The RMT fallacy

General Discussion General Discussion
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Promise it’s the last time. I’m kinda invested at this point. I’ll properly try to explain one last time. Maybe it’ll make some sense

Game has a monetization system that is incentivizing players to spend. It designs in-game problems for which they sell the solutions. The very definition to p2w, however the scale in lost ark is a bit higher then what the west is used to (and hopefully will never get used to). Some of these incentivized players are dissatisfied with the in game shop prices and turn to rmt. You will never eliminate the rmt by trying to stomp it. And you will never make ags/sg mass permaban their own potential customers. Anyone willing to pay for progression would’ve used the cash shop, had the rmt option not been there (provided they can afford it of course, but the difference is negligible). But it is there and will always be no matter how many hard bans you hypothetically throw around. There is both a demand and an incentive for it.

Asking/shouting to perma-ban them makes little sense. It won’t solve the problem as long as the game itself has the same monetization scheme. And it’s futile considering 4 months have passed and what do we have? The dumbest quote ever “a kingdom ruled by fear is not a kingdom worth ruling”. Should be clear to anyone what the policy on perma-banning is.

Have you seen the punika chest debacle? Do you know one of the most popular quotes from everyone who was angry it got removed was? “It’s comparable to rmt in value”. Does this hint to how they are more likely to cash in on it then take a harsh stance?

The community also is blaming the rmt-ers from a moral stand-point when they really shouldn’t. Blame them because they’re actively ruin your experience from a subjective point sure, but not because they answered a predatory system with predatory practices. Blame the company for enabling and incentivizing it. Blame it for being completely unable to regulate it’s own game. Literally no security at all. Even the most basic things that would slow them down. Blame it for being so cheap it refuses to ban potential customers at the expense of regular users. Don’t blame the people who chose the cheaper option when security is sleeping and the game itself tries to sell the solution to a problem it created.

Here’s a question. How many people who rmt-ed have also bought, let’s say, the ark pass. What do you think someone who is willing to pay for progression thinks of the price to value worth of that is? What happens when rmt-ers are in-game payers at the same time?

The core problem is the same. In game progression tied to real money and layers of aggressive psychological tricks to incentivize players to spend.

I am not the one simplifying the problem. Call me dumb all you want, it’s fine. I’m currently bored so I’m wasting time on these forums so you’re right, it’s a pretty worthless conversation I’m having for fun. Hopefully my brain is working properly, I think I’m using, it’s hard to tell when I can only rely on my own pov :saluting_face:

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i’ll have to read this tomorrow, it’s 4 am for me

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Your analogy is flawed for one simple thing: legitimacy.

RMT is not legitimate, royal crystals are.

Walmart shoes are legitimate and so are Nike outlets.

Therefore it is always the players fault for choosing an illegitimate route to acquire gold.

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This analogy is garbage. I have a better one. Imagine going to a restaurant, a waitress asks you what is your order and you are like “nah, I have my own food” and then unpack it from the backpack.

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the difference between illegal rmt and rmt from a player is it has different effects on the game.

legal rmt is designed into the game and managed accordingly.

Ilegal rmt can be a problem, and sg/ags management/game design can also be problem. its not mutually exclusive, or only one thing can be an issue.

also, its not as you present it, where smh has done nothing to prevent botting. These are skilled professionals putting money resources and reacting to various attempts to remove them.

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the point of banning rmters is just a logical one. people change their behavior based on threat assessment. Each person has different levels of acceptable risk. By increasing the risk of RMT, you reduce the amount of people willing to RMT. In any systems enforcement, you can try to target either side, or both. There is nothing wrong with targeting either offender.

Yes, lost ark is a game design that is built to create a demand for gold, a desire to pay to get ahead. And that is especially fertile for illegal rmt. However that doesnt mean ilegal rmt isn’t an issue for the game.

strictly speaking in lost ark, if you are f2p, you should probably dislike rmt botting as its directly competing with your ability and value you can sell gold to players.

Now, its possible that lost arks legit rmt trade is not designed in an optimal way for NA users. It might be to hard to progress with legit rmt, or to hard to progress without it, or to hard to see, gold/crystals. But thats separate issues

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173

Queue’s are nice now, come on back =)

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Yes my point exactly whales will always pump the prices out of the F2P range lol.

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Edits made to the original post to be more reader friendly and to clarify ideas.

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well … but there is their dilemma because they have also player which are as well not that pleased about p2w mechanics or the shop but try to bear it…
But will def not tolerate this anti cheating stance and the excuses…
So basically this players are kind on hold because asg try to cover that they are doing sth but if they really are avoiding proper punishment to the ones that cheated we are just wasting our time here.
So at this point they can’t avoid losing players .

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and u still miss my point … if the Whales need the recources of the f2p …
They will always pull the f2p with them … it don’t matter how much they spent or how much gold they buy as long as they interact with the player market any whale will also push f2p at least if their gold / mats comes from the players and not outside of the player community !
And the bots and rmt gold destroy this interaction to some degreee and it gets worse from day to day !

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once again you are arguing with me over a point i havent even brought up or talked about.

you literally quoted my comment about

WHY RMT AND IN GAME PURCHASES DONT HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON THE IN GAME ECONOMY

and start to argue over

WHY P2W IS BAD

it’s like someone discussing the effects of buying made in the usa products vs made in china on the us economy, and then you come to argue about its effects on africa and other poor countries that they get the raw matericals from and how it ruins their lives and ruins nature and is unethical.

yes it has a bad effect on africa and is a predatory practice that involves child and basically slave labor, but that isnt even what is being discussed.

yes p2w is annoying and is a thing i dont take part in, but that isnt what my comment that you responded to is about.

even op himself said he pays them to buy stuff and his only problem is how the in game economy is structured and that it needs an overhaul so him and other paying players stick to buying from the game itself and he ends his post with an example saying

so please for the love of god for the last time stop arguing over

WHY P2W IS UNETHICAL
because that wasnt even a part of my comment or even op’s.
if you wanna argue over the morality of p2w start your own thread or only respond to people that p2w is fine.

and to answer your question that i never even addressed once, about p2w.

i hate p2w games, the idea is disgusting, but that’s not from a moral standpoint, that’s from a gamer standpoint.
for me i get joy from working hard, i grind the shit out of any game i play, be it ARK where you grind for days and weeks to make the perfect house in pve, or the most secure one in pve, or even minecraft where you grind your ass off to make that farm you love, or that big castle that has a million blocks in it.

from an ethical standpoint i dont see it unethical, you are not obligated to participate in the game and can just ignore its existance.
just because you really love the game and annoyed by the idea that someone could pay money and shit over your progress doesnt make it unethical, it makes it annoying, which is why i hate p2w games.

people pay thousands in this game and that is their choice, people gamble thousands, people spend thousands on trips, people spend tens of thousands on watches, and if you live in a 1st world country you probably spent a couple of million dollars throughout your life on stuff that you dont even remember, doesnt make your entire life unethical because it has 0% ROI.

is it addictive? yes
is it bad that they do it intentionally? yes
can it be monetized in a better way? yes
should countries make laws against it? maybe
if i had the money to spare and no time will i play a p2w game? 100%
i would have no time and would be more than happy to pay money instead of my time to reach a high level and enjoy end game content.
who gives you the right to take away that from me?
am i not allowed to spend my money the way i want?
am i not allowed to have fun anymore because i dont have the privilege of having 10 hours daily of gaming time?
just because it is bad for you or for some, doesnt mean it’s bad for everyone.

i was playing a mobile game a while ago, had a CEO who joined the game, paid like 15~20k on his account, had all the fun he could for a few months, and then offered his account for sale for 6k, after a week on sale he got bored and gave it away to someone in our guild.

that’s someone who cant afford spending a year or two building his account, but he can afford paying for it, is he not allowed to have fun just because you cant afford it?
you dont have the privilege of having the money he has, and he doesnt have the privilege of having the time you have.

it is annoying that someone can just pay their way to your years of grinding in a f2p game, but that’s pretty much it, annoying to you.

and for the last time, the discussion isnt about the morality of p2w, it’s about the effects of rmt and in game purchases on the economy being the same, which is 100% not true.

you can argue for or against the morality of it for days, but like i said, that isnt what i responded to in my original comment.

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i mean if you’re keeping your post up to date might as well respond to the people who debunked your premise.

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Idk it seems like people have 0 understanding of economy.
The ingame “rmt” is still within the boundaries of the game. Gold goes from 1 player to another, still somewhat legit. And the fees are gold dumps.
The outside illegal “rmt” is getting gold into the economy that is “illegal” and not sourced properly. Thus leading to inflation cuz those few people who are rmting can afford anything for less than the normal legit whale.
→ Prices rising and legit players only way off making gold is living off inflated gold from rmters instead of farming it themselves.

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My point was always that the p2w system - at the very least as it is - is the one that bred the current system. That is why I argued it’s bad and it needs to be overhauled at the very least. And should be the subject of everyone’s discussion as fixing the cause is better then the effect (RMT).

And it’s not about whether it’s ethical or not, it’s that it doesn’t conjure sympathy in anyone. I mean a company is obligated to seek profit so it’s really no debate here. At most it’s in regards to players, but that’s a tiring discussion to have.

And this is the key. It’s a very small step from this to rmt-ing.

Perfectly fine. I agree with your liberty to take that choice. My point is that this stops being the case when the game is dysfunctional at the best.

What I dislike and why I initially replied to you was the fact that everyone seems to have grown so accustomed to it that it is accepted as a given even when it is the biggest reason why everyone has a problem.

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the thing is, i am not discussing solutions for rmt or cash shop.
i was simply discussing why rmt and cash shop dont have the same effect on the game’s economy, which is what the op was implying.

so dont quote me and discuss something i am not discussing please, you have 181 other comments you can quote and discuss with them.

not really, when you choose a game to play they tell you these are the rules of the games and this is how some players might have an advantage over you.
you look at the rules, you agree with them, and you play the game.
you did not agree to rmting, because the rules you agreed on affect you in a way you can control, if you grind you can make this amount of gold, and your grinding affects the market’s price, you are part of the cycle.

but for rmt you are no longer part of the cycle, instead of farming for a week or two to get the item within the cycle, now you have to farm for months because bots are being used to inject more gold into the system, because people base their selling price for items based on rmt gold prices not in game gold prices.

like i said, you want to sell a grudge book for 100$ worth of gold, that would be hypothetically 10k in game gold, but 100k in rmt gold, so the book ends up being priced at 100k or a number near it because that’s the standard everyone is using.
not only that, but you were able to hypothetically farm 10k gold in a week or two, but since there are bots that farm 24/7 they can sell items for dirt cheap, so now you need to spend more time making those 10k gold, but then you realize that on top of that the book is now worth 100k.

everyone has a problem with everything
some people hate capitalism, some hate socialism. it doesnt mean that in its core it is actually a problem, it just means that in your opinion this is a problem and considering that unlike capitalism which is a world wide economic phenomenon that you cant choose to stay away from, lost ark or any p2w games are just games and you have the choice to simply not play them.
eating a pound of tuna and liver every day will probably kill you, but that doesnt mean we should stop selling them, playing a p2w game wont even kill you and you can easily not participate in it.

you can voice your concerns over how bad it is in some games like D4 for example in hopes that one day it will change, you can even lobby to change the laws in your country to force them to not do it if you wish to, but that’s pretty much it.

but like i said for the 20th time, i am not here to argue for or against p2w as a system, which i already stated i dont like and dont participate in, i am just telling op why rmt and cash shop dont have the same effect on the economy

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I mean it’s fine at this point I got it. I only kept trying to say the p2w is the cause of the rmt, so the effect of the rmt can be extended to the cash shop and I can’t seem to get this point across :joy:

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Well its kind of ur own fault … I mean p2w is bad and u can argue about the predatory systems …
But i think cheaters are worse and have no rights to complain about anything …
They abuse the systems and the players way more and make the predatory system even worse as it is.
They obviously seek all the attention also they make possible solutions like more easy gold or honing rates or better event rewards impossible.
So how can we propose sth that helps the players if its abused by the cheaters so hard that its actually harming …

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p2w isnt the cause of rmt, it encourages it maybe but not the only or biggest reason for its existence.
even if an mmo isnt p2w by design like ESO, you still have people offering bots to level up your account for you or sell you items or gold in game for cash.

rmt is just there even if the game is 100% f2p PVE with no cash shop, people would still just pay for you to grind for them or level up their account or get in game currency.

people will always rmt and use hacks and bots whenever they can.

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Yes, however no game that I have knowledge of has ever had this level of a problem with them.
I’ll rephrase it to “the cause of rampart rmt”. I never intended to claim lost ark invented botting