I will post a link about a reddit post that has garnered quite a bit of attention; https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/gk94sb/please_help_us_save_wow_in_china/
…it shows the increasing effect of WoW Token/real money transactions in China and just how bad it can get.
It is effecting normal player grouping,chat and just playing the game and minding your own business in game.I hope it never becomes this bad over in the EU and it shows how we need increased mod’s=GMs/oversight in game.
Edit:also adding the wowhead post https://www.wowhead.com/news=316097/a-redditors-plea-the-overwhelming-impact-of-rmt-in-chinese-wow
Unfortunate, and I don’t think Blizzard has a lot of power in this situation to save WoW over there. But if something positive happens, I will be pleasantly surprised.
Hardly any different from what we have here tbh.
Forbidding all manual trade between players is easy solution which we, no doubt, will see sooner or later. So worry not.
Like bully thing in darkshore warfront. It’s hardly happens here. Neighter seller nor player will get anything from it.
Also servers are dominated by those IRL cash services. So it’s not same gaming experience as EU and NA servers.
Reading the Wowhead article on this is very chilling. It seems to not just be a Blizzard issue but rampant in almost all online games in China.
I am seriously at a loss of what to do about the issue any possible solutions also seem to bring a host of downsides too. The most obvious is to remove the token but I don’t think that this would work in this case as it seems to suggest that it wold do little to curtail these activities as they would just go offsite and we would still be in the same situation.
international corporations such as Blizzard are required by law to use a local business partner, so WoW is not managed by Blizzard Entertainment the way it is in the NA/EU. Their current partner, NetEase, has virtually full control of operations in that part of the world
The problem seems to start with the (Chinese) law, doubt that will ever change.
I think the main problem is the country culture.
Too many players willing to pay for services. That’s why they flourish.
If none would buy their services, they would run out of business soon or later.
Sad truth is: if the majority of a community in a country is whiling to spend massively in game services like WoW token, I don’t think the company would say no. It’s profitable.
They should do something about it of course.
But are they more interested in profits, meaning having whales on the game, whiling to spend boat loads of money in in-game currency, or protecting legitimate players that want to earn everything through game play only ?
Even in classic forums people are complaining about bot spam and gold sellers. They don’t have WoW token there.
In the end this is like a cancer in every mmo, nothing I haven’t seen in other games.
Maybe the game model itself needs to be rethinked.
I posted in Trade Chat about WoW being ‘pay to win’, quote: “Is WoW pay to win these days?” the other day (every day it’s filled with boost selling adverts for ‘Companies’).
Within about a minute, I got a torrent of abuse for suggesting this.
Anyway, my deeper point was, (you can’t have a sensible discussion with these people) it sets a dangerous pre-requisite.
People will spend gold for these services, because they want to keep up with ‘the curve’, want to quickly gear a character, whatever. The ‘appeal’ is there and you can’t deny this (why advertise otherwise?) Now, for some people, they can acquire the gold in game (140k for an HC Ny’alotha run). For others, this will be the purchase of a token using real money.
If left unchecked, who is to say the system will not advance and be monopolised into what is being observed with the Chinese realms?
The proceeds of these activities are unregulated (whether they are to buy WoW tokens or to pass into the wider gold reselling market and undercut WoW tokens). I can’t prove this, but I have strong suspicion of tax evasion by these boosting ‘companies’.
Whilst there is always the freedom of choice (and I know this will be the main argument of those who reply)… As with other more recent studies into gaming addiction, ‘loot boxes’ and mental health, there is a clear linkage that people can and will spend ‘real’ money for gratification.
Blizzard can and should be doing more to protect those must vulnerable. For those players most skilled, why not introduce a separate system into the game such as ‘hired mercenary’, where you can advertise your services for hire for a dungeon of choice at a fixed fee? There are ways and means to fix this.
You don’t blame cockroaches for infesting your home, you blame whoever left food out for them to thrive on…
But yeh, it’s about time for the exterminator to visit this game and gas the cockroaches. Blizz could if they wanted to, but why would the exterminator pay a visit if he’s paid even when he doesn’t?
I have been watching YouTube discussions about online transactions. It’s a lucrative model.
How some companies like EA are predating in this practices.
In example FiFA.
A game where you can spend unlimited money in order for you to get the best players.
Here’s a funny video about it:
What’s not funny is when this happens:
That’s why some governments in Europe are trying to tackle this practices, called loot boxes.
Overwatch loot boxes a game from Activision Blizzard was also discussed.
As you can see micro transactions get a lot of money and companies love it.
Yes they should do more, but are they interested in it ?
Disturbing.
I’ve been opposed to WoW boosting being greenlit all along even though I hypocritically bought one when they were new. Well, I guess I hadn’t solidified my impression of it yet, but I’ll tell you: That boost was never worth it. Hollow ‘accomplishment’. It feels like you’re using a cheat code.
Furthermore, the trade chat has become full of this growing cancer, even on AD, an RP realm.
It’s quite obvious how tremendous of an impact the boosting business has on the game. I’m tired of people defending it just so they can buy their way around subscription fees, services and in-game mounts/items.
It should be called out for what it is: An undignified shortcut. A lowblow, a way to enable cheating. I’d sooner see A***, thunderfury spam and political debates unfolding than this disease. Hell, I’d rather see a dead trade chat.
It’s ridiculous what extend people will go through to justify cheating and even worse that Blizzard allows it.
WoW in the west already has this problem but it is extracted out from the game. Boost sellers are lying when they say “it’s just for gold”. It’s not just for gold and it takes you around 5 minutes of searching to find services selling boosts for real money, and to see how well organized this is. Now, these prices show why we as a whole outsource labor to China - an average boost costs around 36 euro, and only 6 there? Bruh.
Ultimately, boosts are a problem. I think Blizz should pick itself up and go not only after boost selling ingame, but after the boost selling services, too.
The WoW Token imo is not a problem, not as much. I’ll probably never buy one, but I think the situation with it is better here - we all remember the gold selling spam from before and now all of that is gone.
There is no good MMO without player to player trading.
I’ve seen the same documentary, and I was careful with my legal terminology, here because the WoW token is not a loot box, but is, in effect, an intermediary transaction ‘enabler’ if you like. It bridges the gap between the monetary systems of the real and virtual worlds, whilst at the same time lending legitimacy to in game currency transactions and evading the legal ramifications of loot box legislation.
It’s very intelligent on the part of Blizzard Activision and the cynic in me says they know they can sell more WoW tokens for a ‘3rd party loot box’.
we dont know how common those bullying cases, it may be just extreme examples. Griefing and bullying happens all the time on eu servers as well. We may have milder version but all the same, boosts everywhere, bot/humanbots ruining farm, goldsellers controlling AH and devlopers not giving a damn about anything.
Can they introduce an ingame policy of forbidding boosters? If anything, they would populate external websites. That way, who wants to pay can still do it, but you wouldn’t have your trade chat or overall game spammed, maybe.
WoW in China is not run by Blizzard themselves but by a company called NetEase. NetEase is a licensee to run Blizzard games in China. Blizzard has no power to moderate in-game activities in Chinese WoW.
The funny part is, that most Chinese MMOs look exactly like that. Chinese players seem to have a fundamentally different view on RMT and cheating than we do (or, it’s just the lack of moderation).
