The Daily Grind: When does RMT cross the line?

by Shawn Schuster Apr 9th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Business models, Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind

This question was posed yesterday by Saylah at the Mystic Worlds blog, and we couldn't help but wonder the same ourselves. When RMT or micro-transactions are first introduced as a business model for a game, the claim is always that these items for sale are not detrimental to the actual gameplay itself. They're cosmetic, or they aid your character with convenience items like extra bag space or a faster mount. But as Saylah points out, Runes of Magic has introduced crafting items to their Item Shop recently. This allows players to purchase bundles of resources for crafting, which gives an advantage towards things like guild castles. "My first reaction is to suspect that the massive grind in this area is intentional to encourage the purchase of the resources now available in the Item Shop," she says.

So what do you feel is going too far in RMT purchases? Is selling crafting resources too much, or would you only raise an eyebrow at the sale of overpowered weapons in an RMT shop? With the popularity of micro-transactions, do you think developers will edge closer and closer to that line to see what they can get away with? Let us know your thoughts!

Tags: item-shop, micro-transactions, microtransactions, mystic-worlds, real-money-trading, rmt, saylah, the-daily-grind

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Thrush said on 9:09AM 4-09-2009

Hardcore raiders always say 'if you cant put in the time then you don't get the good gear' .. well we don't all have hours upon hours to "spend" so we're out of luck. Now here we are looking at the same principle from a different point of view. If you can't put in the money then you don't get the good gear. Pwned.

bak said on 9:16AM 4-09-2009

Yeah sorry, forced to grind or pay huh? Not for me. I think that goes beyond a mere "convenience" item. I'd ather pay a monthly fee for a less-grindy game...

Cray said on 1:07PM 4-09-2009

Grinding or pay...I don't think everyone who plays the game see it as grinding. Absolutely no one is forcing a player to be bored with the game. That's what grinding boils down to, grinding is another way of saying "I'm bored with this game". If you don't hacking away at mobs for a long duration then the game isn't for you. There are people out there who are willing to play through these so-called tedious gameplay.

Personally RMT items should be purely cosmetic or have utterly no consequence of the player's ability to succeed or fail.

snowleopard233 said on 10:02AM 4-09-2009

Microtransactions are a slippery slope in my opinion and Runes of Magic seems all too eager to screw safe mmo economics and ride the resulting money landslide all the way to the jagged chasm below. How is an mmo economy supposed to work if people are competing with the game for matt sales? The idea that people should pay extra to make the experience less of a grind fest is ludicrous at best. If a developer knows its gaming experience is deficient in some areas it should correct it rather than dangling the improvements in front of the player base as if it were some expensive antidote.
For example, the WoW developers have taken to heart the comments and complaints of their player base over the years and made their game more accessible in the process. They’ve reduced the prices of mounts, the time it takes to level, and the punishing difficulty of raids for all players who pay the same amount of money every month. Improvements to the game aren’t a luxury but a core part of the experience every participating player expects to receive.
The problem with microtransactons is that they are misleading in this regard, offering you a sub-par experience for free and then requiring you to pay more money piece-by-piece for the full, satisfying experience. This results in the dedicated players having to spend actual money to stay on top, and the players who wanted a free experience facing a game in which they are increasingly marginalized.
So, overall, we are left with a game where if you want to play for free you get a poor experience and where if you want a total experience you have to pay just as much if not more than a monthly a subscription would cost. How is this better than the current model?

Steven "PlayNoEvil" Davis said on 11:35AM 4-09-2009

While it does make a catchy headline, please stop confusing RMT with micro-transactions. RMT usually is associated with unauthorized player-to-player commerce / gold farming.

If you object to a micro-transaction business model (or aspects of it in a certain game), than say so..

One could make the same argument about the price of subscriptions.

Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Craft?

Holgar said on 11:44AM 4-09-2009

"So, overall, we are left with a game where if you want to play for free you get a poor experience and where if you want a total experience you have to pay just as much if not more than a monthly a subscription would cost. How is this better than the current model?""

What he said.

F2P is BULLSHIT the onlt true f2p titles are add supported flash titles.

Runes of Magic you basically have a "Demo" version thats free but if you actually want to get anywhere you got to pay as much as a WAR WoW AoC subcription.

It is TOTALLY retarded.

DrunkenPandaren said on 3:49PM 4-09-2009

No, because the game isn't forcing you to pay for mats that you can easily farm yourself.

Scopique said on 12:07PM 4-09-2009

It's funny how this is a Western "problem". In Asia, this is the norm, and people pony up cash with nary a troll in sight.

I am not a fan of microtransactions, personally, especially when they give those with deeper pockets an advantage over other players. This is far more relevant in PvP (combat, or even competition for resources like materials or even land to build on). Paying for vanity items is OK, since they don't detract from actually being able to get stuff done, but in the end, even companies who operate F2P titles need to make money to keep the lights on. I don't know how a company could survive on vanity item sales alone.

Judging by the asanine way WoW forces you to re-run instances to collect items, MT seems like a natural backlash response. Don't want to run that instance for a 30th time, taking the chance that the item you want won't drop, or you'll get out-rolled? Spend $0.99 and it can be yours without the sweat or obnoxious raid group!

Angel said on 12:51PM 4-09-2009

If you all are going to address the issue of MT in MMOs you have to stop with the dismissal of "vanity items".

In games with crafters those vanity items infringe on the crafter population. point of example: EQ2 players are obsessed with "appearance gear". The armorers and tailors make items that are used as costuming and cloths. The EQ2 community had screamed out for better appearance gear for years. SOE threw in "cloths" for players that took the form of a single skin in a verity of colors for each sex. This did not satisfy so they screamed some more.

Then, SOE introduced MT with appearance gear for sale. those "vanity items" are items PLAYERS could make within the existing crafting system. Instead of providing more for the community of crafters to make, they sold them for cash dismissing them as "fluff items" and marginalizing their crafting population.

MT does not provide "fluff" or "vanity items" it dismisses a good portion of the player population as being worthless and unimportant.

If a system is designed for MT as incentive to spend money, that is one thing. Though fought with problems that is the way said game was designed. Ultimately if you are going to design for MT don't include crafting.

DrunkenPandaren said on 3:49PM 4-09-2009

I just wanted to be a zerker wearing a white dress when I show up for raids.

Meanwhile said on 12:55PM 4-09-2009

This is why I can never get into microtrans games.

I don't like to take shortcuts when I play an MMO. I refuse to be powerleveled, and I hate being "run through" an instance in WoW.

But in a microtrans game, they encourage people to make these purchases by making the grind SO much worse than it would be in a subscription game. So I'm caught between never making any noticeable progress and buying what feels like a shortcut. Neither option fits my style of play.

I much prefer to be on equal footing with everyone else and for us all to be able to make reasonable progress through our activities, not our credit cards.

Havok said on 2:45PM 4-09-2009

Since in RoM you can actually craft most of what you can raid for, what this basically amounts to is buying high-end gear for real money, which nobody enjoys.

TheNilvarg said on 3:10PM 4-09-2009

This is just a symptom of the entitlement-loving freeloader society we live in now. People think that they should be able to get things without paying for them. If you're willing to give up your real-life earnings for additional items in a game, it shouldn't matter how beneficial the item is. If you don't want to pay for it, then fine - you don't get to use it.

It's the same nonsense going on with WoW addons. "They're trying to charge for the hundreds of hours they put into designing this addon. Well, why should people who pay for it get more benefit than I get by not paying?!" Uhh, because they paid, and you didn't.

It's just the same wealth envy that you see in the real world.

Angel said on 5:34PM 4-09-2009

your argument can be inverted to say that within a gaming environment you "pay" by playing through content, by experiencing all of the nuances of a game. people who have a feeling of entitlement beyond that of game play will purchase the rewards with real money.

An income outside of a game world is not part of a game world. it is external and not part of that server and IPs persistent existence.

This is one of the key points of contention. Most people who become involved in these fantasy world do not appreciate when the balance is thrown out of whack by what they perceive as intrusive advantages. Just because you have money to burn in the real world does not necessarily mean you should be able to burn it in a fantasy world.

Again I say, it depends on the what the game was design for and the audience it is targeting.demographic research shows that most people who play MMOs do not have that extra real world cash. They play these games primarily for some limited escape. In other words they play these games so they can perhaps experience something other than the financial limitations they may be saddled with in real life.

If your target demographic does not have money to blow on virtual goods don't ever offer virtual goods in exchange for cash beyond that of a subscription.

DrunkenPandaren said on 3:49PM 4-09-2009

I don't know about you guys, but farming for mats sucks.

Skipjack said on 5:43PM 4-09-2009

My problem with this model is that it kinda feels like cheating to me. I mean it should be that I advance in a game through performing some difficult task or do something heroic, or by solving a puzzle, etc. Where goes the fun if I can do the same by simply paying a fee? I might just as well pay someone else to play the game for me. But then, why "play" in the first place? Grinding is very boring and a game that asks me to do to much grinding quickly looses my interest. So if the game is going by the principle "grind or pay", I would say "thanks, but I will go elsewhere". There are plenty (!) of alternatives on the market now and 13 to 15 Euros a month is not very much anyway.

Pillage said on 6:03PM 4-09-2009

I can't believe the crying that's going on. Hardcore gamers may be good at raiding instances, but the rest of are working hard at raiding our company's bank account for a nice salary. Not everyone can play games all day long. If someone has time to play all day long, they can collect all the crafting materials they want. Other people can only play an hour or two a day, and we don't want to be spending that time clicking on a resource node. For RoM's cash shop, you pay money and you get diamonds. You then browse through their store which has a pricetag in diamonds. Diamonds can be traded in the game. If you're a hardcore gamer, you can do raids all day long and trade the loot to people with diamonds. The hardcore raider can then use those diamonds to buy everything in the cash shop. Either way, both players can get to the same point at the end of the road.

CyberNigma said on 9:33PM 4-09-2009

I'm don't lean too far one way or the other with regards to RMT. I used to really hate it back in the day when I wasn't working full time, in school, had plenty of time to play games. Quite a few MMOs actually reward the guy who dedicates the most time as opposed to the guy that has the most skill or what-not, with a few exceptions (Guild Wars was an exception except for cosmetics, wow is pretty much the rule on time>anything else - was moreso than now). Now that I work quite a bit, still like playing games (moreso certain parts than the building up of a character) and make a shitload of money. On one hand, why should a kid that has quite a bit of time on his hands have an in-game advantage over someone being really productive that likes the game as well. Sometimes I feel I should be able to invest my time in the game, but the only way I have to invest it equally is with my wallet.

I said I don't lean too far either way, and that means some games are just out there to rip you off with RMTs and I have no desire to play any of those long-term. Games that allow people to buy their time investment as well as allow those people with extra time on their hands to 'earn' those goods as well seems pretty acceptable. It's kind of like washing dishes for a meal instead of having to pay for it. For each person one of the two options is more available than the other.

Games that go overboard on time requirements and games that go overboard on RMT requirements are equally as bad to many people. If a person in wow can go and gather up his Dungeon set (prior to Wrath I mean) and another person can forego that time since he doesn't have it and just buy it with RMT so that they can go do other things together - why not. Chances are the guy that bought it 'earned it' just as much if not more than the guy that went and got it via drops/rep/whatever, unless people think money comes real easy in this world. Earning money in the real world is quite a bit tougher than earning gear in a virtual world when someone else pays the bills.

The real trick here is a game producer having the discipline to balance the two. Making a game with a very long time investment only to generate RMT sales is poor judgement in my opinion. Making a game with a time investment and only allowing people to buy items for cosmetic purposes is maybe a little short, but it's a start.

People find different things fun in different games. One person may think the game is all about 'earning' the gear in-game, whereas another person doesn't want to 'earn' virtual items since they're already earning their paycheck in real life and would rather use their hard-earned cash to buy the things holding them back from paying the real game - which is what many people do after they've got their basic gear.

High-end items should never be 'earned' by either time or RMT in my opinion. they should be had by skill alone since they're part of the point of some of these games. By high end, I really mean end-game stuff. Someone spending 20 hours a day and being guaranteed much of the end-game stuff via tokens or what-not is no more impressive than someone being handed those items for free, or someone buying them with RMT by dong something they're good at other than the game.

anyways, a balance of non end-game items that can be had via multiple means - acquisition over time (some call it grinding, others call it playing), RMT, skill-based contests in-game that make it quicker, etc - with real end-game items being had by doing something in-game that requires some sort of skill or mechanic the game is based on, other than time or RMT.

CyberNigma said on 9:39PM 4-09-2009

one last time - I'm an old DnD player. The thing about playing DnD is that no matter how little or how much time you had, normally your entire group of players progressed at the same rate, or close - so this was never an issue. In today's world of MMOs, we play with people asynchronously - meaning some people can play 2/3 of the day and others can only play a few hours. If you want to play together, RMT (again, not taken to an extreme) basically puts all of those people on a more even playing field. The guy that can only play a few hours a night because he's working all the time can pay a few dollars to get the stuff to go out and play the fun stuff with his buddy that for some reason or another can play for hours on end. Both of them, in essence, earn that gear - depends on your definition of earning since you may not even consider earning gear in a game as even being remotely comparable to earning a living in real life (unless you earn a living in games of course). Moderation is the key to everything I think :-)

slosh said on 2:28AM 4-10-2009

You don't have to worry about weapons being too strong in Runes of Magic. You make the weapons stronger with your own hard work then they rip from them the stats you have placed on them and replace them with some crap stats instead. Many of those weapons may have had their stats added with the help of buying items from the diamond shop. The company is bad news! DO NOT EVER purchase anything from them! They will take it away at the blink of an eye all in the excuse of balancing the game. You dont balance a game by screwing peoples equpment. That affects some poeple more than others depending on the equipment. So that is unbalancing the game even more. The business model used is very risky to the consumer. Stay farr far away from it. And in particular with Runes Of Magic.

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