1.About azin :
I work for a game company and I lead the team of our outsourcing developers’ services. 9 Dragons inspired me in 2007 to take this path. This industry is full of people like me, people who played a game which they loved and then took the path of the professionals. I would say now is my time and my generation time to lead in game industry. We are the ones that give content and money to games, also leading the social media platforms. It is well known the gaming industry is expanding, and millennials are the driving force. What used to be considered a waste of time is now a full-blown industry. There is such a thing as a professional gamer now too. Some of them are celebrities on YouTube as they livestream their games. Tournaments can be found on TVs and gaming can even help raise funds for charity or COVID-19.
For millennials born between 1981 and 1996, like me, video games have always existed. Now, the kids who played video games grow into adults who play video games. Fifty-four percent of millennial gamers have a full-time job. And a portion of that money goes right back into gaming – consoles, subscriptions and extra gaming content.
About the player :
I started the game in Acclaim in 2007. I played in Bardo server and at some point I was the head of VGMs in Asura. Since then until now I have been in the game in all four publishers. I tried made a network of players to help improve this game and fight the groups from black market. Our discord group is a closed group and only when you get an Ace card can get into the network. I know this game from inside out. When I was a VGM I work closed with GM Nevermore and try hunt down the black market sellers, corrupted VGMs and spammers. I was known in Acclaim time as azinPro. Now, I have many names and faces.
2. Let’s talk about the RMT and where all started.
Real money trading (RMT) it’s something every MMO gamer encounters in his gamer life. Practically you buy codes. If the buying and selling of virtual goods using real money isn’t something actively encouraged by the game itself, you at least hear very bad stories about gold farmers and bots, cheating bots and black market players causing prices of in-game goods to go up, or find eBay/Auctions sites of in-game items and gold for huge sums of money.
From inside the industry I can tell RMT is still a weak point for many game developers. In particular, you’ll find that many games prohibit inter players RMT within their End User License Agreements (EULA) or Terms of Service, documents. Players who violate those terms may go to jail in some countries or game companies can sue them off them for breach of contract (not to mention ban your account altogether). Chinesse players for sure will never go to jail for this or will not have a problem with Chinesse game companies or gov, but the rest of countries in European Union or the states in US have legislation enforcing a code of conduct. We speak about illicit activity also about money laundry funds with no control. Both sides, those who sells or buy have liability to EULA or ToS/ ToA. Those people can also create liabilities for game companies and people from the industry think like this :
If [fraud] occurs in a virtual world, the game is in the middle, the game company has to be dragged into litigation. So if players can have property rights and legal claims to their virtual property.
If the company says you’re not allowed to do this while you’re on our servers and then they do it, they’re liable for contract violation. Many companies along the years change the RMT policy. For example, they created their own in-house auction houses or contracted a third party to do it as outsourcing or encourage the players with rewards to track down the black market traders. Blizzard is very active on this segment, they lead and nail it. Many came in WoW to make money, they made from 5-20% of the publisher earning so from early days they ban in waves all accounts, who sells or who buys. This year the larger money booster community was banned.
In Albion Online many players put online videos how to do it and got rewarded.
3.What is the model of business of gold/ items/powerlevels/accounts sellers and their methods ?
There is a whole organized structure. There are those who do the work from in game like those who farm 24/24 h and target high level items, those who supervise them, the one who is the boss and those who mediate and get clients. Transactions are made through PayPal and are two main accounts with large sums of money on them, and two owners the boss of farmers and the intermediary. All the rest are pay on monthly base income.
In the game you are lured and recruited in terms of power. They make strong characters and promise that you will be the strongest if they give you the knowledge and sell you the items you need. They are actually exploiting the game system. They look at what the most powerful resources are and farm them by putting a monopoly. At some point, some of those who buy in order to maintain their power and have big discounts become intermediaries. Many use their league as a tool.
When they sell accounts they are using specific phrases like, "you're not buying my account, that's the property of game company: you're buying my time," or selling the "disc/guide" with an account attached were are tricks of the trade. Publishers rampant eBay, and as a result the site now pulls MMO-related auctions almost immediately. There were also other third-party sites which would broker the deal. These brokers back-alley sites are shady, dangerous places where you can ripped off completely. Often, these sites would shut down and reopen.
The selling of gold and in game items for $ can fundamentally undermine the in-game economy, and players who buy their way into high-level characters often have little to no clue how to use them effectively. In many ways, the entire player-base can suffer because of these unintended consequences.
4.What should RedFox do about black market transactions ?
I looked on 9 Dragons Awaken sales accounts transactions. Many lure you with fake accounts and items. In the end you will end up without money or account. In 9 Dragons Awaken you are attracted from the game forum when you try to own that you buy or sell or transfer items from one server to another. Another method is the discord groups, facebook groups full of fake avatars or the pk-ing in game when you get abused by powerful characters and try be like them, those people who put monopoly on Kunlun bosses for a fact.
We have the Hanoi group who is the most toxic group from black market. In addition to traditional methods, they use bots, hacked, auto-farmers and various cheat methods. Moreover, the attacks on the servers are related to that group, many do not know that in fact the email addresses are used to steal the account, and then sell it in bulk. The same thing happens with powerlevel accounts or those who bought other persons accounts. In time points they are sold as a package. Same group is the owner of facebooks black market groups and their ultimate purpose as back-up plan is to make private servers. I sow these people at work. They can even see the korean files clients and hack in there. Their operation is also there, cross publishers and servers.
With the last move of RF they gave a small blow to the black market, the prices there dropped. I watched FB on a group and we can see that in the sellers, but it's not enough. They have already stockpiled for Hainan to slaughter the community once again and take over the sale of items there. RF needs to think about the source of the items in Hainan and how to make it accessible to the vast majority of players.
If I would be RF GMs before Hainan I would give a powerful message to the game community and start banning the main accounts of people who sells or buy in facebook groups and discord for $ and are related to this group in anyway. This will bring more people in game. Starting legal action against this people would be a smart move. Many game companies are doing and they have good positive feed-back from the community. Here is an example:
The competition between them is quite high and if RF entices them to leave the groups and say the methods they use, who they are or seriously lean on the appearance of the servers would be clean. Their barrier is also the language. They don’t have any moral or business ethics. They buy resource to sell from anyone in the game starting with hackers, booters, dubious people, small farmers. The profit is high when you buy cheap and sell high. They also try control the economy prices roaring from dubious low level characters selling/buying things at certain price. All rotates.
The people who buys from black market with $ are also game cheaters and should be banned. Serious companies have put that in terms.As for sellers, after game companies banned the buyers accounts the game companies of developers or publishers asked them to go against people from where they bought it. Blizzard made an example in the industry when they banned in waves, 300,000 $ accounts and and put on debt the PayPal account of those who tried to take advantage of their game, when they told the players to ask for their money back. The actions took place on the same day.
When you make your account, you do not own the game, rather, you own a license to use the game. The license will specify the ways in which they allow you to use the game, and the game company will typically reserve all other rights. This most likely includes the right to profit from game in any way. Your selling/buying of in-game items would, in that case, be a violation of the license and they can punish you according to the license and/or the law. If they can show you profited from their property, they are probably entitled to compensation. RedFox is a US company, so the legal right is stated in here :
This problem is not only RF alone problem, but also JW Games, because it is a game design issue. You have to think about it if your world is supposed to be and how you let your players access the resource and not let those people benefit or put monopoly. As developer you should think about 3 aspects: on the legal side, the financial side, and the gameplay side to limit the black market.