The sale of virtual currency is an issue that has been debated since it became commonplace in Everquest and Diablo. Over the last 5 years, the practice - known as RMT - has become a boom industry, going from the act of the few to the product of big corporations worth almost as much as some of the larger game studios, largely due to the success of World of Warcraft. Love it or hate it, RMT is an industry that will continue to grow but is the practice wrong, or is there room for it in an ever evolving MMO market? Is RMT Wrong?

We’ve all seen them – trial characters that stand in cities adn player hubs, spamming chat channels and whispering you, imploring you to buy currency and items by decribing how much of an advantage you will have and why you won’t get banned for doing so. One of the most innovative attempts at advertising a gold selling company I have seen took place on World of Warcraft. A friend of mine was there at the time, taking screen shots of it as it happened. When I saw these screenshots and heard his recollection of events, I was quite astonished. An army of Gnomes walked into the centre of Ironforge and moved into formation spelling out the web address of the site they were representing. Then, they used a teleport hack to teleport up to the roof at which point all of these Gnomes fell to their deaths, spelling out the web address of the site on the floor. Quite an innovative little trick that is bound to get your site noticed, even if it does cause considerable server lag. This will have obviously brought them some customers, so the effort was well worth it.

So is it right to buy and sell virtual currency?

Firstly, in Europe it is illegal to buy and sell in game currency in World of Warcraft via the EULA. You see, you don’t own your account. Your character and items attached to your character remain the property of Blizzard Entertainment and they can withdraw your right to access the account at any time for any reason. If this is the case, you cannot sell any items because they are not yours to sell and you cannot buy them off a third party because that third party doesn’t own them. Sadly however, the practical application of the EULA has not been tested in a European Court, despite the successes that Blizzard seem to have had with other such actions in the US. Peons 4 Hire for example suffered great retirbution at the hands of Blizzard after they swarmed the World of Warcraft servers with spam bots. After Blizzard won the court case, the Peons 4 Hire url was quickly picked up by Blizzard and will now direct anyone using it to an article on the official World of Warcraft site, detailing how RMT negatively effects gaming.

So how do gold selling companies get away with selling gold and not get shut down for it?

Well it is simple really. They don’t sell you the gold as such. They sell you the time it takes to get the gold from the gaming environment to you, or at the very least they will claim they are charging you for the transfer of the item from one account to another, without any iplication of ownership on their behalf. In other words, they act as a postal service, moving the gold from the game developer to you and charging you for that process. They simply add nifty footnotes in their terms and conditions that allow then too state that they do not own the property you are receiving. Here are a couple of examples from unnamed sites:

So to all intents and purposes, even some of the RMT companies themselves admit that - from a legal perspecitve at least - the sale of virtual currency is wrong. They get round this by selling you a real life service. So why then have we been debating this question for so long? It seems I have proven it is legally wrong in a very short period of time, simply by quoting the companies who partake in this type of service.

Perhaps a more relevant question is: Is the sale and purchase of the time it takes a person to farm or produce virtual items or currency an acceptable practice?

Well, what is, “right?” Is it right as in morally correct or right as in legally correct? It is perfectly legal to sell and purchase the time of another person in any country in the world as long as appropriate law and legislation is followed. I'm going to assume that these laws don't specifically state that the sale of your time to play a game is wrong, partly because the gaming industry seems to be under the legal radar in a lot of ways. The only way to change this would be to call for a global change in law and that isn’t going to happen any time soon as our leaders have far better and bigger things to worry about, like war and recession. However, things are changing and - as games like World of Warcraft grow - legislators are beginning to see the significant impact that the sale of virtual items and currency could have on the global economy.

One of the more likely causes for the question about the moral implications of such activities is the fact that we are dealing with corporate entities. In everyday life, we show a similar contempt for high street chains and stores. “The queues were too long,” or, “the product wasn’t what I wanted,” are commonplace even when they aren’t really true. We even go as far as to take our bad moods out on the nameless, faceless companies employees because they are obliged to treat us with respect. I once asked myself a difficult question: if a friend of mine were to suddenly start power-leveling other peoples character in an MMO for a living, would I hate him with such passion? After due consideration I realised that I most certainly would not, although I would not approve of his choice of career. There is nothing easier about what he is doing than - for example - a desk job. In fact, the returns are smaller for much more work. I couldn't bring myself to say that I would, under any circumstances, hate my friend for selling his time. At least, I would not throw the same level of bile and hatred that I throw at RMT companies, at a friend.

Another reason for the questions surrounding such activity is the unfair advantage it gives certain players and also the social divide it can cause between players. If you are a rich person who wants an epic flying mount but can’t be bothered to farm the gold required, you could simply buy the time of somebody else to get 5000g and have your mount in a matter of hours. If you are not so rich however, you are forced to farm items and gold. This does give the former a clear and unfair advantage over the later. However, I know countless people who are wealthy and could well afford such luxuries who do not go down that path, chosing to farm and grind for the rewards. On the other hand, I know several less-wealthy people who have purchased gold at some point and as such, the issue becomes grey. It is apparent to me that such a divide may well be a creation of the masses, in order to better justify a crusade against RMT. It is - in quite a few circumstances - perpetuated by developers and publishers, giving the argument credibility where no real evidence exists.

It still isn’t that cut and dry. If a family member was to play my World of Warcraft account and just so happened to farm me endless supplies of Runecloth, is there any harm? After all, you are allowed to let family members play your account. Perhaps if I were to pay my family member to sit at my PC and he/she just so happened to play World of Warcraft and farm me some gold it would become morally incorrect then? Perhaps it is the inclusion of money and commerce that makes it incorrect?

Ok. I admit gold farmers aren’t family members or friends and once again that could be why it is morally unacceptable to some. Perhaps it is simply to do with the fact that we are dealing with a nameless, faceless entity and there is no interpersonal activity or relationship between the buyer and the seller.

Xfire held a debate on this very matter and on the front page of the debate section, they placed a survey asking, “how much value would you give 500g in WoW?” Around 9000 people answered the survey and to my surprise, only 40% didn’t give it any value where as 60% said that 500g in virtual, none-physical property was worth something. Perhaps another question to ask would have been, “how much are you willing to spend on 500g in WoW?” After all, people can value something but not be willing to pay for it.

So the issue is generally grey. While in most cases (unless stated otherwise by game developers and administrators) the sale of the actual items is wrong, it is not wrong to pay for someone for the time it takes to move a particular amount of gold from one account to another. The morality of it all is probably the largest and most ugly question surrounding the issue. If the Xfire survey is accurate, 60% of the player base of World of Warcraft can’t say that there is no reason to buy gold when they have conceeded there is a base level of worth to virtual items. We can’t say for sure it this figure of 60% is a correct projection but it is one of the only figures we have to go by.

This debate is going to go on for a while and inevitably it will get bigger as MMOGs become more massive and multiplayer than they are now. Eventually, some form of consensus will be reached but that isn’t going to happen in the next few years and when it does, there is no guarantee it will go one way or the other.

RMT is a rapidly expanding industry. It will continue to expand so long as MMOs continue to expand. One day, it may well be included in the mix as opposed to being seen as a black market. However, the question still stands: is RMT wrong?

I can't find a clear answer. Perhaps you can?