Now I’ve been playing video games my entire life and have made it a point to do well in said games. Over the past decade or so I began noticing the ever growing market for in-game items and skills. Now when I say market, I am talking about spending cold hard cash for these things. Numerous people spend real money for virtual items with the intention of enhancing their gaming experience or providing them with some benefit such as saving them time and effort.
Purchasing Accounts
Ultima Online Skill List
My first experience with this entire concept started during the golden days of Ultima Online (UO), a game that would become both the first and last MMO game that I will ever play, because my addiction to UO came close to consuming my immortal soul. But moving right along; Each player had a skill cap of 700 points which they could apply to whichever skill they so desired up to a max of 100 points per skill. Back then, the game consisted of about fifty skills that the user could choose to upgrade through repetitively using that skill (quite literally thousands of times). I found myself running macro’s within the game overnight for weeks trying to get certain skills up to 100, only to rage throw my keyboard across the screen when I woke up in the morning to find my character killed by someone else in the game.
So given the fact that it takes so long to raise these skills yourself, people began selling their accounts with their characters already maxed out, plus all their items, etc. Sometimes these accounts would sell for $300-400. So the days of UO aren’t quite what they used to be, but this same principle has been employed for just about every big MMO since including EverQuest and World of Warcraft (WoW). Given how popular WoW has become, websites have emerged with the sole purpose of buying and selling accounts complete with maxed characters and all their equipment.  Some of the accounts listed on the site have sold for $1,000.00!
Naturally if these game companies are charging people a monthly fee to play the game, they aren’t going to like these outside dealings as the more time people put into the game, the more money that they make. Not to mention the fact that when people buy/sell these accounts, they don’t see a dime from any of that action. So keep in mind that at least as far as Blizzard is concerned, selling WoW accounts or buying gold is a bannable offense since they consider it a violation of their terms of service.
Purchasing In-Game Items
Want to buy some Farmville Cash?
Just like with purchasing accounts, people want to get where they want to be without delay, leaving some people purchasing items with real money. Farmville is a free game you can play online, where you earn Farmville Cash by completing objectives. But then again if you don’t feel like doing those objectives out right, you can simply purchase Farmville cash. As opposed to buying gold in WoW, this is completely accepted because the game is free to play, thus making it a revenue stream. Whether its gold for WoW or Farmville Cash the fact remains that real money is being exchanged for in-game stuff. But this concept isn’t limited to just PC or web based games. With downloadable content (DLC) for games on consoles this process still exists and is in my opinion much more detestable. Two games that I have played and come across which exhibit exploiting DLC to save players time and effort include MagnaCarta 2 and Tales of Vesperia, both of which are RPGs for the XBOX 360.
MagnaCarta 2 has DLC that gives the player two new weapons for each character, which are incredibly overpowered. If you downloaded this DLC pack you not only never have to buy a weapon throughout the course of the entire game, but you don’t even really have to focus on building levels that much. You can just play through the game quickly destroying every enemy and boss you come across. Tales of Vesperia takes everything to a whole new level by straight up allowing you to purchase usable items, gald (currency in the game), skills, and even levels for your characters. Granted the player can only use these perks once, but the fact remains that people are actually using Microsoft Points which have a direct monetary value.
For 300 MS Points you can buy 10 levels for each character
Whether you buy someone’s entire account, pay for in-game currency to save you from putting in the work yourself, or buy a DLC that just lets you roll through the game, the question remains is where do you draw the line? For me personally, I can see it both ways. If I got sick of playing a game, have no intention of going back to it, and someone wants to give me a couple hundred bucks to take over my account then it sounds pretty tempting. However I draw the line when the game company is the one responsible for allowing these shortcuts, even if the game is free to play like Farmville. But then again, if people are willing to spend their money on these things, why shouldn’t the game makers get in on that action? Maybe there isn’t really any one right answer. What do you think? Drop a comment and let me know.
