Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
LOTRO selling out to RMT ?
RedwoodSap
Member Posts: 1,235
Posted May 31st, 2007 by LadySirse
RMT is the Future?
Turbine Executive Producer Jeff Steefel mentions in a recent interview Real Money Trades (RMTs) potentially being a very profitable part of the MMO market. RadarX analyzes his claims and proposes where LotRO might end up in the future.
If you are from the old school MMO's the hair on your neck is probably standing up right now. He believes the market is going to sanction RMT? What?! Those who grind and toil following the rules will end up the victims of whoever has the most real cash? While it's not quite that dramatic (depending on who you ask) Mr. Steefel does have a point about changing trends in the industry.
Comments
RMT can only coexist with F2P games (Item malls etc), since that is the only way to control the economy. All MMO companies will continue to hunt down and close out money farmers.
If LOTRO will have an item mall (can't imagine) , it will lose _all_ paying customers except for 1-2 idiots, and it will go down faster than the Titanic...
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
-Currently looking forward to FFXIV
-Currently playing EvE and Global Agenda
No, it is pretty straighforward. Afa I know, those games that have Item malls are F2P. There could be exceptions, but I am not aware of those (could be though.)
Lotro is not in danger I'm quite sure. If they'll ever need money, first thing they'll charge for will be the expansions.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Did you even read the article? He said they are keeping an eye on the market to see what players want and what the market demands. He said there may be a change in the next 2 to 5 years and that a game company needs to adapt. At no point did he say they have plans to implement this kind of system, in fact they are VERY anti-gold/item/powerlevel farmers.
I swear... try reading and comprehending before spooging all over yourself.
No, it is pretty straighforward. Afa I know, those games that have Item malls are F2P. There could be exceptions, but I am not aware of those (could be though.)
Lotro is not in danger I'm quite sure. If they'll ever need money, first thing they'll charge for will be the expansions.
DB
Since when did EQ2 become free to play? It is my understanding EQ2 has had this type of trade for a long time.As for the RMT in LOTRO; I find the quest items better than the crafted stuff atm and find it more fun to go do the quest. If I start paying real money for something I already paid for in order to "play the game", it'll be time for me to quit.
I think this trend with RMT is just that: a trend. It will probably continue for a while and some games will hail it as the "way to play," and it might even become standard in the industry in the same way that EQ- and WoW-clones are.
However, even if it does get that far (and I seriously doubt it will), it'll be short lived and people will realize how silly it is to pay extra for skipping content. I personally will never play a game that sanctions RMT, and I know there are countless people who agree with me. RMT is a passing fad and will NOT have my money.
forums.lotro.com/showthread.php
Jeffrey was talking about the way the MMO industry might be moving in general, but we have no plans to change LOTRO or move toward any kind of transaction-based business model.
In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time tracking down and removing gold-sellers from the game (we've banned several thousand of them) and earlier this week banned several accounts for purchasing gold as well, with more to come in the near future.
LOTRO is not designed to support RMT; RMT upsets the game balance, and upsets the players who get spammed by the sellers (though obviously some of that spam is working considering the number of players we've found that have purchased gold from the sellers).
-Meghan
Meghan "Patience" Rodberg - Online Community Manager - The Lord of the Rings Online
--Join the official LOTRO Myspace group!--
For account and technical support, please contact our Customer Service department.
I miss DAoC
But on the other hand, I do not get the expression that Station Exchange was as successful as SOE wants us to believe.
They generated 270k revenue, but that is less than 1% they generate by subscription fees, so if only one percent of their subscriber base had quit over SE, it would have been a loss.
Also, initially SOE stated that they would expand SE to other games, but in they didn't, which makes me suspicious that it was not very successful.
But we can never be safe; there are always some business people around aiming for the fast "innovative" buck, not realizing that it would hurt them in the end...
LOTRO is not designed to support RMT; RMT upsets the game balance, and upsets the players
like I said I will cross that bridge when I come to it. At one time I was a SOE game fan, but they will not ever see another dime from me. If
necessary I will swap allegiances again.
I miss DAoC
"A white paper released this February outlined an entire year of transactions. SOE saw $274,083.00 realized revenue from rougly $1.8 million dollars in sales and while this isn't an astronomical figure it does validate their experiment.
Some of the benefits the SOE Exchange servers claimed were: reduced customer service complaints, secure transactions, and the aforementioned pile of cash they made. So did it work? You bet your sweet leveling service it did. The market is there, the benefits are there, so why isn't this up and running like yesterday on every MMO?"
Doesn't tell us much about how things were on the other servers though....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm in the same place as Jack on this one. If they start allowing RMT's, I'm e-baying my account.
Your statement makes no sense to me. I really don't think this will be an issue with this game, however in future games I can see it being the norm.
I miss DAoC
Right now they can make more off of setting up a Gold Seller's site plus take in the subscriptions too?
People said the same about EQ2, and despite it being a very tiny MMO in comparison to wow, their exchange service did millions of dollars in transactions the first year alone. Not to mention the game isn't even close to dead.
Seriously man. Grow a brain.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I have been playing on a Station Exchange server since July 05 and I can assure you that the community is very similar to the standard set servers, so in that regard I think it has been a success.
RMT is here to stay and most of the gaming companies have acknowledge this in some form or fashion. I think most of them are trying to figure out how to implement it without killing their player base. You might want to start getting use to the idea. As long as WoW has millions of subscribers the third party sellers are not going away anytime soon and RMT is here to stay regardless of what is said about it.
I think SoE set the example with Station Exchange in that a successful way to implement RMT in a released game is to have separate servers. Sure some people canceled their accounts for a little while even though it did not affect them and they probably transferred their toons over to sell them in protest, but EQ2 still seems to be doing okay so far.
I would not worry though; I can not envision LOTRO implementing a RMT service any time soon.
My take is that if this trend does expand, that Turbine might buy into that market with a new product sometime in the future. I'm sure if they ever did anything like this for LotRO, it would simply be to offer a special server that supported it, which effects no one but the people who chose to play on such a server. However, that's also stretching what was said by injecting speculation. I don't think LotRO players have anything to worry about, period.
Why do so many people feel the need to take things like this so far out of context?
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
DevChat-Log 05/31/2007
<Aerdon> With regards to the planned SOE station gold selling idea, how will this be implemented, will servers that allow purchase of gold for real world money be setup, to keep core players who play legitimately appeased?
<LOTRO_Patience> Hi again Aerdon. I wanted to make sure this got answered: There is absolutely no plan to have any kind of transaction-based server or system, or any other method in which items or gold are purchased for real money for LOTRO.
<LOTRO_Patience>