The Fight Against Gold Farmers
ANNOUNCE 10/15/2012 2:31:13 PM Milletians,Have you ever wondered why MMO companies come down so hard on gold farmers, and players who use their services?
The first reason for this is that gold farmers knowingly violate the Terms of Use. If they’re willing to break the rules by farming gold, they’re likely willing to break them in other ways. We want to protect legitimate players, not only from gold farmers, but from all unscrupulous players who are out to steal information and ruin the game for everyone else.
The second reason is that gold farmers can destroy a game’s economy, and make it impossible for legitimate players to compete. Find out how below.
The Ripple Effect
The biggest reason to stop gold farmers and sellers is because they can completely destroy a game. It’s happened before. Gold farming may not seem like a huge deal to some, but it has devastating, far-reaching, and sometimes irreversible effects on a game and its economy.Inflation
Gold farmers often spend hours upon hours per day obtaining gold that they can sell to players. All this extra gold floods into the game and rapidly changes the economy. The amount of in-game gold increases too quickly, and individual gold units become less and less valuable as more gold is introduced.While the value of gold is rapidly decreasing, players who earn their gold legitimately are still gaining gold at a rate consistent with the original, intended game economy. Since gold worth is now lower, item prices rise to keep up. Players who earn their gold legitimately get outbid for items by players who purchase large sums of gold with real money. Since item sellers only take the highest offer, honest players simply can’t afford high end items.
Devaluation of Items
As more gold buyers purchase extremely high-priced, rare items, low-to-mid level items become worth less. Even high-end items eventually drop in value because they lose their rarity as the number of them in the game increases.Destruction of Market Liquidity
You may have found a special item that you’re able to sell for three million gold today, but since gold buyers continue to increase the supply of gold, the same item could go for 10 million tomorrow. These unpredictable fluctuations in price result in people holding onto their goods in hopes of prices rising in the near future. This causes shortages of certain goods in the marketplace as everyone seeks to make the most off of them.Encouraging Thieves
Wherever gold selling occurs, thieves naturally follow. Many gold selling operations are really just fronts for people who intend to scam you, steal your identity or credit card information in order to raid your Nexon account, or even worse, your real-life bank account!What is Nexon Doing About it?
Nexon is always fighting back against botters and farmers in big ways, and we have recently made huge strides in how we deal with this problem. An issue is that farmers adapt to our solutions quickly, forcing us to fight a new battle each week. It is taxing on us, but it is a problem that we and many other publishers of MMOs fight on a daily basis. We are fighting this on many fronts and are expanding our efforts to control the situation.Anyone who is determined to be farming, selling, or purchasing gold will be indefinitely banned from the game.
If we make it harder for gold sellers to retain customers, it will become less financially viable for them to continue, and will eventually reduce their efforts. This is how we start to turn the tides of this battle.
What Can I Do?
The solution is simple: Don't buy gold, NX, or any “services” from anyone other than Nexon, or a Nexon-authorized marketing partner. Encourage others to do the same. Remind people that it’s against the Terms of Use and will result in a ban. Awareness is a simple but effective solution. If there’s no market for gold farming, the business will dry up.You might ask yourself "What difference does one player make when so many other people buy gold anyway?" One player may not make much of a difference, but if everyone who asked that question took action to stop gold buyers, the solution would start to take shape. Big changes don’t come from one person, they come when everyone plays a part. Keep your gamer pride and don’t buy or sell gold.
Together we can keep Mabinogi healthy, prosperous and fun, and put an end to the fraudulent activities that threaten our Fantasy Life!
The Mabinogi Team