SOE, Live Gamer Deal: Smedley, Schneider Interviewed

Earlier today, news broke that SOE had partnered with Live Gamer to replace their existing Station Exchange service in EverQuest II. This company specializes in a platform that facilitates the exchange of virtual items for real world currency.

In this article, we hear from SOE CEO John Smedley on what this deal does for their gold farming, fraud and secondary market problems and from Live Gamer President Andrew Schneider on what their service provides.

What's more, as these claims accumulate, the company must pay penalties. "We have been fined; just the fines alone are over a million dollars, and a lot of those are from Station Exchange," said Smedley.

In response to these problems, SOE announced today that they have partnered with Live Gamer, a company that specializes in the integration of secondary market solutions into existing MMOs. The company, founded by veterans of gaming and financial services, operates a single platform, which they hope will extend across multiple games and companies.

Read more after the leap.

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I have mixed feelings about this. While combating gold farming is difficult. The question becomes one of "Why do people buy virtual items and gold?" One reason that pops to mind is because these items and gold are not accessible to everyone. If gaming companies would look at how they are rewarding people, such as the best items going only to those who can gather a group of 20-40 people to aquire them. Perhaps if they rethought how they are rewarding these virtual items there would be no need to buy them from suspect companies.

The other thing that bothers me is, it seems as though this is a attempt to cash in on a form of illegal selling of items. How then can a company say it's legal only if we sell it? But not if others sell it. Very complicated and I am sure it will only get more complicated as laws are brought to bear on the internet.

The only solution I can see is to make it more fair for EVERY player by having rewards that are the same. Which then destroys the group gets better rewards concept. But hey, I don't hang out with 40 other people in MMOs.