Player-To-Player Virtual Item Sales Go Legit

The MTV Multiplayer Blog has a provocative article about the increasing likelihood of player-to-player item sales becoming more legitimate over time. Here's some of what Tracey John had to say after attending a "round table" discussion of the issue:

While convenient for some, black market sales hurt the publishers and developers as well as gamers. "Publishers and developers are getting none of [the black market revenue], and in fact, they're incurring costs from customer support," Schneider said. So not only do the publishers and developers not make money from the black market sales, the game companies are also responsible for the costs from gamers needing customer support as a result of their illicit purchases.

Their suggested solution? Services like Sony Online Entertainment's Station Exchange, which launched in June 2005 as a place for "EverQuest II" players to securely trade virtual game items for real money to avoid fraud and fight farming practices. Before the launch of the Station Exchange, 40 percent of the game's customer service was spent on "virtual item sales resolution." Since the service's rollout, it's dropped by 30 percent, according to the presentation.

Although the service is nearly three years old, earlier this month, Live Gamer announced an agreement to utilize SOE's Station Exchange technology to form Live Gamer Exchange. It promises to be a new, independent service that "combines the Web-based accessibility of Station Exchange with Live Gamer's proprietary Wall-Street-developed in-game application" while offering players "a flexible and convenient way to access the virtual marketplace anytime, anywhere." In a press release from February 7, John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment said the new Live Gamer service "will be supporting other publisher's games."

Stop by our forums and leave your thoughts on the issue and check out the MTV MP Blog as well.