Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=457§ion=News&month=current
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
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=457§ion=News&month=current
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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