Professional Farmers

[Chesspiece_face]

I don't understand what you mean with 'in-house farming operations'? Could you elaborate, please?

And about EQ2 allowing buying online items...I think it should be noted here, that it is not the norm and not allowed on most servers. You make it sound like EQ2 is in general allowing this, when it's not true. They have 2 special servers for that, the rest of the servers are 'normal' :)
[right][snapback]96180[/snapback][/right]

Meaning that they have taken the business models of the 3rd party companies that fuel the secondary market and have moved those models into the primary market. These secondary markets like IGE etc. have already proven to be a billion dollar industry and the excursions into this area by the likes of SOE and EA (Ultima Online) have, by the admission of the publishers, been entirely successful monitarily.

These examples of SOE (EQ2) and EA (UO) are only the first we will probably be seeing of developers and publishers encorporating models of the secondary market directly into their games.

Now, like I mentioned above, It is very easy for the secondary markets like IGE to be discounted (especially in America) by thier obvious divergence with the EULA's and TOS related to each of these specific games. Unfortunately these games are international in design and the laws that govern each region greatly differ. Over the last year in places like Thailand, China, and across Asia consumer protection laws have been put in place that guarantee players of these games certain rights over the items, characters, etc. that they invest in. In China it is required that the games reimburse players for lost or stolen items and that these items are property of the players. In Thaiwan rulings have stated that the data being transfered in these games constitutes magnetic property, meaning that the items and characters in these games are protected under anti-fraud. These differing laws and regulations across regions, in and of itself, creates a great lack of harmonization in how these games environments can grow, but think what will happen when more companies begin moving the secondary market into the primary.

If that company itself markets "Holy Sword of Ragnarok" as 15$ through their service they are putting a monetary value associated with said item. Now under the laws of these other regions, not only would that company have to give the player that item back but, if for whatever reason, they could not do so they would OWE the player that 15$ that the company lists as the value of said item.

Monjojerry - Sorry but you are way off here. The only country that has made laws, that i know of, supporting the validity of EULAs as enforcable contracts has been the USA. Many more countries where these games are played are making laws that give much more control and ownership to the players than the companies. That's just a fact. Now these laws are in their infancy presently, but you can be assured that in places like China, Thaiwan, and the rest of Asia the laws will continue to build in the direction they are now. While presently the regulations in America have barely attempted to tackle this subject I would be suprised if they didn't follow last years Blizzard case in enforcing EULA's creating a great divergance in the regulations required to operate an international MMO such as WoW. And as such this will have great repercusions on how these games are designed, operated, and marketed in the near future.

Edit: I again point to the link i listed above. The State of the Industry Breakfast a little way down addresses many of these issues arising in the area. If you have an hour or so to watch.