30 Percent of MMOG Players Buy Gold

[Blindem]

I disagree that it's all about laziness. It's been years since I bought any gold, but I'd done so back in the early days of EQ, and it was not anything to do with laziness. For some games, the best way to make decent money is to farm (or get really lucky, if you're playing a game where the way to make money is to get rare, sellable items -- note that I acknowledge this is not true of all games, especially these days). However, as someone with limited game-playing time due to work and family responsibilities, if my choices are to spend my limited gaming hours farming (or hoping for a lucky roll), or to join my game friends in fun but not-particularly-profitable activities, I choose the fun activities every time. Under these circumstances, it is possible that I don't have the funding to acquire items I want or, in some cases, even need to be competative (or to accomplish goals). When that happens, I like to think I have the option to spend a little bit more on my entertainment (thereby buying some "cash") and getting more enjoyment of the game. Yes, I understand the arguments from both sides, and I understand why some (particularly the game companies) are so against the idea, but I also think it's an invaluable option to some classes of gamers.

 

[Archereus]

Nope never once bought any gold. Gold is kinda useless in warhammer so anyone that actually bought some is an idiot. Then in eve online I have never bought anything either.

Part of the problem is that in a lot of games I believe people pretend to be selling gold be in reality just scam people out of their money without giving them anything.

i agree, i have played a dozen rps and never once have i made gold and i also think its all a scam any how. Why would any one any how? if you spend all of you time buying the gold when the times comes when you don't have money to spend and you need gold you will have no clue what to do.

 

[Jeronus]

I almost bought gold but I then realized for the amount of gold I was going to buy. I could have bought a brand spanking new console game and enjoyed that ten times more. I can see how someone might be tempted to do so. The aren't just buying virtual money. They are saving time as well. Some people don't want to spend half their day trying to make large amounts of gold. When you think about it, it can be compared to those walkthroughs they sell at Gamestop. They may seem pointless but they make games accessible to people who don't have massive amounts of time to dump into a game they really love.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

As a WOW guild leader of over 2 years, and a regular guild of around 500 members, I've heard ONE person admit to buying gold once. I know its an embarrassing thing to say you've done, but if 30% were doing it, surely it wouldn't have such a stigma, and I'd have heard of more than one case in 2 years, and I mean in game at all, not just in guild chat.

However , now there's mounts for 20,000g and the highest regular mining ore, is worth about 2g a piece, I can understand people don't want to grind for months for stuff.

My problem with buying gold is different to most tho, I just don't want to pay someone to SPAM me in game, and then run around in front of me taking all the harvestable materials from in front of my eyes.

 

[scotth266]

Meh. It certainly is around 10% at least, but 30? That's a little extreme.

 

[ohellynot]

untill we can get alchemy to do this in the "reeal world" it should be forbidden in MMO's

 

[The_Prophet]

Never did, never will.

 

[Wolvaroo]

I've bought ISK (EVE Online currency), but from CCP (the game's developer). You see, CCP saw this as something that wouldn't go away, so instead of trying to shun it, they embraced it themselves so that people would turn to their resources rather then shady, possibly illegal, groups like those that hack accounts.

The practice involves buying game time codes (GTC's) with real life money, and optionally selling those codes by converting them into in-game objects for sale on the in-game market. Rather nice idea I thought, and it does help regulate those shady groups I mentioned. WoW and others can enforce something similar I think, no reason why not...

This. Some months I just don't feel like or can't mine or mish as much but want to keep up with my goals. Helps me. Helps others. Helps CCP. win-win-win scenario. A few hours of work saves me many times more in game. Though obviously I try not to take it too far as after all, why play a game just to avoid playing it?

 

[ChocoFace]

i've only ever played free MMOs and even there never bought any item/cash shop stuff, meaning i've never used real money for an MMO.

Also, i think 30% is too big. WoW has like what, 11 million players? so 30% of that would be 3.3 million. What does that make in money?

 

[Nazulu]

Pfft, it's not like you need to buy gold in that game since it's so easy! Lineage 2 is alot harder and 60% of the players bought adena because they found it too hard or it takes too long to level!

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Gold Sellers are a fucking annoyance. I don't give a crap if people buy virtual items, but seriously the amount of spam that those gold sellers manage to crap out in every single kind of chat is incredible. Oh, you should see their grammar tho...

Also, of curiosity I went to one of those websites of 'em and talked a bit whit the "customer support" dude...My gosh that dude had no idea how to write 2 words in proper English. It was painful to watch.

 

[mooncalf]

I've never bought pixels, but I don't object to the practice.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

He's 'heard', real satisfying conclusion he's come to right there. Pfft...anyway, never have bought gold and never will. It's just so damn easy to make gold anyway, the people who do just come across as lazy prats. And if we're going that route, why not just ditch in game currencies altogether? Why not just pay money for the items themselves? It's all so stupid.

It's called "Asian MMO's", unfortunatly.

 

[Fearzone]

Earning gold is part of the game. Anybody who buys gold is not only totally pathetic, but is cheating. Any game where rates of buying gold reach 30% is a broken game. Buying gold, and by extension game equipment, with outside money, breaks the game world. Even items which are totally cosmetic are still problematic if bought with real world money, but at least not having stat boosts over ordinary comparable items mitigates the problem.

 

[Yureina]

Buy gold? How cute. Who would need to buy gold when you ran an industrial giant like I did? Considering my experiences with that and the fact that I spent as little as an hour a day to make more in-game currency than most people could make in a month or more tells me that there is no reason any person should have to buy gold. It is only for the lazy who want an unfair advantage. In the end, with people like me in the MMO scene, they won't even get that because the players who truly know how to crank out the cash will always be superior:

This guy amuses me. Maybe I should just tell people for free how I made that cash so that these gold sellers can go take a walk off the plank.