Article Source: www.warcry.com.
Today and every Saturday, two of our writers are going to team up and duke it out in an editorial debate. Each of these debates will examine a core issue for the MMO gamer. We kick things off with the mother of them all: the secondary market. What do you think of gold farming, powerleveling services, account selling? Patrick Driggett argues that they're a fair part of
the game and Dave Gammon counters that they drive people away. Dave and Patrick are both staffers on WarCry sites.
Read what they think, then click on to our message boards and get on board yourself.Debate: The Secondary MarketPatrick Driggett (FOR) vs. Dave Gammon (AGAINST)
Patrick Driggett: While the stance for being Pro-Secondary Market is probably quite unpopular, I believe that it is a topic that cannot be analyzed in a vacuum.
It has been said that it hurts the internal economy of a given game world and creates a rift between casual players and those who buy gold or services. However, it should be considered that without the accounts being paid for by commercial gold farmers, that the developers would not have as large a budget to do any number of things, including bug fixes and new content generation.
It can also be said that the amount of people contributing to the market is much higher than expected as the value of accounts are have their own monetary value. While this does not, in itself, make it right, it does lend to the fact that a large population of gamers see it as an acceptable practice to include into their game play. Additionally, stepping outside of the big, triple-A, MMORPG titles, there are many successful games that allow for the secondary market to exist without damaging the player base, their experience, or the in-game economy, as it is an option anyone can partake in.
Dave Gammon: While this secondary market may help with subscriptions, that money from farming isn't going to the developer/publisher. They lose out even more because they're generally giving people a deal on subscription rates. 14
days of powerleveling from 60-70 on WoW can cost around 300 dollars. If the game companies wanted to, they could have a GM move someone up in level in a matter of seconds for as much or as little as they wanted. They couldn't get away with it, because people would see that as greed or cheapening of the game, which is what this secondary market is already doing. It might be more acceptable, but that acceptance doesn't come without regret because there isn't much that can be done to stop the secondary market.
The real problem with this secondary market is that it ruins the experience of all the gamers. Most normal MMO players try to make their own money and farm bosses and such. In games like Final Fantasy XI, boss mobs can be covered almost 24/7 by these farming crews, making it severely difficult for someone to make any attempt to catch any of these mobs. The items end up in the auction house or available for direct sale on their site. Either way, they win. Not only do they sell the items, but they also create the demand by monopolizing the spawns.
The other experience killer comes as a result of the powerleveling that's available. The
player that buys their way to the top generally has no clue what they're doing and this makes things like raids and simple grouping very annoying to those that actually know how to play their class. It's maddening when the guy who is supposed to watch your back cannot figure out how to attack.
Patrick Driggett: I that a lot of assumptions are being made. First of all, you have
generalized the Secondary Market but only provided points concerning power leveling and farming. The Secondary Market can provide sustainable income to the company through subscriptions of gold farming, buying and selling accounts. If someone has given their account to be powerleveled, they have introduced a problem in the form of account compromise. They have given a Secondary Market vendor their account information and in some point in the future it