Ethics on MMORPG black market and GFF's ads for them

On occasion, I see a row of Google ads for FFXI gil marketplaces on the bottom of the page here. I bet that depending on what pages I went to, I could probably see WoW trading ads too. I know that Adsense clients cannot directly control what ads Google displays on their websites. Still, it seems like an ethical issue to me, as the result is that GFF is inadvertently encouraging the black market in MMORPG currency.

I know not everyone is against this sort of thing either; does GFF/bobo have a stance on it? Is this a non-topic here?

I think it's a bad thing, but I don't care that much about the issue to be fired up about it. I'm more just interested in hearing people's thoughts on whether GFF should be responsible for its ads, whether this is important, whether it's even feasible to do anything about it, etc.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, it's cheating to the game and also of questionable legality. And the market doesn't just affect the person engaging in it. "Gold farming" has a disruptive effect on the economy and gameplay balance of games like WoW and FFXI. As well, people ingame are more likely to steal items from friendly party members who didn't know their new member was a gold farmer, and it's an incentive to develop 3rd party tools and discover exploits to artificially gain currency.

It may not be unethical in some absolute sense, because hey, it's just a game. I guess it's more a question of gamer ethics and what we as a community of gamers want to endorse.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

This shouldn't be in Board Support. This is not discussing a technical issue, and my question was not just about the ethics of GFF's ads, but about the ethics of gold farming itself. So far the discussion has been about nothing but the latter. Please reconsider.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm not sure why you simply don't search for another game that offers you a roleplaying experience more suited to your needs. Why play a game which is structured such that for you to optimally enjoy it, you are required to keep shelling out money?

And it's not some teenager using the money to buy pot or whatever; there are organizations, you could maybe even call them small companies (especially in China) who do this to make serious money. It's these concerted efforts, more than the teenage "hobbyists", as you might say, that are the problem.

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Originally Posted by Zephyrin

If you couldn't buy items and currency, then your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYERISH RPGGGGGG might not be so massive, because some people wouldn't have the incentive.

And if WoW's populace suffered a loss and these people left for another RPG whose game economy and pace were more suited to them, then everyone benefits. The people who left found a better game for them, and the people who stayed have a more stable economy. And the market for MMORPGs is affected by competition in a healthy way.

WoW and FFXI were both just fine before gold/gil farming became a major issue, people didn't come becausef the changes wrought by these black markets. If Blizzard thought that these markets were a net benefit to their gameplay, user experience, or their profits, they wouldn't be banning 30,000 accounts in just this last month of May.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Devo

In this guy's case, finding fault with GFF isn't going to solve anything. The ads are put up by google, and he's wasting his and GFF's time trying to preach the evils of gold farming here.

I'm not at all finding fault with GFF here, or trying to "preach the evils of gold farming" here. I don't play MMORPGs and I don't think GFF is at fault for the ads Google delivers. But it sure seems like an interesting little issue, as apparently do other people, so let's chat about it.

Also, I have a name and you could be more respectful than to refer to me as "this guy" when I'm, metaphorically speaking, "in the room".

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