I know most companies don't like players selling items from MMORPGs on Ebay. However, I read in the Themis report something like 8millions dollars in sale happened on ebay based on MMORPG sales of vitural items and characters. I don't understand why companies start to embrace this idea more. Look at the problems this could solve. If you made the money system in a game real cash for players. They could in turn make real incomes for playing a game. This could employ thousands upon thousands of users. I know your saying how does a game company come up with the money to employ all the users. It's quite simple I have a business model that outlines how both the game company and players will be able to make profit from playing a game. If you look at it if all of World of Warcrafts 250,000 users could make money that could be considered either a full time income or at least a part time income. I believe the idea should be promoted to governments because the idea of job creation on this type of scale would be huge. I am designing this idea now and I am trying to promote it to Corporate companies as well as Government leaders in Canada. I am also considering talking to other governments like the USA and Japan and China and some Europe countries as well. If you are interested to hear more about the idea you leave feedback here or email me at sales@howlingdesigns.com Good and Bad feedback would be very helpful, so I can hear some of the pros and cons of this idea.

Off the top of my head:

Player lawsuits
Real-world taxes
Rampant inflation
Gambling laws
Money laundering

Quote: Original post by Fruny
Off the top of my head:

Player lawsuits
Real-world taxes
Rampant inflation
Gambling laws
Money laundering

Cheating/Hacking/Botting/Scamming (which causes the above along with many other problems)

lawsuits would be offset right at the beginning of when they signed up because all players would read the disclaimer explaining the details of how lawsuits will be avoided.

Real world taxes would have to be worked out with the government. I thought that would be one of the major problems too. That's why I would embrace the idea of getting government support for creating the game.

I think inflation is something that can be moderately controlled, but there will be problems. However, inflation can be held to reasonable rates with restrictions and help from an economists. Gambling laws is something I have been thinking about as well. However, there are tons of Online casinos and they seem to operate pretty well. I would mostly follow the same guidelines as an online casino for gambling laws. Money laundering would be hard to see happen I think. When players are killed in the game they cannot steal other player items because thats something that would just simply create mass amounts of lawsuits that would happen inside the game environment.

I understand this might be a hard idea to show people. I thought it could never happen myself. However, when I started to designs game it started to make more sense. Then when I started to make some business projections and models it started to show how much a player and how much a company could make. I already saw on enteral lands that somebody bought a property there for $26,500 now who would spend that type of money on a virtual property unless they knew that they could make there money back. Also, second life allows the players to exchange there game credits for real US dollar figures. I can see a trend of this happening on a small scale now, but the potential could be huge if it is embrace right.

Cheating/Hacking/Botting/Scamming (which causes the above along with many other problems)

all those things above would be outlawed in the game. Since this is a game that has real money systems outside hacking, scamming, cheating would allow have sevre punishments that could lead to jail time or high government fines. Thats another reason I would be looking at governments for helping me create the game.

Quote: Original post by shadow66ca2000
lawsuits would be offset right at the beginning of when they signed up because all players would read the disclaimer explaining the details of how lawsuits will be avoided.

Which may or may not be binding depending on local laws. Good luck with that.

Quote: However, inflation can be held to reasonable rates with restrictions and help from an economists.

As soon as you assign a real-world value to your in-game money, you have to have the real-world money to back it up. Player subscriptions effectively put an upper limit to how much money you can print each month without risking serious real-world problems, which also has an effect on the value of in-game non-cash items.

Quote: Original post by shadow66ca2000
Cheating/Hacking/Botting/Scamming (which causes the above along with many other problems)

all those things above would be outlawed in the game. Since this is a game that has real money systems outside hacking, scamming, cheating would allow have sevre punishments that could lead to jail time or high government fines. Thats another reason I would be looking at governments for helping me create the game.

Outlawing it won't stop it from happening - you should acquaint yourself with how online casinos, poker sites, etc... deal with the issue. You're essentially proposing to open a bank (or, depending on the way you look at it, create a new currency), which is definitely no trivial matter, regardless of any 'game' consideration. See Paypal.

That's wonderful and all, but what, really, is the practicality of this anyway? I wouldn't say this helps to create jobs. It means that more money has to be pumped into the gamer-player cycle (since only the businesses are already generating revenue from the games). And what government is going to go for creating "jobs" that would have people making their livings in a way that is entirely unproductive to society?

And if it were to take off, do you know how many people would do ANYTHING for a job like that? Hell, if I could get paid full-time wages to play a computer game (I realize there's more to it than that), I'd do it. But say that that opens up 250 000 jobs. Well, those 250 000 people would likely not be transferring in from an unemployed status since there are startup costs that no government would ever subsidize; they'd be leaving other jobs that need to be filled. I suppose that's fine when you've only got a number like that. Now imagine if that were applied on a much larger scale. You could end up with jobs that aren't being filled because nobody would want them anymore since they could easily make as much or more playing this game. Seriously, do you know anyone who would work at McDonalds for minimum wage when they could make much higher income playing a game? I don't either. So unless McDonalds increases their wages to be competitive with this game, then that could easily be the end of McDonalds! (Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing...) They increase their wages, then so do all competitors and so on cascading upwards causing... you guessed it! Inflation!

This is of course assuming that registering for these games remains as is. After all, who would subject themselves to going for an interview to determine their eleigibility to play a computer game. Essentially, I can't see the recruitment process being any more rigorous than that at a fast-food chain because then nobody would bother with it. Further, what kind of qualifications could you possibly enforce?! "I'm sorry. We require all of our wizards to have at least a college diploma in online sorcery..."

Lastly, I really don't see how your business model would work. The game companies profit, the players profit. All that money has to come from somewhere. Where is that exactly?

Maybe it's just me, but the thought of creating an intangible meta-universe in which one's participation rewards them in this one is just a little unsettling to me...

-AUron

Quote: Original post by Auron
Lastly, I really don't see how your business model would work. The game companies profit, the players profit. All that money has to come from somewhere. Where is that exactly?

Well worth repeating.

And before you say "advertisers", keep in mind it has already been tried (q.v. those "get paid to surf" programs).

I was part of those paid to surf. What a waste of time that was for me. Advertising could help and couldn't help. Now I understand that if the project became big enough to kill Mc Donalds that would be insane. Where the money would come from is through the company and players. A certain amount of money will come from monthly subscribitions and player purchased items. For example, maybe something like 1 dollar from every subscribition will be allocated towards rewards for characters. However, something as small as a healing potion might cost about $5 or something in the game. So money will be filtered through the system in out from players and the company. I am trying to contact Paypal big time because I think this would be a perfect project for them to look at. I also understand that not everybody who played it would make a profit. In change you could end up losing money, but the potential is there. It's like Vegas they offer people the chance to win tons of money, but at the same time they could end losing there life savings. Something like that could happen in the game as well. Also one of the reasons I am considering this game is so that people wouldn't have to work at McDonalds or something. I worked construction and I hated it.
I would not impose qualifictions to play. However, more skilled players would be able to make more money. In the end there might be school around the world that could offer courses to play the game a certain way. Like who needs any knowledge to sign up for Ebay and start selling. All you need is a credit card. I've heard success stories about people quitting there jobs to make more money on Ebay. I think the same thing would kind of happen in the Game world as well.

My background is business and I think for sure by business model would work. For governments offering money. I like how secretly government give corporation large amounts of money. For example, the Ontario Government gave over 450 million to FORD this year. I wouldn't even look for a quarter of that much money from the government. To me the government could be helpful by offering advice as well. I am setting up a meeting with a canadian government offical in the next week or so. I also don't feel safe explaining in-depth how my business model works online.