Real Player to Player Cash Transactions

I heard in one of your most recent Live Chats about how you currently intend to charge X amount for player housing. Which I would assume would also include things like player run shops etc. If you are going to do this you might consider that some people are always going to sell in game items for cash. It would probably be in everyone's best interest to have a way to sell goods for cash within the framework of your game.

People who own shops could have items up for sale in their shop at a Gold Price and also have it listed for a Real World Value. Like 2000 Gold for a Suit of armor or $5 Dollars and of course the "Game" could tax that amount in addition to what say paypal would charge for said transaction.

If you put it in place from the start there will be less of these websites trying to scam people to use their service to buy and sell items. Instead you will have a source of income that would otherwise be a kind of black market only. You know people will pay for digital items, I'm not saying have loads of micro transactions for items from your company; however between players is a whole other matter and might as well be allowed. If you don't put your own mechanism in place for this someone else will. It would be better for your company to facilitate it in a legal way and gain profit from it rather than it devolve into a number of shady websites.

It would potentially also encourage others, to rent those more expensive pieces of real estate to sell their goods from as well. You could also have the deeds of such locations sold for real currency, and take your percentage from that as well. I've heard stories in the past of people paying upwards of $5000 Dollars for things in various video games. You might as well setup a system that could facilitate it, since it will be there anyways.

 

I won't lie: the only reason I'd even consider playing "Diablo III" would be the real-world auction house. There is a definite appeal to that kind of market. If you can manage the transactions, there's worlds more money to be made, as well.
...but you also get that "element".
<i>"Virtue gets blurry when gold blinds the eye."</i> ~Me, just now.
I hated UO, because it turned "Adventure" into a 9-to-5 tedium: Re-spawn/Re-kill/Repeat.
The harvesters will be here in droves, especially if the in-game exchange rate approaches their nation currency's value. "Ever-crack" had an exchange rate that was better than the yen! The Entropia PED is stronger than the Ruble, so most of the people I met there were earning a living, from their flat in St-Petersburg.
I would love to earn money from playing a game, but not at the cost of <i>Playing</i> the <i>Game</i>.
If there's a work-around, I'd love to hear it.
It's "The Repeating Thief" all over again: Don't make a rule that you <i>don't</i> want them playing-by!

 

I would REALLY HATE to see real money involved in this. Seriously. I want to have fun and share this fun with some people. This is not actually possible if my partner is only thinking "0h my g0$h I can $ell this $worddd for over twenty buck$$$$" And don't tell me "YOU play just for fun" because there's gonna be some smartass getting with a few clicks the same thing that I get playing X hours while another dude is getting "rich" in the proccess.

I hate the real money thing in Diablo3 and I'm gonna keep hating it til I die or stop playing.

 

Lord British in all of the statements I have seen him make seems to have taken the whole RMT aspect as a curiosity. I hope that Portalarium doesn't simply knee-jerk against player to player RMT.

However, if they do work in an RMT system, it needs to take a couple of considerations into account. First and foremost, they need to provide a secure and neutral ground for such transaction to take place. Secondly, whatever cut that Portalarium would take would need to be fair to both the players and the company. Third, a portion of the proceeds would need to fund a team of representatives to investigate and remove (ban) players who are caught exploiting the game as well as people who spam chat channels with RMT advertisements.

If the game is online, persistent, and multiplayer, RMT is going to exist whether anyone likes it or not. Portalarium can accept that fact and work with or against it, but it WILL be there.

RMT <i>by itself</i> to me is in no way cheating. The ingame exchange happens the same as if you're simply giving a player an item for nothing (the other part of the exchange happens outside of the game). Yes, people exploit in order to attain more goods for RMT purposes, but the problem is with EXPLOITING (duping, scripting, etc) which is where the efforts to remove problem players resides.

My vote is to allow RMT, but come down HARD on people who exploit in ways that can affect the ingame economy.

 

@Dermott

I agree, RMT will always occur in games that are popular enough. It would be better to work within legitimate means rather than shady other types of RMT through 3rd parties.