January 21st, 2009

Free Gold Farming Guide…Or Not?

I don't know about you, but if I have to choose between gold farming and anything else, I choose the last. This may sound noobish to those experts out there, but to me, gold farming and grinding go hand in hand. Well, I guess that's the naked truth, after all, don't you think? Anyway, the idea is that, despite the fact that those using specialized tools to farm gold in online games usually end up losing their accounts, there are also people who fully agree with this practice...

...and I am not talking about fellow gamers here! For example, Kerry Fraser-Robinson, founder of virtual worlds developer RedBedlam, spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about the fact that "People will always find the path of least resistance, if you stop them buying your gold then they'll buy that gold from somebody else who is gold farming," and "If you don't build that into your system then you're not going to be able to compete with the gold farmers and that will ruin your in-game economy, which will in turn ruin your game. At the very least having the recognition that virtual economics is a discipline and is a very important integral part to being a virtual world."

Using EVE Online as an example, he pointed out the fact that virtual economics should be taken seriously, going as far as saying that game companies should take into account the advice of economists, seeing this as a next natural step in the evolution of online games involving some kind of virtual economy(aren't they (almost) all like that?).

"I only know of just two or three companies that actually have economists specifically for the purposes of understanding their own virtual economy. I think that's absolutely essential going forward… because wherever humans are in communities and whenever they are bartering there is a market and there is going to be a market place. If you let that go with no regulation and no recognition then very, very crazy things will happen," said Fraser-Robinson.