The wrong policy on real money trades and d2jsp

I was disappointed to hear about GGG policy on d2jsp and banning real money trades between players. Regardless of how you feel about these type of trades, this policy is the wrong direction.

Real money transactions will always take place if the player base values tradable ingame items, regardless of whatever policy and enforcement efforts are made. I'm sure most of use have been playing online for decades and there has never been an exception to the above rule.

Here's a list of what I believe are problems with the current policy.

1) The prohibition does not prevent people from purchasing items for real money and never will.

2) All the current policy has done is prevent us from trading directly with each other only. Players are forced to find a third party site to facilitate their forbidden trades.

3) Current policy funds illicit 3rd party companies that will spam our chats and forum and hack our accounts. We could be giving that money directly back to our player base.

3) Alienates a significant portion of the community and starts Witch Hunts. Many people have full time jobs (sometime 2) and would get more enjoyment out of the game if they were able to purchase currency here and there legitimately for a edge when they are unable to grind for 18 hours a day.

4) Can you say item sink? I think it's hilarious when a credit card warrior dies and all his gg gear gets sent to softcore. But I also don't think any less of them if they had the skill to put their resources to good use and end up becoming a successful endgame player.

5) Rewards our top players. The experienced players at the top are getting paid from noobs that don't want to put in the time. As i mentioned in #1, these trade will always take place whether you like it or not. Do we want the money to go to our player base? or to the 3rd party companies that get paid facilitating the "illegal" trades.

6) The current policy massively rewards only the players that are willing to both spend the money and take the risk of a ban. Do we really want to massively reward these type of players? We know only a very small percentage of them will ever be caught.

7) Relaxing your policy on real money trades in no way makes the game "pay to win." Low tier players are paying top tier players. The house gets nothing. Game integrity has not been compromised.

8) Its what the player base wants. Hundreds of websites have popped up recently buying and selling currency in an attempt to appease the MASSIVE DEMAND.

9) GGG is wasting limited resources on a problem they will never solve.

With the exception of these policies, I like every direction GGG has went with this game and I look forward to the future. I think the problem its pretty common sense, but I'm sure GGG has their reasons....

what is d2jsp? Ive been hearing about it alot lately in chat and on the forums.

You're joking, right?

You want GGG to start selling currency?

Now, I don't say this very often, but you should really go back to Diablo 3.

All of those reasons is what lead to Blizzard making the RMAH. I think that alone killed D3.. I know this isn't a D3 discussion specifically but it seems pretty on topic.

the "people will do it anyways" argument isn't very solid in my opinion, or if it is solid it means that we shouldn't have laws against anything at all because people will do it anyways.

Also I do not believe the number of sites participating in this entails a HUGE demand, it just shows that people will try to make money in any way possible.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

All of those reasons is what lead to Blizzard making the RMAH. I think that alone killed D3.. I know this isn't a D3 discussion specifically but it seems pretty on topic.

the "people will do it anyways" argument isn't very solid in my opinion, or if it is solid it means that we shouldn't have laws against anything at all because people will do it anyways.

Also I do not believe the number of sites participating in this entails a HUGE demand, it just shows that people will try to make money in any way possible.

Allowing people to exchange their currency for real money did not make diablo 3 a bad game.


It's a bad game because its a bad game.


And no, I do think think their should be unenforceable rules that end up degrading the gaming experience, only apply to a few, wastes staff time and leads to constant 5-year-old finger pointing.

paying real money for currency is pay to win

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alfajr wrote:

I think the problem its pretty common sense, but I'm sure GGG has their reasons....

on small reason being that since day 1 GGG have stated they don't want this game to be pay2win.

other than that i'm sure they are considering the fine points you have raised.

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greyhoundz666 wrote:

paying real money for currency is pay to win

By that definition every game in existence is pay to win because you can buy currency for all of them.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

the "people will do it anyways" argument isn't very solid in my opinion, or if it is solid it means that we shouldn't have laws against anything at all because people will do it anyways.

This. It was used by Blizzard as a bad excuse to legitimate the implementation of RMT in D3. Look what happened, now everyone feels obligated to use the RMAH or else they won't get anywhere. The percentage of the PoE playerbase using d2jsp is probably way below 1. It's not a good reason for GGG to start selling currency like Blizzard does (indirectly).

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Xavderion wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

the "people will do it anyways" argument isn't very solid in my opinion, or if it is solid it means that we shouldn't have laws against anything at all because people will do it anyways.

This. It was used by Blizzard as a bad excuse to legitimate the implementation of RMT in D3. Look what happened, now everyone feels obligated to use the RMAH or else they won't get anywhere. The percentage of the PoE playerbase using d2jsp is probably way below 1. It's not a good reason for GGG to start selling currency like Blizzard does (indirectly).

I'm not suggestions a auction house in any capacity for POE and D3 has nothing to do with this argument. I just think people should be able to do what they want with their currency for all the reasons listed in my original post.