Gambling Laws Could Halt Diablo 3's South Korean Release
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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That happens regardless of the ability to buy or sell items as a game feature because players do it in-game anyway.Baresark said:
Better to lose the transaction cut than lose both the transaction cut AND the game sales...cant get a transaction fee if no transactions are taking place! I say remove the feature if they are not letting them implement it and classify the game. But blizzard will not, because they will see the game as not being 100% done, therefore they would rather not release it
Its a nice sentiment, but i would imagine 95% of korean gamers wouldnt give a monkeys if the AH was in or out, swallow your pride and release the game without it!
OT: All the people saying that people buying gear will imbalance the game need to see the bigger picture, most ppl who would use the money AH would probably use the 3rd parties anyway if there wasnt an AH, so in essence at least we are getting a properly moderated and safe one.
I realise there are better ways to overcome the 3rd party black market, but this system has the most benefit-ee's, and the only ones losing out are the shady item farmers
edit: benefit-ees terrible english...benefactors? winners!
Its a nice sentiment, but i would imagine 95% of korean gamers wouldnt give a monkeys if the AH was in or out, swallow your pride and release the game without it!
OT: All the people saying that people buying gear will imbalance the game need to see the bigger picture, most ppl who would use the money AH would probably use the 3rd parties anyway if there wasnt an AH, so in essence at least we are getting a properly moderated and safe one.
I realise there are better ways to overcome the 3rd party black market, but this system has the most benefit-ee's, and the only ones losing out are the shady item farmers
edit: benefit-ees terrible english...benefactors? winners!
No no no! Before there were certain risks and stigmas associated with buying real money gear. It might have been duped or you could have actions taken against your account and so on. It was something that was frowned upon and bad for the game. Now it's an actual part of the game and now there is no stigma or risk involved and you can bet real money transactions will be king if you want to participate in the D3 economy. The end result is going to be gold being next to worthless and the real money economy will be the only viable choiceTitsMcGee1804 said:
People can say they won't buy things for real money but when it's the only avenue available they will be left with little choice. Of course even if they aren't buying doesn't mean they will pass up the opportunity to make a quick 10 bucks or more if they find a high end item. This will lead to people being presented with two options if they want gear. Farm it or buy it with real money. High end gear will not be available for gold. You can count on that.
Having Blizzard pulling the strings all of a sudden doesn't magically make it stop being detrimental to the game. It just means Blizzard sold out to the gold farmers because they are either too lazy too greedy or too impotent (likely all three) to police their own game. It will now though be even more harmful to the games economy because now there is no risk or stigma involved and will be rampant.
Now as to the gold farmers, they won't be losing out on a damn thing. They will just move their businesses from their websites to inside the game. They will still have warehouses full of Chinese poor farming away day and night and now they will have better exposure than ever and are already set up to prosper the most of anyone but Blizzard. Where as before people had to go look for their sites now they will already be inside the game and you likely won't be able to tell if you are buying an item from a college student or gold farmer.
Bottom line is that real money transactions killed the economy in D2 and it will be just as harmful to D3. Just becaues Blizz is making their cut off of it doesn't change that at their core real money transactions are poison, and have no place, in video games.
To be honest it sounds like gambling in the same way that investing in any market is gambling. If South Korea allows for private investment, then it should also allow for its cyber form.
I don't think I'm going to mind the feature. I'm going to love Diablo 3, but I'm not gonna spend any extra money on it. I can't really classify it as a traditional "microtransaction" system because the player can make money, too. Now, I'm concerned about how Blizzard is going to allow use of the money made from the auction house. If I'm not able to take it and bank it, I'm going to have a problem with it. If all I can use it on are other items and WoW subscriptions, it seems pretty pointless.
As for the "gambling" issue, I can't say I agree with South Korea. It isn't gambling because the player isn't putting any money down, on the table. They're just killing things.
As for the "gambling" issue, I can't say I agree with South Korea. It isn't gambling because the player isn't putting any money down, on the table. They're just killing things.
As for this comment, if you're playing Diablo 3, you're playing a video game. A video game is there for enjoyment (unless you're a game reviewer). If you really believe what you say, then you would never waste your time playing a video game, you'd be doing something that makes you money. That doesn't mean some people won't play Diablo 3 for the sole reason of making money, but they're morons.Rack said:
Maybe it will, maybe it won't.OMGIllithan said:
I don't care either way. I won't be playing Diablo 3.
Sigh. The "point" is always ignored or misplaced...
I'll just say this: It seems nonsensical to me to play a game whose primarily selling point is the grind. I cannot find any rational appeal in it beyond skinner and addiction models.
I say this, because the "market" wouldn't exist if there wasn't so much grind.
Then you've had the incredible luck to not have to deal with griefers and hackers in Diablo 2.
I always found it to be an incredible irony that I wanted to block or ban most of the players I encountered online because the vast majority of the ones I encountered were spambots, griefers, or assholes.
And I played Diablo 2 online for some unhealthy amount of time despite that...well, I don't have the patience for that bullshit anymore.
(Before someone says it: Yeah, you *could* password-protect your game, but now you're just playing Single Player online, which DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF PLAYING MULTIPLAYER IN THE FIRST PLACE.)
I hate feeling useless when I play games. I hate being nothing but an exp leech.
I hate jogging uselessly behind the party doing nothing because my damage output is less than half of the guy with the duped broken-ass Runeword. And I especially hate it when they join my party, and then ***** at ME for "slowing them down".
And I've been in that position many times in Diablo 2 precisely because people DID buy power when I did not.
Semantics!!!!!!!!
There is money involved and there is random chance involved. It's gambling. Because the potential payout changes based on what random item is generated. Which means you can calculate the amount of money you stand to make on the auction for a certain item against the time it will take for that item to come up. That's gambling. Blizzard will adjust the chance for popular items dropping as to keep the auctions flowing. This all sounds like gambling to me.
There is money involved and there is random chance involved. It's gambling. Because the potential payout changes based on what random item is generated. Which means you can calculate the amount of money you stand to make on the auction for a certain item against the time it will take for that item to come up. That's gambling. Blizzard will adjust the chance for popular items dropping as to keep the auctions flowing. This all sounds like gambling to me.
Yeah, Murder. The only point being made is that it happens so you may as well make money off it. That can apply to almost anything. That it's "victimless" is not even referenced, if it were then it would be a different point entirely. But if you want to bundle that in then counterfeiting money is a good comparison. It happens so why not allow it? If you want to lower the stakes then why not allow players to just take momey from the bank whenever they want in Monopoly?Eric the Orange said:
However you slice it "It happens anyway" simply is not a reason because it applies to virtually anything you would want to restrict.
As for this comment, if you're playing Diablo 3, you're playing a video game. A video game is there for enjoyment (unless you're a game reviewer). If you really believe what you say, then you would never waste your time playing a video game, you'd be doing something that makes you money. That doesn't mean some people won't play Diablo 3 for the sole reason of making money, but they're morons.[/quote]Rack said:
True but morons is the demographic gambling legislation is there to protect. In all seriousness though these virtual slot machines are already compelling enough even before you add in the potential to win real money, there are at least hundreds of thousands of people who play WoW long past the point it has any entertainment value, the same is sure to be true of Diablo 3.
I wouldn't really call counterfeiting "victimless". The two outcomes I see from that is either the fake money can't be used again, and thus it comes down to simply stealing (in which the victim is the seller). Or the counterfeits are so good they go unnoticed, which would cause inflation, which would lower the value of everyone money, and thus make them the victims.Rack said:
I just don't see the inherent problem in selling virtual things for real world money. As long as both the buyer and seller are fully aware of what they are doing then what is the harm?
Well maybe the Diablo 3 players can tell you when they try to buy items with gold and realize that even a mediocre item costs thousands upon thousands of gold because the real money transactions have devalued gold in the game to such an extent it may as well be useless because anything worth buying will be sold for real money and anything for sale with gold is a very small step above junk.Eric the Orange said:
Introducing a free and clear real money means of buying items is going to shoe horn everyone into real money transactions whether they like it or not if they want to be part of the D3 economy. Despite Blizz's claims there will not be a viable gold economy. If one should happen to pop up the prices will be so inflated that you could never hope to use it without buying gold and then your back at using real money.
The only thing gold will be able to be used for is for buying from NPCs. The in game player driven economy will revolve, in one fashion or another, around real money transactions.
His comment is more true than you think: every item that gets sold on the Auction House?LJJ1991 said:
They wouldn't have value if not for the average time commitment required to get them; so from this, we establish that TIME is the primary metric of value; and the payout of that value, can be in in-game gold, or real world currency (and for the sake of the argument, we'll just focus on the latter).
We also know that the item drops are:
1) Random
2) Very rare (factor for the time metric)
3) NOT GUARANTEED
And it very much becomes comparable to gambling, which might I remind you, is considered first and foremost a form of ENTERTAINMENT; a "game of chance". Therefore, the point about the player doing something else "because it's a game, not gambling" is nonsensical.
So instead of directly betting money, player bets time to potentially WIN MONEY.
However, because the payoff's value is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO TIME AND CARRIES REAL-CURRENCY VALUE, then in this instance, we can equate time to money. If this were not true, then rarer items wouldn't carry a higher price coefficient (because there would be a more common/economical substitute good).
If Diablo 3 isn't an overt form of gambling, then it certainly pushes the boundaries for the classification.
I think you mean Diablo 2, but that's besides the point.Xanthious said:
True enough I can see that happening if the real money AH is widely embraced. Most people would rather get real money than in game money probably. I personally have no plan on using either AH so I guess my opinion does not count for much. But I still don't see the harm. Worst case scenario everyone uses the real money AH, and then uses the money from it to buy other things on it. So it's like a taxed virtual item trading system. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the backlash over the real money AH makes it used less and thus the normal AH more viable. I guess I can see a victim in the person who does not want to participate in the real money AH, but still want's the virtual items, but does not want to spend the time to farm them.
what do you mean it will hurt blizzard? Aren't they going to make enough bloody money already? Its like saying that only getting $60 for my used legos would hurt me.