Is the Future of MMO Gaming Really this Bleak?
We live in a society of instant gratification. A society where the traditional values of earning rewards has gone out the window. The MMO gaming industry is jumping on the instant gratification band wagon as well.
NCSoft is a publisher of online computer games and on April 16th they announced the creation of a subsidiary called NCcoin. NCcoin is a system which will allow customers of their games to use real world money to purchase virtual currency. They are not the first to implement this type of system. Sony Online Entertainment instituted “Exchange Servers” in their EverQuest 2 systems a couple of years ago.
In the SoE version players can play on the Exchange Servers and can sell items, money, and even complete accounts for real world money, of course SoE gets their cut. Dealing with the trafficking of virtual property items has been a headache for the MMO industry for years, but instead of combating such things Sony and now NCsoft have decided that if you can’t beat them, join them.
The SoE and NCsoft idea are good for a couple of reasons. By creating their respective systems they have done something to stem the flow of virtual items by making the sale of such items not as profitable any longer. The sale of virtual items brings in millions of dollars every year and of course large companies like SoE and NCsoft can see the dollar signs.
I am sure there are other gaming companies waiting to see how this pans out before jumping on the bandwagon as well. If all goes smoothly then we will see a flood of this kind of activity in the larger gaming companies.
Personally I am not a fan of selling or purchasing virtual items or cash with real money and I am sure that I am not alone in this line of thinking. I dislike SoE, but that is another story for another time, but I think that if a company is hell bent on selling their items and currency they should follow the SoE model and create servers specifically for this purpose.
I would wager that once more of the larger gaming companies start their own versions of the instant gratification system we will see a major crack down on the currency vendors which are so prevalent it today’s games. It’s odd how a gaming company seems to take these kinds of business more seriously when they are the direct competition.
