John Smedley Discusses Station Exchange
Hello Everyone,
We have a big announcement coming out in the press in the next day, and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me directly rather than reading an article about it.
Starting in late June, SOE will begin offering a new service called Station Exchange. This secure service will allow EverQuest II players on specific servers to buy and sell the right to use items, coin and characters. To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.
I'm sure this is going to come as a shock to many of you, since for the past six years, we have held the line in not allowing these sorts of things to occur. I'd like to explain the primary drivers for this change from our perspective:
First: It's obvious that a large percentage of our players either don't mind this activity or actively participate in it. We've done a fair amount of homework on this subject, and we believe this is a $200 million dollar market worldwide, and there are a huge number of our players taking part in the buying and selling of virtual goods. We have conducted polls, and the vast majority of players either doesn’t care about it or would like to participate in it. We believe that by allowing this to happen on select servers, we can have a solution for both the many players who want to participate in this and for those who don’t.
Second: Dealing with fraudulent transactions of one type or another takes up roughly 40% of our customer service people's time. We have players calling us up or requesting in-game service for activities related to these sorts of transactions constantly, even though they are specifically disallowed by our EULA. You may ask why the percentage is that high when it's not allowed in the first place? The answer is simple. Many times, people in these situations aren't up front with us about what actually happened. "My sword disappeared from my inventory" comes to mind, when what actually happened is the player has sold the item to someone else. Our CS people have to take the time to investigate this claim because if something legitimately happened, we of course want to take care of the player's needs. We believe that by taking this course, we will free up a great number of resources to deal with other things for our players.
Third: We see this as a potentially interesting model for future games. If we came up with a game specifically designed around these sorts of transactions, it might be pretty cool. Online gaming is always evolving, and we’re going to see how a sanctioned exchange service shakes out in EQII. From our perspective, it's always wise to keep pushing the envelope.
With the big reasons we're doing this laid out, I'd like to now tell you about the process:
On Wednesday, you'll see some press about Station Exchange. After about a week, we will conduct an in-game poll that's going to ask whether you:
1) Want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
2) Do not want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
3) Don't really care
Based on the results of this poll, we will light up a certain amount of new servers that are specifically "Exchange enabled." If the percentage of players who want this service is high enough, we might consider converting some existing servers to "Exchange enabled." Players who want to play on those servers will have the opportunity to transfer over to the "Exchange enabled" servers for free on a one-time-only basis (but you can't ever move that character off these servers). We will, of course, let people who don't want to stay on an "Exchange enabled" server off with a free transfer.
I want to be clear here: We will be lighting up a few new servers that are specifically “Exchange enabled,” and the number of existing servers we convert to “Exchange enabled” will be based on how many people actually want to be on "Exchange enabled" servers.
In addition to the issues listed above, you may ask, "What about farming?" The simple answer to this is that we're going to continue to heavily enforce the rules of EQ II, and those rules don't permit players to monopolize spawns or in any way harm the play experience of another player. We will continue to enforce these rules, but we also think that by providing a legitimate way for players to buy and sell the use of virtual goods, there will be fewer problems on the non-Exchange servers.
I realize this is a lot to think about, and I expect a pretty good debate to start on this subject. We welcome all your feedback, as it will help determine the future of this service. All I ask is that you consider the fact that we're really addressing this problem in the best possible way for all sides of this issue.
John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
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미국 시각으로 수요일 낮 공식 발표 전에 에버퀘스트 유저 상대로 미리 사이트를 통해 CEO가 직접 설명을 하는 군요. | 04-20 m | d |
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게임잡지(게임메카)에 의하면 에버2 국내 담당사인 감마니아도 본국의 입장을 따라할 것 처럼 보도되는군요. 일단, 게임사 스스로 현거래를 인정하게 되면 (게임 시스템을 어떻게 운영할 것인가의 묘는 논외로 치고) 남는 것은 현거래 당사자와 사회 공익인데, 현거래의 수요자 측면에서 자기 나름의 시간과 돈의 조합내에서 게임플레이를 극대화하기 위해 선택하는 것이므로 도덕적으로는 모르되, 현실법 저촉행위는 일단 없어보이는 반면, 현거래의 공급자 측면은 자칫 나이어린 유저가 돈을 벌기 위해 맹목적으로 게임을 워크(not play)할 가능성이 높으므로 이 점에 대해서는 향후 적절한 대책 수립이 필요할 수 있습니다. 예컨대 기존에 논의되어 온 것으로는 게임 등급심의, 중개사이트 성인인증, 셧다운 제도 등이 있고, 더 좋은 묘수도 생각해보아야 겠지요. 참고로 현재 아이템베이, 리니지2 등도 성인 등급으로 서비스되어지는 것으로 알고 있습니다. 한편, 양성화에 따라 거래자체는 훨씬 안전하게 되어 아이템 관련 형사사건의 태반을 차지하던 사기(컴퓨터사용사기 포함) 발생 비율은 총 거래수 대비 발생율이 많이 감소될 것으로 예상합니다만, 대신하여 이제는 보다 직접적, 폭력적 방법인 해킹, 현피, 혹은 음성화된 작업장 노역착취가 늘지 않을까 염려됩니다. 이에 수반하여 당국으로서는 행정비용이, 게임사는 서버의 안정적 관리비용에 부담을 지니게 될 것 같습니다. |
04-21 m | d |
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성인 인증 관련하여 과거 생각해둔 아이디어가 있긴합니다... http://lovol.net/lovol/_c8_de_b4_eb_c6_f9_c0_bb_c8_b0_bf_eb_c7_d1_ba_b8_be_c8_c0_ce_c1_f5_b0_ad_c8_ad_c3_a5 |
04-21 m | d |
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감마니아로서는 현재로서는 미국 SOE와 같은 노선을 걷지 않겠다고 하는군요. 앞선 게임메카 보도는 오보라고 하네요. http://www.gameabout.com/online/index.asp?pg=/online/news/view.asp&menu_id=1&cts_id=3095 |