China weighs in, bans farming in MMOs.
By
Bad_Influence,
Posted on: 2009-06-29 24:52 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Good luck with that China. Let us know how it turns out.
::not holding his breath::
The title of your thread is wrong.
will be interesting to follow.
i wonder if this might be followed up with changes in the great fire wall to block mmo servers in some way or another to 'save the children'.
Kittens give Morbo gas.
Not only is the title wrong and misleading your article quote even tells you it is.
cynic that I am, I look at that and see it as an excuse for them to 'crack down' on companies that don't have cozy governmental connections, reducing competition for those that DO.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services. Defined to include pre-paid game time cards
[/ QUOTE ]So what're they gonna do about EVE, where trading ISK for time cards is legal?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
The claim that it's being done to curb online gambling is high-moraled, but given the size of the industry in China, I suspect that it was more a case of government officials not getting paid off to ignore it, and it will be determined that gold farming is not "gambling" for the purposes of enforcement of the new regulations once the appropriate baksheesh has changed hands.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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The claim that it's being done to curb online gambling is high-moraled, but given the size of the industry in China, I suspect that it was more a case of government officials not getting paid off to ignore it, and it will be determined that gold farming is not "gambling" for the purposes of enforcement of the new regulations once the appropriate baksheesh has changed hands.
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Much more elegantly put than my post- I agree entirely.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
cynic that I am, I look at that and see it as an excuse for them to 'crack down' on companies that don't have cozy governmental connections, reducing competition for those that DO.
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That's not being a Cynic. That's realizing how it *WORKS*.
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cynic that I am, I look at that and see it as an excuse for them to 'crack down' on companies that don't have cozy governmental connections, reducing competition for those that DO.
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That's not being a Cynic. That's realizing how it *WORKS*.
[/ QUOTE ]
This.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
QR: this might as well be the following headline:
"OCEAN BANS FISH! PICTURES AT ELEVEN, STAY TUNED!"
Seriously, China trying to ban this stuff is like the ocean trying to ban fish. That'll work....! 
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Seriously, China trying to ban this stuff is like the ocean trying to ban fish. That'll work....!
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Given enough toxic waste...
But yeah. China isn't going anywhere with this.
Infatum on Virtueverse
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...for all the good it's going to do in the long run.
Information Week has posted an article about China's declaration that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services. Defined to include pre-paid game time cards, a joint release by China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday stated, "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." While a concerted effort to crack down on the backbone of RMT enterprises -- the low-paid gold farmers -- will impact the 'industry', there will undoubtedly be ways found around the regulations; however, in the short term, this is going to have to hurt the RMT spammers where they live, as 80%-85% of the gold farmers are believed to be in China. The ban is not, however, being presented as legislating compliance with RMT bans by game companies, but rather as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.
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what a lot of people dont realize is this simple fact - this will have no impact on the spammers
the overwhelming majority of the spammers are for sites that infect your computer with keyloggers so they can steal your accounts, strip them and sell THAT currency - not what they can farm.
I wonder how this would impact virtual worlds (Second Life, IMVU, There, Etc) where a virtual currency is used as a legitimate part of the game's ability to compensate professional development of content. In said worlds, the source of the currency is itself a Real Money Transaction, where the user pays the game company at a set rate. Developers charge users to access their content, then resell the currency for real money. Without the developers able to do this, the whole business model falls apart.
No more tips to pole dancing Chinese cat girls.
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No more tips to pole dancing Chinese cat girls.
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...dammit.
This just in: China has decided that instead of Gold Farmers, they are going to start with something easier to ban.
Like breathing.
...for all the good it's going to do in the long run.
Information Week has posted an article about China's declaration that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services. Defined to include pre-paid game time cards, a joint release by China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday stated, "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." While a concerted effort to crack down on the backbone of RMT enterprises -- the low-paid gold farmers -- will impact the 'industry', there will undoubtedly be ways found around the regulations; however, in the short term, this is going to have to hurt the RMT spammers where they live, as 80%-85% of the gold farmers are believed to be in China. The ban is not, however, being presented as legislating compliance with RMT bans by game companies, but rather as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers