WarCry Choice Posts: 3022 Joined: 3 Mar 2004 | Dogs and cats living together. RMT company inks deal with several MMO publishers
 Yeah, someone had to be high to make this deal I didn't think it could be done but someone actually convinced MMO publishers that alienating some of their customers was a good idea. It's no big surprise that SOE is on board, they've been wanting to do this for years. In fact, Smedley had meetings with Brock Pierce of IGE infamy as early as E3 2004 to discuss doing exactly this:
Live Gamer Inc™ (www.livegamer.com) today announced its introduction as the premier provider of a publisher-supported, secure platform for real money trading of virtual property. Live Gamer is partnering with top massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) publishers and virtual world operators worldwide, including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited. The company was founded by industry veterans and backed with $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures.
Formalizing and Legitimizing the Existing Virtual Economy
Virtual trading today represents an estimated $1.8 billion in real money exchanged annually among MMOG players and virtual world inhabitants who buy and sell rights to use in-game goods, services, and characters . To date, such transactions have usually meant braving an unstructured, unsanctioned marketplace in which players lack protection from unethical traders, and do business in violation of the publisher's terms of service. By introducing a fully transparent, secure, publisher-sanctioned marketplace, Live Gamer helps protect content creators from the distorting impact of illicit trading on their intellectual property and provides a safe alternative for consumers around the world who spend millions of hours in-world every month.
Sadly it seems that everyone who managed to talk him out of it back then has either been fired or bailed out. That was the birth of the idea that became Station Exchange. Funcom has basically already turned Anarchy Online into a micro-transaction game, and Acclaim uses that as their main business model. Too early to tell how Age of Conan will be affected. The only MMO I can think of that 10tacle has is Neocron and I really did just laugh out loud as I typed that name. That game was such a joke. Anyway, get ready to deal with an exponential growth in gold farmers in games from those publishers.
Could this work? Sure, but it's going to be more fun watching this deal closely to see how big a crater it makes if it fails. One step closer to truly putting a concrete dollar worth on 1's and 0's, and that's when the IRS and Treasury Department begin to get involved.
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WarCry Choice Posts: 5383 Joined: 30 Jun 2004 | begun, the end of mmos has. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 56 Joined: 24 Jan 2006 | If we localize micro-transactions... we'll make *cough*billions*end cough* millions!!! Who's in with me? *cricket noises* *pin drop* *cough* |
Dogs and cats living together. RMT company inks deal with several MMO publishers
I didn't think it could be done but someone actually convinced MMO publishers that alienating some of their customers was a good idea. It's no big surprise that SOE is on board, they've been wanting to do this for years. In fact, Smedley had meetings with Brock Pierce of IGE infamy as early as E3 2004 to discuss doing exactly this:
Sadly it seems that everyone who managed to talk him out of it back then has either been fired or bailed out. That was the birth of the idea that became Station Exchange. Funcom has basically already turned Anarchy Online into a micro-transaction game, and Acclaim uses that as their main business model. Too early to tell how Age of Conan will be affected. The only MMO I can think of that 10tacle has is Neocron and I really did just laugh out loud as I typed that name. That game was such a joke. Anyway, get ready to deal with an exponential growth in gold farmers in games from those publishers.
Could this work? Sure, but it's going to be more fun watching this deal closely to see how big a crater it makes if it fails. One step closer to truly putting a concrete dollar worth on 1's and 0's, and that's when the IRS and Treasury Department begin to get involved.
Permalink