04-21-2005, 12:56 PM
Actually Sony's strategy may be quite devious
There doesn't seem to be any prospect of a legal challenge to the trade in online items. By setting up their own "ebay" they have a much stronger position from which to ask ebay and the others to cease and desist reselling their items since it competes with their proprietary service.
Also it gives them a slice of the pie that's currently helping ebay get fat
I can see the business point of view
The key thing is whether players care. Sony's research suggests they don't.
I think I will never pay RL money for a level 60 character or an uber sword. It's just a game and there really isnt a great difference between playing it at level 20 or playing it at level 60, from what I can see. But I think there's already precedent for this in official game products. In DAOC the expansions contained new more powerful items that you needed to be competitive in pvp. So players who couldn't give a rat's arse about the extra content bought them anyway to remain competitive in pvp. That's paying for uber items, isn't it?
I think part of my feeling is that I'm unlikely to be the guy with maxxed out character and all the latest uber drops. That's probably not logical, chances are I will end up at that end of the game simply because I play a lot, have fun and try to be effective but it at least feels remote at the moment
Maybe once I'm level 60 my feelings on ebayers will change but at the moment I'm not too fussed. So what if someone has an uber sword from ebay? Is it really any different from some random idiot who's utterly useless but who got lucky with the roll after a mindless zerg forced the drop?
The game's too easy. I'd be pissed off if the chess world champion became world champion by buying two extra rooks for cash and slipping them onto the board. But someone succeeding in WoW because of this? I find it hard to care
There doesn't seem to be any prospect of a legal challenge to the trade in online items. By setting up their own "ebay" they have a much stronger position from which to ask ebay and the others to cease and desist reselling their items since it competes with their proprietary service.
Also it gives them a slice of the pie that's currently helping ebay get fat
I can see the business point of view
The key thing is whether players care. Sony's research suggests they don't.
I think I will never pay RL money for a level 60 character or an uber sword. It's just a game and there really isnt a great difference between playing it at level 20 or playing it at level 60, from what I can see. But I think there's already precedent for this in official game products. In DAOC the expansions contained new more powerful items that you needed to be competitive in pvp. So players who couldn't give a rat's arse about the extra content bought them anyway to remain competitive in pvp. That's paying for uber items, isn't it?
I think part of my feeling is that I'm unlikely to be the guy with maxxed out character and all the latest uber drops. That's probably not logical, chances are I will end up at that end of the game simply because I play a lot, have fun and try to be effective but it at least feels remote at the moment
Maybe once I'm level 60 my feelings on ebayers will change but at the moment I'm not too fussed. So what if someone has an uber sword from ebay? Is it really any different from some random idiot who's utterly useless but who got lucky with the roll after a mindless zerg forced the drop?
The game's too easy. I'd be pissed off if the chess world champion became world champion by buying two extra rooks for cash and slipping them onto the board. But someone succeeding in WoW because of this? I find it hard to care