eBay bans sales of virtual goods.

[Parn]

http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-6154372.html

Guess this means no more meseta sales and the like, eh? Which means we're going to see more destructive hacking on the game now, since this avenue is more or less closing.

[VanHalen]

meh im not scared yet bring it on

[Syanaide]

I just did an Ebay search for "phantasy star universe meseta," it yielded only one result.

[JAFO22000]

I'm sure there will be other sites opening which will allow this practice.

Napster stopped being free, but that didn't stop people from downloading shared music for free.

Another avenue will open.

[KG]

Mod Edit: You know better, don't link to sites that violate the forum rules.

[DarkSeph]

it's nice that ebay put a stop to cheaters profiting from ruining the game on the pc/ps2.....it does suck however for 360 users who might want to pay real world money for a virtual item http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif......10 hours would equate to 100 bucks.......if someone would rather pay 100 bucks for say a Crea Double because in 10 hours he "might" be able to get the board http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif.....well anyways.......don't care either way

[Rashiid]

yeah i tried searching for meseta too, for fun n whatnot, and nothing

[pso123hrf]

1 word:

lol

Many people on here dont buy money so wuts the point? (I know someone will get mad at me)

[Shaia]

This is very interesting news... EBay needs to realize RMT and virtual good trading in online games is a bona fide industry. I, for one, have no objection to anyone who wishes to spend their hard-earned money to buy virtual goods. Had I known this was coming, I surely would have purchased some of those 99M meseta for $5 deals... >>;;

[Tomeeboy]

This change is quite possibly a good thing for companies that profit from the virtual goods market, as it is going to be a lot harder for an individual to sell these items without Ebay.

As for Phantasy Star Universe, in particular, it's probably a good change (if you don't agree with RMTs), as those companies haven't really shown much interest in the game. Instead, they stick with the online giants such as WoW, which have a much larger player-base (which means more customers for them).

It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the long run. If a company that sells virtual goods takes advantage of this and takes control of the market, it could result in an even bigger monster than what we were dealing with on Ebay, although games like PSU may slip through the cracks and come out of this ahead.

Thanks for pointing out the news Parn... it has been front-paged (http://www.pso-world.com)!

[Maxurion]

On 2007-01-31 17:21, Shaia wrote:
This is very interesting news... EBay needs to realize RMT and virtual good trading in online games is a bona fide industry. I, for one, have no objection to anyone who wishes to spend their hard-earned money to buy virtual goods. Had I known this was coming, I surely would have purchased some of those 99M meseta for $5 deals... >>;;




Provided the sold goods are actually earned in the game and not just hacked O.o

[Shaia]

On 2007-01-31 17:28, Maxurion wrote:

Provided the sold goods are actually earned in the game and not just hacked O.o



Good point.

[DoubleJG]

Nice. It's always good to hear about a step in the right direction when it comes to anything.

Wether it be a minor or major step, this is definately a good move on eBay's part. I recently started shopping there (for pkmn goods) and whatnot, and I must say, I haven't been disappointed in the slightest yet.

[Dhylec]

I saw the news this morning, it's a good thing. Now that the main source to sell hacked meseta is no longer available. The economy hopefully can recover from this somewhat.

It's a small step in the right direction to help online games, at least for gamers, not those who made a 'living' with RMT.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

Y'know, I thought something was funny about the whole subject a while back when I asked eBay about it, and they didn't seem to know what to make of it.

<_<

>_>

Makes me wonder if I inspired them...?

[omegapirate2k]

Cheaters have just been p-p-pwned!!!

[BloodDragoon]

On 2007-01-31 17:21, Shaia wrote:
This is very interesting news... EBay needs to realize RMT and virtual good trading in online games is a bona fide industry. I, for one, have no objection to anyone who wishes to spend their hard-earned money to buy virtual goods. Had I known this was coming, I surely would have purchased some of those 99M meseta for $5 deals... >>;;




Actually if you want to get techincal RMT and virtual good trading is stealing from another company since you're basically profitting by selling their intellectual property without their consent or any real compensation to them. That ToS you agree to in order to play the game plainly states that every bit of information regarding the game belongs to the host company.

[RS]

And if you had seen all the S-Rank weapons that had just been posted for auction only two days ago. you would have to agree this is good news.

[Alisha]

just a warning. if a large portion of the player base was depending on mesta sales. and that is suddenly closed to them,and said players lack the knowlage to make money there could be a massive deflation.

[rena-ko]

would that be bad or good? taking the current state of the game's economy into account i'd say it couldnt get worse anyway. so, bring it on.

[Shaidar]

Awesome news.

[AlieNxxxxxxxx]

if you pay real money for game money then shoot yourself.

[Vhex]

I know why they did this, and it wasn't because of PSU. It will however have a big effect on PSU.

You think this will make it better?

Nope, now that selling hacked items on eBay is now gone, there will be nothing preventing the flooding of them since there is no profit to be made off of them.

[StarHedgehog]

Hello. Trading real money for digital credits is increasing today. We have the INVU chat program where you can earn credits or buy them with a credit card. And on the Wii's Shop you have to buy credits in order to get the old games for download. These companies sell credits legally, and I don't know what to say about the auction sites.

Maybe Sega themselves will start selling Messta by credit card in the near future. Think for example, users on 360 would buy credits through their gamertag the same way they bought their Guadian license and the money would appear in their Common Box. That's my theory. What do you think?

[Aaron777]

You guys have it alll wrong. With no more profit to be made off selling S-rank and meseta you won't see a rise in the number of both, you'll see a decline. When no more incentive exists then whats the purpose of doing it? The only real reason left is just to show off to other players. It just doesn't make any sense to think that you'll see MORE hacked items once they no longer fetch any sort of real world value. Think about it...

[Vhex]

On 2007-02-01 05:37, Aaron777 wrote:
You guys have it alll wrong. With no more profit to be made off selling S-rank and meseta you won't see a rise in the number of both, you'll see a decline. When no more incentive exists then whats the purpose of doing it? The only real reason left is just to show off to other players. It just doesn't make any sense to think that you'll see MORE hacked items once they no longer fetch any sort of real world value. Think about it...



S-ranks take two seconds to make, Why would they slow down? My point was the only thing stopping them from flooding them into the community is that it would hurt the profit on eBay.

Also meseta credit card? That has got to be the worst idea ever. No amount of game money can ever be worth any real money.

[Parn]

On 2007-02-01 05:37, Aaron777 wrote:
When no more incentive exists then whats the purpose of doing it?
Four years after PSO's initial release on Dreamcast, people were STILL using FSOD in lobbies on PSO GameCube when I had logged on for a short time to check things out. Trust me, the cheating will continue unchanged, purely to ruin the game for the folks trying to enjoy it. Watch, the weapons will start being distributed to random people now that they have no real money value through eBay.

[Merumeru]

XD ooh wow, totally screwed now...

[_Deliverance_]

.....
Does anybody realize that the hackers have a way around this?
Ever hear of RMT companies? They buy online currency from people. All this ebay move does, is corner the market for those companies. They no longer have "the small guy" competition.

I guess the only thing this does, is make it slightly more expensive to buy. Then again, it might make the flow of meseta a little more controlled too. Still a bleeding wound, none the less. =/

[Parn]

PSU is smalltime. RMT companies like IGE don't have listings for PSU for a reason. There's no real money to be made in it.

[Akaimizu]

I think this will have a major impact on a particular game in question. World of Warcraft. Sure, there might be other ways outside of E-bay; but the ban of these sales kills the *main* market they target. The casual ignorant folk who buy these things. They don't know about any backdoors or other special interest sellers, they know about E-bay. Otherwise, E-bay sellers wouldn't have gotten away with so much junk.

[Aaron777]

apparently though according to some hackers I know they can't make any new S rank anything because of the game gaurd update. Not sure if that's true but ah well. I'm not convinced that the cheating will take a dramatic turn for the worse now that sale on ebay has been revoked. I guess we'll see over time if a ton of people will start obtaining new and ridiclous weaponry and armor.

[Mewnie]

This isn't new. Ebay banned Everquest sales years ago.

All it did was create black market sites to buy/sell virtual items.

Doesn't really change anything.

[BahnKnakyu]

On 2007-02-01 09:05, Akaimizu wrote:
I think this will have a major impact on a particular game in question. World of Warcraft. Sure, there might be other ways outside of E-bay; but the ban of these sales kills the *main* market they target. The casual ignorant folk who buy these things. They don't know about any backdoors or other special interest sellers, they know about E-bay. Otherwise, E-bay sellers wouldn't have gotten away with so much junk.



I think those who say this "really doesn't change anything" need to realize that eBay is considered to be what Akaimizu stated above. Those who REALLY want to RMT and buy off the RMTs will learn of the "alternatives", that's for sure, but I'm fairly positive that Casual P. Noob who wants to buy a virtual good would've first went to eBay for their stuff, and if they can't get it through that chanel, would've given up right there.

Those who start looking for the alternatives are the the ones who are a bit more dedicated to the game, and sure THAT market probably won't change, but I believe it's safe to say that the quick, easy, and straightforward means of getting your RMT'd goods has been removed.

[Krans]

I agree with Aaron and im surprised hes the only one with this matter of thinking, overall there still will be hackers, most do it for the "small fame" rather than money, they want people to know they are special and that they hacked it first... Otherwise, like aaron stated, there should be a decline because those who sold items (at least some of them) will lose motivation.

[asdf]

I've made over 900 dollars selling meseta on ebay. It was fun while it lasted =)