's Black Swan argument).

However, there aren't any unusual factors here that might suggest that the assumption is invalid in this case. Corruption is endemic in China's law enforcement system, and the government also engages in a lot of saber-rattling that it does not intend to expend the enforcement costs to back up.

It's reasonable to infer that the same pattern will apply in this case. This isn't a mission critical area such as propaganda where the government will turn its full attention to making its decree stick. (eg: censorship efforts)

DarkWasp · Jul 01, 2009, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Too late China, the ecto prices already dropped again.

Inde · Jul 01, 2009, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Martin, I understand what you are saying but it does appear that yours was a wrong assumption as well. Once you see the speculation in this thread that this is being done to protect currency and prevent trading with other means of currency inside China. Which would mean that they are not going to allow this to continue with "protection money". This is much bigger then that. I'm not saying that any of your past or current experience is wrong, just that China clearly sees this as a bigger problem and is doing this for reasons that simple bribes or corruption within the ranks isn't going to be able to touch.

Burst Cancel · Jul 01, 2009, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

You don't own that, either. And the 'service of collecting the item' it's just a way around selling the item itself.

A RMT client character will not get 'getting the item', will get the item itself. 'Getting the item' will be done by the other character, and what the seller sells is the item itself.

Fundamentally speaking, there is no transfer of ownership of any in-game items - all such items (and indeed, all game data, period) remain the sole property of Anet/NCsoft. You do not, and have never, owned your character, or any of the titles, items, and any other data associated with your character. In point of fact, you do not even own the game in any meaningful sense; rather, you are paying for the privilege of accessing GW servers to play the game.

It is clear, then, that there can be no actual sale of any in-game items, as a sale implies a transfer of ownership - plainly impossible in this case.

Hyper.nl · Jul 01, 2009, 09:02 AM // 09:02

They can't. It's unstoppable. How will the Gov check the difference between a normal player and a gold farmer? They can't. Not even with the Great Firewall of China.

4thVariety · Jul 01, 2009, 09:58 AM // 09:58

One thing I totally missed yesterday. Online gambling. Think of it, exchanging real money for online currency and later changing it back. If that does not fit the description of online Poker, I do not know what does.

Then I searched around and read closely. I found this quote:

Quote:

The government justifies its ban on virtual currency trading as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.

Without the ruling, it would be possible to operate a Casino on Chinese soil without the government getting a cut. No country will allow that. At the same time corporations and casino operators would be able to act as if they were the Royal mint. No country will allow that either.

Goldfarming is different. In its basic form it takes real money and exchanges it for virtual goods. GW-Gold is not a real currency, but an online virtual good! There is no money transfer, only a transfer of virtual services. At best goldfarming is an outsorcing of virtual work. There is no incentive to stop that, since in turn it creates tax revenue. In contrast to online gambling which would again vanish money uncontrollably, especially in the WWW, especially across borders and the Chinese do not like that.

So I am sorry, but if people want goldfarming to go away, they have to talk to ArenaNet about rewards being rewards again, not items of trade, speculation, random drops and similar things.

Goldfarming in GW exists for the simple reason that the game supports it with many of its design decisions regarding rewards, item drop behavior, earning of money, and repetitive time based objectives.

LONGA · Jul 01, 2009, 10:02 AM // 10:02

I guess this law will crack up RMT business.Just like copyright law.Idont know how good does Chinese cop do.But I'm sure small gold farming company without good connection arn't going to survive now.

Doing illegal business in China have low risk.But when you got it coming you will take it hard.Without connection you will run into many pesky local authority till you can't do business anymore.And the law is a new window to take opportunity to do that.

zwei2stein · Jul 01, 2009, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

EQ2/Sony decided instead of fighting them to take their own cut and came up with their own gold currency exchange. It was smart/controversial but it worked. If people want it and are willing to pay for it any business is eventually going to want their share of it.

So did CPP - EVE online has legalized RMT with their PLEXes.

And people are actually happy about it: If you have excessive ingame isk, you get to play for free as you can buy subscription for isk, if you lack isk, you can resell one month subscription.

Coney · Jul 01, 2009, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Air Revenger

I dont give a hoot if someone wants to spend real life money on in-game gold its doesnt ruin my gameplay in anyway.

It severely does on an MMORPG like WoW, where the "Combat zones" are shared by all players (not instanced like GW). The farmers are in the same spots soaking up all the good loot 24/7, and often interfere with getting basic quests done. I found it very irritating, to the point that it played a significant role in my abandonment of that game.

Inde · Jul 01, 2009, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Bluesnews.com

Quote:

A post to the ICTs for Development Blog has an explanation from Professor Richard Heeks that interpretations of a new ruling that say China has banned gold-farming are not actually accurate. According to the professor, the new law impacts the reverse situation, banning using virtual currency to buy real items:

This is a government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff. As announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you gamble. This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image. And it’s not about the major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other types of virtual currency. And it’s not about buying/selling in-game items. And it’s not about the power-levelling of avatars. Bottom line: it’s not about gold farming. http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/

Hmmm, it does indeed seem like some bad reporting that started the whole thing. Even the official announcement states: China bars use of virtual money for trading in real goods
http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticl...606364208.html

It does not say it's banning the ability to use real money to buy virtual goods.

Abedeus · Jul 01, 2009, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Inde - true, turns out it's not true.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...ming-After-All

Visit Escapist more often.