How much money could a UO gold seller make selling UO gold ?

[Barrakketh]

Lets say out of a customer base of about 50,000 active players say any 10% buy game gold on a monthly bases. And say the average gold sold is 5 million UO gold per customer at a cost of $1.00 US dollar per million gold or $5.00 US dollars per each customer each month.

That would come to $25,000 a month in total sales each month.

So even if you are one of 10 UO gold sellers you could still make $2,500 a month.

So I guess it really could pay well to be a UO gold seller.

My next question is , why does'nt EA/UO sell game gold to subscribers ?

 

[legendsguy]

As much money as a UO gold seller could make selling UO gold if a UO gold seller could sell gold.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Selling gold depends on the cost of the gold they are selling vs the amount of gold they can produce for sale vs the number of clients the gold seller has.

I would NEVER want EA/UO to sell ingame gold as that would be gold created from NOTHING. As of right now, assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved a gold seller must obtain their gold through ingame means be it selling stuff, IDOCing and selling loot and placed houses, farming, or buying gold at a marked down cost from other players. Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE. For EA to sell ingame gold for real cash, all they have to do is generate the amount of gold sold which in effect does the same thing as duping (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

 

[Barrakketh]

...

assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

LOL as IF they arent !!

 

[Barrakketh]

...

Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE.

Oh r e a l l yyyyyyyyyyyyy ?


hmmmm :redx:

 

[Barrakketh]

So even if you are one of 10 UO gold sellers you could still make $2,500 a month.

So I guess it really could pay well to be a UO gold seller.

My next question is , why does'nt EA/UO sell game gold to subscribers ?

Maybe this would finally kill off all the scripters tooo

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The whole point was to take that aspect out of the equation thus the later comparing duping to counterfeiting.

It was also to explain that a gold seller must first ACQUIRE the gold they are selling and that ASSUMING you REMOVE the illegal activities from the list for the sake of argument, that the time it takes to obtain the necessary gold to sell plays into how much a gold seller can make in the end.

Again, creating gold from NOTHING is a problem and SHOULD NEVER BE DONE regardless if it's by a player or by the Devs/Company running the game. The day you see EA selling UO gold for real money is the day you see the end of UO.

Now beyond that, I have no problem and very vocally advocate the notion that EA?Mythic opens up an auction site for ingame items so players have an out of game site that allows payment in both ingame gold and real money, but that tags the auction accounts to your game accounts so that people who ARE exploiting can be investigated and busted. Monitor and Moderate out of game sales to me is fine. For the company to be involved in them, ESPECIALLY ingame currency is a BIG no-no.

 

[Mankind]

...

Selling gold depends on the cost of the gold they are selling vs the amount of gold they can produce for sale vs the number of clients the gold seller has.

I would NEVER want EA/UO to sell ingame gold as that would be gold created from NOTHING. As of right now, assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved a gold seller must obtain their gold through ingame means be it selling stuff, IDOCing and selling loot and placed houses, farming, or buying gold at a marked down cost from other players. Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE. For EA to sell ingame gold for real cash, all they have to do is generate the amount of gold sold which in effect does the same thing as duping (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

Spoken like a true "In Game Gold for Real Life Cash" dealer. Worried EA might cause you to have to go back to work eh?

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

If I could make enough to do so, I would. As it is, the per hour rate to do so is far far below minimum wage for me that I think I'll keep my current job in the shipwreck conservation field.

However, I have no problem with free market enterprise and will defend it when it is done in a legal manner. I have been VERY vocal that duping/exploiting/scripting are a HUGE problem with the game's economy, but THAT is the PROBLEM, not player to player sales (yes, real money is a REASON why people d/e/s, but it is not the problem itself as plenty of legitimate players also sell for real money).

Not a dealer, just a defender of the practice... as long as the gathering of the items for sale is done in a legal manner (which scripting, duping, and exploiting obviously is NOT). A monitored and moderated trade system run by the UO Team would go a LONG way in establishing a place for legit transactions, marginalize the exploiters and help the UO economy rebound.

 

[timbeOFbaja]

...

Selling gold depends on the cost of the gold they are selling vs the amount of gold they can produce for sale vs the number of clients the gold seller has.

I would NEVER want EA/UO to sell ingame gold as that would be gold created from NOTHING. As of right now, assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved a gold seller must obtain their gold through ingame means be it selling stuff, IDOCing and selling loot and placed houses, farming, or buying gold at a marked down cost from other players. Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE. For EA to sell ingame gold for real cash, all they have to do is generate the amount of gold sold which in effect does the same thing as duping (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

Spoken like a true "In Game Gold for Real Life Cash" dealer. Worried EA might cause you to have to go back to work eh?

No kidding. EA sells all kinds of things created from nothing.....chargers, tokens, aniversary items, etc. Guess what, UO is still here.

 

[concernedplayer]

...

Selling gold depends on the cost of the gold they are selling vs the amount of gold they can produce for sale vs the number of clients the gold seller has.

I would NEVER want EA/UO to sell ingame gold as that would be gold created from NOTHING. As of right now, assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved a gold seller must obtain their gold through ingame means be it selling stuff, IDOCing and selling loot and placed houses, farming, or buying gold at a marked down cost from other players. Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE. For EA to sell ingame gold for real cash, all they have to do is generate the amount of gold sold which in effect does the same thing as duping (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

EA should sell gold. I repeat, EA should sell gold. One more time, EA should sell gold.

Why? Maybe they'll give a rats ass about the fact 99% of all high end items in the game are duped. Maybe they'll give a rats ass about exploits and scripting and duping. Nobody will buy their gold if everyone is buying duper's gold ... yeah let the dupers become direct competitors with EA for real cash and lets see if that doesn't give them financial incentive to fix up the screwed up economy.

Then whatever EA settles on as their safe and secure sales price, players will come in with a price slightly cheaper and it'll become stable.

Contradicting myself though, EA has that right now with xshard token transfers ... they're competing with credit card thieves producing massive amounts of tokens and selling them in game for gold, exchanging the gold for real cash. This has been going on for years and years, and look at all the cheap transfer tokens available ... gold is worth less than a dollar a mil and thousands of tokens being sold for 12ish million ... $12 value .. how they do that when tokens cost $19.99? Because they're stolen.

So I guess if EA won't put the time and effort into preventing credit card thieves, I guess they won't do what it takes to prevent dupers from competing with them even if they sold gold. But it'd be nice if they did.

 

[Mankind]

You know, it's one thing when EA allows ( I use the word "allow" loosely) players to cheat each other, or to scam in game, and even get away with 3rd party cheats, but how on earth are they allowing goods to be sold when they were purchased with stolen CCs? Your post is the first I've read where items that are only supposed to be obtainable by purchase, are being sold for less cash than they are originally priced at....amazing EA.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

A game REGARDLESS of what that game is, should NEVER sell ingame currency for out of game money. That leads to too many issues not the least of which are the ingame economy and the notion of "rich players buying their power".

The BIGGEST difference between gold sold by EA and gold sold by a player is that the gold sold by a player must be generated somehow ingame. Gold sold by EA DOES NOT.

Yes, there are HUGE problems with exploiters in UO right now and the Devs are in DIRE need of getting control of that aspect. You will NEVER get an argument to the contrary about that from me.

However EA selling gold is NOT the answer.

Secondly, I'm of the FIRM opinion that as long as a player gains whatever gold they gain ingame, AND it is done via LEGAL ingame means, then it is NOONE else's business what they do with that ingame gold. Not mine, and not yours. It's THEIRS.

Now you say "Well, it's not theirs either, it's EA's... and it stays EA's. If you want to get technical, the GOLD itself NEVER CHANGES OWNERSHIP, it is merely transferred from one character to another, so basically "gold sales" are more correctly "gold transfer sales".

Finally, a moderated auction site by EA would be tied DIRECTLY to each user's account and would actually be useful in TWO ways:

1. A dedicated support staff can moderate the site and tag auctions and thus accounts for investigation (all done behind the scenes). Case in point, if someone is offering 250 million gold per acution and has several such auctions in progress for EVERY shard, then that could trigger a needed investigation. If the account is deemed legit, the auctions go through, if the account is found to be exploiting, then action can be taken accordingly.

2. Real money sales could be charged a listing fee bringing in extra $$$ to the UO project.

 

[concernedplayer]

You know, it's one thing when EA allows ( I use the word "allow" loosely) players to cheat each other, or to scam in game, and even get away with 3rd party cheats, but how on earth are they allowing goods to be sold when they were purchased with stolen CCs? Your post is the first I've read where items that are only supposed to be obtainable by purchase, are being sold for less cash than they are originally priced at....amazing EA.

They need to put more data on items in UO inside their database, for high end valuable items. This is so they can tell what account originated the item, the character, shard and exact time the item was created, and have this data remain intact even though it gets xsharded. Then they need to run scans on their database for items with the same data pulling up duplicates. This would allow them to ban dupes. It'd also allow them to trace where all these stolen tokens are going so they can ban the resellers.

The big difficulty there might be comparing items from 2 different shards, on 2 different computers from 2 different databases. But if EA is going to plunk so much time and money on the albatross of KR why in the world can't they do this ... it'd be so much simpler and make the pursuit of items in the game actually worthwhile for the first time since they introduced massive duping with xsharding.

 

[Mudd]

I have heard of gold farmers (scripters) making $120,000+ a year. If EA was to sell gold, the people with endless supplies (scripters) would always sell their gold for less than EA.

 

[kennykilleduo]

If done right ALOT , then they could atleast keep the money in EA or sink it back into our game ...

 

[Cadderly]

I have heard of gold farmers (scripters) making $120,000+ a year. If EA was to sell gold, the people with endless supplies (scripters) would always sell their gold for less than EA.

If scripters are making that much I could only imagine what EA is making. I would recheck your sources because if uo gold was worth that much EA would make this game bigger then wow

 

[Hunters Moon]

As much money as a UO gold seller could make selling UO gold if a UO gold seller could sell gold.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[love2winalot]

hehe. Even FREE games like Travarian as example, sell gold for real cash. How many thousands of dollars did the first castle that appeared on e bay almost 10 years ago sell for? The reason it works, and the reason osi/ea allowed it is that the BUYER is not going to spend real money on a game or items in the game, and then cancel the account. Where as a player who wants something, but can not, or is not willing to do what it takes in game to get it, would usually quit if they could not have the alternative to just buy the damn thing.

This does not make it right or wrong, it is just the nature of the beast.

 

[Malador]

...

Selling gold depends on the cost of the gold they are selling vs the amount of gold they can produce for sale vs the number of clients the gold seller has.

I would NEVER want EA/UO to sell ingame gold as that would be gold created from NOTHING. As of right now, assuming exploits, dupes, and scripting are NOT involved a gold seller must obtain their gold through ingame means be it selling stuff, IDOCing and selling loot and placed houses, farming, or buying gold at a marked down cost from other players. Any of the above is simply the standard ingame commerce taking place and is 100% FINE. For EA to sell ingame gold for real cash, all they have to do is generate the amount of gold sold which in effect does the same thing as duping (which can be considered a form of virtual counterfeiting).

Your kidding right. Alright I'll play. Assuming exploits, dupes and scripting are not involved where exactly do you think gold comes from from. When you sell stuff to obtain gold where does the buyer get it.

Ultimately all gold is created from nothing. There is a limitless supply of it available to anyone who wants to earn it by killing monsters of collecting resourses. There does not even need to be a market for what ever they collect. They can sell it to the npcs.

In order for any economy to work with out outrageous inflation and fluctuations the money supply has to be limited/controlled. In UO you can farm as much as you need, no limits.

 

[Barrakketh]

If scripters are making that much I could only imagine what EA is making. I would recheck your sources because if uo gold was worth that much EA would make this game bigger then wow

I know of a gold seller that used to make $1,200- $1,500 a month. That was about 2 years ago , we was a dentist , he quit his dentistry practice, moved to Puerto Rico and does nothing but script/farm/Luna vendor game gold and sell it.

If you wanted to narrow the search for gold scripters all you would have to do is look at accounts with vendors/houses in Luna , not that they all are but most try to vendor there.

 

[Plucky Duck]

woner if they make enough to pay for there medical bills for themselves and there families from all the medical issues that come from obesity and bail for there kids that become bad seeds and become dregs of society because mommy and daddy never showed them enough attention. But still managed to glean off welfare while playing uo twenty four seven and never knew JR was on that clocktower til they glanced at the splash page of msn news while going to easier webiste

 

[Sneaky]

Lets say out of a customer base of about 50,000 active players say any 10% buy game gold on a monthly bases. And say the average gold sold is 5 million UO gold per customer at a cost of $1.00 US dollar per million gold or $5.00 US dollars per each customer each month.

That would come to $25,000 a month in total sales each month.

So even if you are one of 10 UO gold sellers you could still make $2,500 a month.

So I guess it really could pay well to be a UO gold seller.

Well, first off, its about 100k subscribers that is the gold selling market, so you could probably double your estimates, but as far as how much you could make? That depends on how much gold they have to sell, but in theory quite a bit.

In UO you can farm as much as you need, no limits.

The limit is how much you can farm, so there is a limit, its just a variable that depends on what your farming, how your doing it and how good you are at doing it. This is why some players are poor, and some are rich.

Maybe this would finally kill off all the scripters tooo

Yeh, because selling gold is really going to help people train their chars up unattended, and everything else that scripts are used for, get real.

Bottom line, even if EA sold gold that STILL would not stop people wanting to make gold for 'free' using scripts/dupes, I mean common, pay EA money for gold or script it yourself for free... bet you can guess which option most cheaters would choose.

The only thing that would kill off the scripters is if EA actually went to the heart of the problem and took action against the programs that runs these scripts.

Spoken like a true "In Game Gold for Real Life Cash" dealer. Worried EA might cause you to have to go back to work eh?

It doesn't matter if you like it or not, selling UO gold for IRL cash is a job, no matter what spin you put on it. Oh and what would be wrong with him being a broker? There is nothing wrong with selling UO gold for IRL cash, in fact these people provide a service to those who need it, without them I can say with 100% certainty there would be less people playing UO. Oh and don't talk to me about all brokers are duper/scripters because this is just not true, sure some do, but you cannot say that they all do, especially without proof. I know at least two personally that make their gold through entirely legal means and manage to make a bucket load of it, its simply good business.

 

[Erekose]

If it were not for scripting/exploits, gold would be at least 4 or 5 dollars per mil and inflation would be lower due to the smaller amount of cheap gold available. When people have less to spend they buy less which in turn drives prices down.

 

[Sneaky]

If it were not for scripting/exploits, gold would be at least 4 or 5 dollars per mil and inflation would be lower due to the smaller amount of cheap gold available. When people have less to spend they buy less which in turn drives prices down.

Yep, you can also look to the real world's economic pressures for an example of this, with the rising costs of living, petrol etc... people have less to spend on hobbies like UO.

 

[Barrakketh]

The limit is how much you can farm, so there is a limit, its just a variable that depends on what your farming, how your doing it and how good you are at doing it. This is why some players are poor, and some are rich.

Yeh, because selling gold is really going to help people train their chars up unattended, and everything else that scripts are used for, get real.
Bottom line, even if EA sold gold that STILL would not stop people wanting to make gold for 'free' using scripts/dupes, I mean common, pay EA money for gold or script it yourself for free... bet you can guess which option most cheaters would choose.

It doesn't matter if you like it or not, selling UO gold for IRL cash is a job, no matter what spin you put on it. Oh and what would be wrong with him being a broker? There is nothing wrong with selling UO gold for IRL cash, in fact these people provide a service to those who need it, without them I can say with 100% certainty there would be less people playing UO. Oh and don't talk to me about all brokers are duper/scripters because this is just not true, sure some do, but you cannot say that they all do, especially without proof. I know at least two personally that make their gold through entirely legal means and manage to make a bucket load of it, its simply good business.

All of the gold sellers I know got started duping gold , then they used scripts to farm mobs in dungeons when a dupe was fixed, that was when a 100k gold was a ridiculous amount. Things really took off with AoS , duping arties and scrolls , and renting vendors at Luna or a big vendor mall. They usually keep the gold flowing with some dupe.

If all a scripter could do was skill up a character then most of the UO's problems would be over. Even if players wanted to script their own gold they would still not need to waste time once they have what they need.

In the mean time by having EA selling gold then anyone that was a gold seller would be put out of business and would likely move on to another game.

 

[Erekose]

IF (and that's a big IF for me because I don't like gold selling) EA were to sell gold they should set the price high enough that it doesn't cause a huge inrush of currency which would just cause further economic problems. Say like $5/mil. At the same time they would need to take aggressive steps to stop brokering or it wouldn't work.

EDIT: Like I just say to a friend of mine yesterday, UO isn't an investment, it's an expenditure. People who see it as an investment to make money are a part of the problem.

 

[Sneaky]

IF (and that's a big IF for me because I don't like gold selling) EA were to sell gold they should set the price high enough that it doesn't cause a huge inrush of currency which would just cause further economic problems. Say like $5/mil. At the same time they would need to take aggressive steps to stop brokering or it wouldn't work.

Very true, because if EA were to sell at such a high price then surely there would be brokers undercutting them, so yes you would have to completely remove gold selling, which is almost impossible with the way UO's trading system works.

EDIT: Like I just say to a friend of mine yesterday, UO isn't an investment, it's an expenditure. People who see it as an investment to make money are a part of the problem.

UO is what you make of it, that is what is so great about the game.

 

[Barrakketh]

IF (and that's a big IF for me because I don't like gold selling) EA were to sell gold they should set the price high enough that it doesn't cause a huge inrush of currency which would just cause further economic problems. Say like $5/mil. At the same time they would need to take aggressive steps to stop brokering or it wouldn't work.

EDIT: Like I just say to a friend of mine yesterday, UO isn't an investment, it's an expenditure. People who see it as an investment to make money are a part of the problem.

Well they should just match the price of the gold sellers until they have forced them out of business. The idea for EA doing it would be mainly to make more income from UO players.

Prices would prolly spike for a while until the gold sellers through in the towel maybe after a year but it wouldnt matter since it would be available to all and wouldnt be any different than the way things are now.

 

[Sneaky]

All of the gold sellers I know got started duping gold , then they used scripts to farm mobs in dungeons when a dupe was fixed, that was when a 100k gold was a ridiculous amount. Things really took off with AoS , duping arties and scrolls , and renting vendors at Luna or a big vendor mall. They usually keep the gold flowing with some dupe.

Well you keep some company then don't you...

One broker I know transfers to Oceania regularly to buy power scrolls off us, he then takes those PS back to GL and sells them for much more than he bought them for on Oce. For example he buys 10 120 mage PS on Oce for (lets say) 10mill ea, he can then resell them for often double that on GL, thats 100mill profit easy from only 10 scrolls transfered (which is not even close to what he would xfer each time). Its called buying low and selling high... simply smart business.

If all a scripter could do was skill up a character then most of the UO's problems would be over. Even if players wanted to script their own gold they would still not need to waste time once they have what they need.

Hang on are you saying that its a problem when brokers script gold to sell, but a non issue when Jo Blogs UO player decides to do it? Talk about double standards...

I agree, players just scripting skills is not a big issue, but thats not what were talking about here, we are talking about EA selling gold vs brokers selling gold.

In the mean time by having EA selling gold then anyone that was a gold seller would be put out of business and would likely move on to another game.

How about instead of getting EA to make gold for nothing... we just fix the scripting/duping issues instead, leave brokers alone, ban the ones who have duped (like they did in that mega banning awhile back) and if they can continue their brokering without cheating then more power to them IMO.

After all, who are we to tell someone how they can make their money IRL?

 

[Erekose]

UO is what you make of it, that is what is so great about the game.

From a game standpoint I agree 100%. However, you can call it an investment or a job however much you like. That doesn't make it true.

Game != Making a living

 

[Barrakketh]

Well you keep some company then don't you...

One broker I know transfers to Oceania regularly to buy power scrolls off us, he then takes those PS back to GL and sells them for much more than he bought them for on Oce. For example he buys 10 120 mage PS on Oce for (lets say) 10mill ea, he can then resell them for often double that on GL, thats 100mill profit easy from only 10 scrolls transfered (which is not even close to what he would xfer each time). Its called buying low and selling high... simply smart business.

Hang on are you saying that its a problem when brokers script gold to sell, but a non issue when Jo Blogs UO player decides to do it? Talk about double standards...

I agree, players just scripting skills is not a big issue, but thats not what were talking about here, we are talking about EA selling gold vs brokers selling gold.

How about instead of getting EA to make gold for nothing... we just fix the scripting/duping issues instead, leave brokers alone, ban the ones who have duped (like they did in that mega banning awhile back) and if they can continue their brokering without cheating then more power to them IMO.

After all, who are we to tell someone how they can make their money IRL?

Yes the same people you are trying to defend.

I was accepted to group of players that did regular champs , we used teamspeak and I learned a lot listening to them discuss things in teamspeak. A couple of these players run some of the most well known gold selling sites for UO gold.

The obvious point that you are overlooking is it doesn't matter if EA sells the gold or a player. The obvious point is that EA could be making more income by selling it and in the process remove some of the incentive for hackers to play UO , even if they did continue to script resources or whatever there would much less of a point to do it since it would no longer translate into rl cash , theres no double standard it would affect whoever uses scripting to make gold.

The issue isn't just that players make cash off UO its that EA could be making all or most of that cash and the hackers could script all they want but it would be almost a pointless waste of their time if they did.

 

[Barrakketh]

After all, who are we to tell someone how they can make their money IRL?

I believe its done all the time in RL its called a criminal justice system.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Thousands

You will always have items and gold sold im mmo.

Nothing happens in UO that doesnt happen in other games.

And the better questions is. How much can a business make selling virtual items.

Tens of thousands.

When Ebay was up. I sold UO stuff minimally just to pay for accounts. Obviously that is gone and in turn I have less accounts.

But I sold Neopet stuff, any virtual card points from trading cards, all kinds of codes, etc.

Now I sold to make back the cost of the box of cards. I work full time. Thats good enough. I try and keep all my hobbies at a 0 cost bases.

Just for a side note. I am an advid gardner. During the winter I grow plants indoors and do a huge tomatoe and pepper plant sale. At $1 a plant I can sell 3-400 plants in a few hours on the spring flea market. It pays for my gardening habit. Look at UO that way. You only need 100 $10 sales to make 1000 bucks over a month. Thats not hard.

But I know there is a huge market out there and if someone wanted to make it an organized business that could make thousands.

Little overhead, easy shipping.


Things UO did to save the game.
Made housing 1 per account. (think about it)

 

[Sneaky]

I believe its done all the time in RL its called a criminal justice system.

Yes, but we are not the criminal justice system now are we.

 

[Emil IsTemp]

Well, back when UOGold had a market (2002) it was around 30-35$ per mil... then duping, farming, ect ect kicked in.. and its been a steady downhill slope since.

Buying a tower for 800$ in 2002... yea.

At least it was a gift

 

[Sneaky]

The obvious point that you are overlooking is it doesn't matter if EA sells the gold or a player. The obvious point is that EA could be making more income by selling it and in the process remove some of the incentive for hackers to play UO , even if they did continue to script resources or whatever there would much less of a point to do it since it would no longer translate into rl cash , theres no double standard it would affect whoever uses scripting to make gold.

So there is less incentive to get gold if EA sells it, thats what your saying? This would then apply to everyone... not just scripters. Less incentive to get gold full stop. That is bad, very bad for the game. How? Brokers aside for a moment, the reason people script/dupe/whatever is because the items they are duping are worth something and are sought after. You remove the worth of gold by EA creating all this gold for nothing and you remove its worth. Yeh ok this will stop scripters, but the less obvious but bigger problem is if gold is no longer sought after because it is of little to no UO value then normal every day players are going to be less inclined to go hunt for gold themself's.

Why bother going out to get gold in game when you can just buy it from EA? See the point? It would hurt the game, and that is something we do not need now.

Rather than trying to fix a problem with a bandaid fix that would not even work and would hurt the game badly, EA just needs to wipe out the core of the problem here, scripting/duping. EA selling gold is possibly one of the worst ways I can think of doing that. It is a bad idea.

The issue isn't just that players make cash off UO its that EA could be making all or most of that cash and the hackers could script all they want but it would be almost a pointless waste of their time if they did.

If it is a pointless waste of time for hackers and scripters to farm things in game then it is also a waste of time for anyone to be farming things. It would then be a waste of time even playing the game full stop.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Well, back when UOGold had a market (2002) it was around 30-35$ per mil... then duping, farming, ect ect kicked in.. and its been a steady downhill slope since.

Buying a tower for 800$ in 2002... yea.

At least it was a gift

Why would EA sell gold?
The give it away free in game. ARGH.
You already paid for your gold in your fee. Go get it. Its hanging out free everywhere.

EA selling gold has to be the worst idea I ever heard.

YOU ALREADY PAY FOR ALL THATS IN THE GAME. GO AND GET IT.

Now you all confuse being ticked off at hackers, dupers, and sellers.

Well they all arent the same.

Stop being so short sited you all think the game is about dupers and sellers.

The fix is in fixing exploits.

READ MY PRINT... THERE WILL BE FOREVER SELLERS OF VIRTUAL ITEMS.

Fix the cheats and hacks. And the game gets better.

 

[Sneaky]

From a game standpoint I agree 100%. However, you can call it an investment or a job however much you like. That doesn't make it true.

Game != Making a living

People make money off it, its a job for some people, not you, but for some people. You better realize that in this day and age game does = living, if you choose to make it. Go look around the internet, you will find thousands of people making a living off MMOs.

Personally I do not view UO as an investment, I have never sold or bought gold. I view UO as entertainment. However I understand that not everyone shares my views and sees the game in the same light as I do, its something you need to understand too. You can scream that UO is a game and not a job until your blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that people still make money off it.

 

[Sneaky]

Why would EA sell gold?
The give it away free in game. ARGH.
You already paid for your gold in your fee. Go get it. Its hanging out free everywhere.

EA selling gold has to be the worst idea I ever heard.

YOU ALREADY PAY FOR ALL THATS IN THE GAME. GO AND GET IT.

Now you all confuse being ticked off at hackers, dupers, and sellers.

Well they all arent the same.

Stop being so short sited you all think the game is about dupers and sellers.

The fix is in fixing exploits.

READ MY PRINT... THERE WILL BE FOREVER SELLERS OF VIRTUAL ITEMS.

Fix the cheats and hacks. And the game gets better.

Yes, I agree.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

...

If I could make enough to do so, I would. As it is, the per hour rate to do so is far far below minimum wage for me that I think I'll keep my current job in the shipwreck conservation field.
...

Sorry, just using your statement there to make this statement.

I have posted this before so I will make this part brief.

2003/2004 Forbs Magazine runs an article claiming Everquest Out of game market was $325 MILLION US. Projected Out of game market world wide for all games, 2007, exceeded $1 BILLION US.

The average hourly rate paid 2003/2004 ... $0.50 US. That is right 50 cents US per hour. Majority of employees? Aisa. Majority employee's country? China.

Derrmott, you may not like it, I know I wouldnt, but we all would benefit from EA/Mythic selling the gold WITH THIS STIPULATION ... The income would go to pay the Employee's better wages, improve the infrastructure, improve the game.

This shouldnt be limited to just Gold, they should just make .... Items available for purchase as well.

One could see the revenue stream being large enough to eliminate or stabilize the subscription rate.

If you want to end the Scripters and Dupers Reign then this is the best way to do that. If the Scipters and Dupers are reducing EA/Mythics revenue stream .... well then I have this sneaking suspicion they will respond.

 

[butthead owns]

again they do want to make it to easy for u but they cant stop u from buying it . and the people most time that do sell it are scripters that run mass accts to farm barbed kits and bods and mining wood and ingot but there are a few that do idocs and make gold from the items so hope this explains it for u

 

[Ishmael]

As much money as a UO gold seller could make selling UO gold if a UO gold seller could sell gold.

Dangit - you beat me to it. Same thing popped into my head as soon as I read the post title. :

 

[Cysphruo]

350k a year :/

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I have no problem with them paying the employees better wages, but I believe the better option is the moderated auction site than straight out selling gold.

As I stated they could make the money on the listing fees and increase the security of the game by tying in the accounts to the ingame accounts. More secure trading will bring in the buyers looking for legit sellers which in turn will bring in more money for the game itself and wouldn't have to be limited to gold, but for ANY real money sales (gold, items, houses, accounts).

As for an earlier reply, the difference between a player gathering "gold from nothing" and EA "creating gold from nothing" is that a player is limited in the amount they can gather from nothing (let's assume by farming or doing BODs instead of player to player transactions since we're at the "gold from nothing" stage) whereas EA can generate as much gold as is ordered.

Still I have to say "no" to EA selling gold, but a hearty "YES" to EA setting up an internal auction site for those who want to play UO in that fashion (on either side).

As long as there is no cheating or fraud involved, there is NOTHING WRONG with real money transactions.

In fact, I love a virtue comparison I came up with one of the prior times this came up... which is more correct:

Player A gathers legally sells 10,000,000 gold to Player B and gives it to them in game

or

Player A dupes 10,000,000 gold and gives to to Player B for free.

 

[galefan2004]

You aren't figuring in that the vast majority of those sites keep their stocks up by buying gold and flipping it. You also overestimate the way people buy gold (very few buy a decent ammount each month).

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

...

I have no problem with them paying the employees better wages, but I believe the better option is the moderated auction site than straight out selling gold.

....

Still I have to say "no" to EA selling gold, but a hearty "YES" to EA setting up an internal auction site for those who want to play UO in that fashion (on either side).

...

I have no issues with the proposal of a EA policed player transaction system.

I also do not see it as being an either / or situation.

I can imagine EAM setting up an exchange of ... Oh say $1 US for 1M Gold for example.

So A wants do sell 10M Gold to player B at 0.99 US. This would fall under the EAM policed Player transaction system.

If EA decide that a Sword of Prosperity was 1.5M Gold, the the US value would be $1.50. If Player A had extras for some reason, they could be competitive and sell them at 1.4 Gold for example.

 

[Barrakketh]

So there is less incentive to get gold if EA sells it, thats what your saying? This would then apply to everyone... not just scripters. Less incentive to get gold full stop. That is bad, very bad for the game. How? Brokers aside for a moment, the reason people script/dupe/whatever is because the items they are duping are worth something and are sought after. You remove the worth of gold by EA creating all this gold for nothing and you remove its worth. Yeh ok this will stop scripters, but the less obvious but bigger problem is if gold is no longer sought after because it is of little to no UO value then normal every day players are going to be less inclined to go hunt for gold themself's.

You do recall that game gold is being sold by the 100's of million each month to players now ? In other words you argue its ok for scripter to sell it but not EA.

Why bother going out to get gold in game when you can just buy it from EA? See the point? It would hurt the game, and that is something we do not need now.

Again - you do recall that game gold is being sold by the 100's of million each month to players now? In other words you argue its ok for scripter to sell it but not EA.

If it is a pointless waste of time for hackers and scripters to farm things in game then it is also a waste of time for anyone to be farming things. It would then be a waste of time even playing the game full stop.

I agree imo it is a pointless waste of time to farm period , to me thats not playing a mmo thats f-a-r-m-i-n-g , but for a scripter , who has lost all his buyers to EA, yes it will be even more of a waste of time which is a good thing.



Simply stated if players wish to pay cash for gold and that cash would contribute to the business' revenue then there is no reason EA shouldnt sell it.There is no reason selling game gold should be restricted to scripters or any other third party , and there is no reason EA should not sell game gold too as long as selling game gold is allowed.

 

[Joyous2K]

Lets say out of a customer base of about 50,000 active players say any 10% buy game gold on a monthly bases. And say the average gold sold is 5 million UO gold per customer at a cost of $1.00 US dollar per million gold or $5.00 US dollars per each customer each month.

That would come to $25,000 a month in total sales each month.

So even if you are one of 10 UO gold sellers you could still make $2,500 a month.

So I guess it really could pay well to be a UO gold seller.

My next question is , why does'nt EA/UO sell game gold to subscribers ?

Tricky subject... they should sell the items through a third party or shell company... but what they should really do is just make the items more readily available.

Not every minute or anything but basically make everything twice as easy.

 

[love2winalot]

Hail: Also, be it on a smaller scale, not all gold/item sellers are in the states. If i knew how to script, ect, I could get my brother in law in the philippines to play UO, and script away, and sell gold ect, AND ALL HE HAS TO MAKE IS $7 A DAY, AND HE DOUBLES WHAT HE MAKES IN A MONTH THERE.....