Originally posted by Lanthir

hate to point this out  but no where did I see where it bans them from  selling virtual items to customers in foregin countries.  The ban prevents them from selling virtual coin in china it does not mean that it restricts sells to overseas customers.  Really need to get a translated copy of the actuall rulling and any laws that come out of it.

 

Second not sure what China's form of government has to do with this. It is no different than if the passed a law here in the U.S.  restricting virtual sales. 

On a side note Blizzard did win a large multimillon pound judegment against  a compay that made a  bot farming sofware program used by some to farm in WoW

It states that only the issuing company can sell virtual products.  IE WoW gold, could only be sold by Blizzard.  Doesn't matter who it's sold to, from what I read, as it's illegal to sell virtual products "will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer".

And yes, they won a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and Mercury had a lot of companies using his product in China, however there are still other companies that provide bots in China that hasn't changed.  There are at least 2 major players in China providing bots there.

This does nothing to stop gold farming, they can still amass the virtual goods in china and then just trade them out of country through a foriegn office or a middleman like a gold and item market...

Oh wait... they already do that to avoid other regulations.

This isn't to stop goldfarming, it is to stop unauthorized resale and trading of game cards and RMT credits.

MMORPG.com should change the title! 

I think this move is more about trying to stop a possible way of laundering money by organized crime than about helping western gamers.

My Partner: China bars use of virtual money for trading in real goods . this law is use for game company.
My Partner: real goods is not real money :P
Me: can you explain more please?
Me: does this mean, can't use virtual gold to buy things like game cards or other products that are real?
My Partner: Some games can use virtual gold buy real products,like QQ games,virtual=/money,but just daid that,it for the game company

I think what the law is, is something similar to what happened in the 60's in Las Vegas NV, where as a lot of players would go to a gift shop or restaurant and pay with play currency, such as a $5 gaming chip.  So the government came in, and required that each player must cash out to US currency before paying for things.  The reasoning behind this, is that the US government didn't want Nevada to have their own currency, thus disrupting the US economy. 

Hope that helps everyone to understand better... this in fact does not mess with gold sellers, as gold sellers do not pay ofr things with gold, although some websites do sell game cards in excahnge for gold, so I will assume that that portion would have to stop.  But at this point it's all a wait and see, if it will affect gold sellers (and see teh Chinese govt lose out on a 15% sur tax - I doubt it)

I seems to me that this is a strike at F2P games in China more than anything else.  All the money was probably going to Korea and the North Koreans objected to this.  So the Chinese acted.  Straightforward to me.  If the amount of money going out of the country was that high and most of it going to Korea, I might have done the same thing.  If I were a communist leader running my one party state.

N4

The little critters of nature. They don't know that they're ugly. That's very funny! A fly marrying a
bumblebee. I told you I'd shoot! But you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me?!

That basically sums it up, don't ya think?

Banning and being able to enforce it two different things, I am glad to see this, I was so sick of gold spam in my games, and  along with all the other things gold farmers did to secure an account... Doubt I will see any changes, it will just shift to some other country... maybe if it would have stayed on ebay like it used to be it would have not been such an issue, taking allot of fun out of game play with the constant tells and mails, and shame on those that bought gold... I buy as game to play it  myself....

To start off we may not see any effect at all.

However.....

Once some people start getting arrested for their GoldFarmerz.com company and thrown in Chinese Jails THEN we will start to see a sudden decline.  They will try to go elsewhere but with S.Korea and now China both having laws against these will limit their options.   About dern time too.

all I can say is - wait 3 months, look at your fave game's economy, then look at 6 months, then at 12... only then will we really know what affect this actually has on our games.

btw... a few of us in eve actively hunt goldfarmers and goldsellers, suicide gank ftw.

lol

they banned gold farming now, to have it legalized later and under their government control.

always went like this

This is what the law means....

There is an increasing trend of criminal organisations working RMT activities in China to make easy money from the west, the Chinese government has always been after these and has sent numerous groups to jail already.

What this law really does, it not stop RMT activity, it merely allows the Chinese government to close down and jail all RMT groups with staff in China whether they have proof they are criminals or not.

So, typical government tactics, if you can't find the evidence, make it up. But they do this all over the world, only difference with China is that they actually make it legal :)

Good news for anyone who doesn't like gold farmers / spammers.

as with everything else in china, this is short for "officials will now require industry standard bribes to grant official exemptions to regulations".

Only company this is going to hurt is Second Life, good ridence.

Meh. Gold farming will just move to India or some other country instead.

I don't really mind gold farmers as long as they don't spam and don't take over the servers and make it hard for other players to find quest mobs and so on.

That said I don't find any enjoyment in buying game currency. I like to play the game as it was designed and if you need to buy currency to have time to enjoy the game, and not just grind (Lineage 2 for me), that game is poorly designed and need to change it's economy.

Reading comprehension FTW.

Based on the description in the article, this does NOT appear to ban gold-farming and selling.  In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with it at all.

Originally posted by vandalazzo

lol

they banned gold farming now, to have it legalized later and under their government control.

always went like this

Same will happen in US as well since both china and US are communist now

I find it amusing that people are predicting a mass exodus from games like World of Warcraft and Eve. It's amusing because it isn't going to happen. What will happen is the RMT industry will continue with a vengeance, prices will increase as companies move thier opperations to more forgiving countries and those who buy currency and other services will continue to buy currency and other services.

This $200 million dollar a year industry will continue to be a $200 million dollar a year industry. Growth may well slow, prices will most certainly increase (with inital rises possibly moving as high as 250-500% above thier current figures) but RMT will continue.

So yeah, RMT is down but it certainly isn't out.

I shall blog about this later <3

From what I'm reading, this law is going to do nothing to stop gold farming.  If anything, it is only going to increase the gold farmers' impact.

What this law is designed to do is to prevent gold farmers from acquiring real goods and services for virtual gold.  It does not, however, prevent gold farmers from acquiring real currency for virtual gold.  If anything, the law only strengthened the relationship between real currency and virtual gold, because it admits that virtual gold "is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate."

I presume the law was created because people were using virtual currency to engage in transactions that would be illegal if done with regular currency: things like gambling and prostitution.  They might also be using virtual currency to purchase goods and services without having to pay tax.  The Chinese government don't want that, obviously.

But this law says nothing about selling gold for real dollars...or yuan...or euros.  In fact, that's probably the only thing you can get for virtual gold under this law.  So instead of decreasing the impact of gold farmers in the game, this law is going to increase it.  Since the farmers can no longer buy food, a nice date, or a casino binge with virtual gold; all the people using farming to get those things are now going to be farming for dollars and euros.

And don't think for a moment that China doesn't like a ton of dollars and euros coming into their economy.

Originally posted by rikilii

Reading comprehension FTW.

Based on the description in the article, this does NOT appear to ban gold-farming and selling.  In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with it at all.

which was my point earlier.  It seems to cover party A from selling virtual coins to party B which party B would then trade to party C for real goods or currency.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

From what I'm reading, this law is going to do nothing to stop gold farming.  If anything, it is only going to increase the gold farmers' impact.

What this law is designed to do is to prevent gold farmers from acquiring real goods and services for virtual gold.  It does not, however, prevent gold farmers from acquiring real currency for virtual gold.  If anything, the law only strengthened the relationship between real currency and virtual gold, because it admits that virtual gold "is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate."

I presume the law was created because people were using virtual currency to engage in transactions that would be illegal if done with regular currency: things like gambling and prostitution.  They might also be using virtual currency to purchase goods and services without having to pay tax.  The Chinese government don't want that, obviously.

But this law says nothing about selling gold for real dollars...or yuan...or euros.  In fact, that's probably the only thing you can get for virtual gold under this law.  So instead of decreasing the impact of gold farmers in the game, this law is going to increase it.  Since the farmers can no longer buy food, a nice date, or a casino binge with virtual gold; all the people using farming to get those things are now going to be farming for dollars and euros.

And don't think for a moment that China doesn't like a ton of dollars and euros coming into their economy.

Ok, I see gold farming being a mouth watering temptation in WoW....But in Warhammer you must be without a doubt a lazy mold covering your brain caural player to buy gold......It so bloomin easy to get that I have a 20 gold surplus on my Tier 1 character....So if you want to toss money into a black hole, goto church and tith.
 

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost

hey, anybody who believes this will make any sort of difference:

I have a few bridges to sell you...

Exactly.

I see the rest of the worlds gold farmers pulling in the slack when this hits.

Originally posted by Lanthir

Originally posted by rikilii

Reading comprehension FTW.

Based on the description in the article, this does NOT appear to ban gold-farming and selling.  In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with it at all.

 

which was my point earlier.  It seems to cover party A from selling virtual coins to party B which party B would then trade to party C for real goods or currency.

It does indeed ban gold-farming. Only the company will be able to sell virtual currency(edited this part as it looks like you can still sell items)... "legally". I seriously doubt this will even make a dent in gold sales, though.

"The statement said Tencent had strongly opposed the underground trading of virtual money, which could enable online theft and fraud. The company would work with the authorities to combat online crimes, according to the statement.

Cui Ran, an expert on the Chinese online industry, said the regulation aimed to "nip illegal online activities in the bud," as current trading volume was still too small to shake the nation's entire financial system.

But as the trade expanded steadily, with increasing conversions between virtual and real money, there would be an impact on the financial system, he noted. "

It does indeed ban gold-farming. Only the company will be able to sell virtual currency(edited this part as it looks like you can still sell items)... "legally". I seriously doubt this will even make a dent in gold sales, though.

 

How?  What about farming and selling gold involves the exchange of real world goods for virtual currency?

LOL,

If this is affective (which it won't), instead of deciphering broken Chinese English, I gotta figure out broken Mexican English.  Being from Texas, I'll get by.