Multiplayer gamers can soon join Sony’s auction site. Sony plans to launch a marketplace where fans can buy, sell or trade the right to use specific characters, items and online funds that they have earned playing the video game.
“Until now, Sony has been among the most aggressive game makers in restricting sales of such articles, even insisting that all material related to its EverQuest series belongs to the company. For instance, Sony has blocked numerous EverQuest-related auctions on eBay and Yahoo and convinced both of those sites to ban sales of such items. Sony has also sued other sites specializing in the barter of the online commodities.”
C|Net also reports that, according to Sony:
“Sony is creating Station Exchange to discourage underground trading of game articles and to protect its customers from fraud. As the trade of game-related items has increased, so have the reported number of incidents of people ripped off in misleading or illegitimate transactions”
Why would gamers be interested in selling/trading or buying goods they can only virtually possess? I’ve reported about virtual and real life activity crossing before (dot-life-where-the-watcher-steps-in) and this fact adds up to my estimated predictions. I’m not the only one who believes in the future of the web. But if there are any signs or indications that the web is evolving into a cyber-trade land, then this is one of them.
I see a rather new character appearing in our society, namely the professional game-trader, who is always scouting the web for his customers, looking for the little dwarf you can only unlock after finishing the seventh level. The nerd who sacrificed his time to unlock the dwarf gets rewarded with hard cash in exchange for the virtual character. So there must also be ‘professional’ gamers who try to unlock every item, to sell it later on through an auction site as a reward for sweat and tears.
“The unsanctioned secondary market for online games is rapidly growing, and more and more of our players are taking part in it,” John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, said in a statement. “Not only are we answering the demands of a sizable portion of our subscriber base, but we are also set on establishing the standard for online game sales.”
So Sony wants to take a leading position, right after entering the market. A very nice target to set. Will there be any revenue from this auction site? Any normal person would think so, but Sony did not reveal if it had those intentions. According to C|Net, Sony’s unofficial estimate of the current market for underground game item begins at $100 million a year. About 20 percent of those sales would be generated from items related to games Sony carries in its own portfolio.
The project kicks off at Sony’s Secure Station Exchange Auction Site and for now only the EverQuest II players can exchange their items. If this testcase works and proves to be efficient and just, no doubt it’ll indeed become the standard for online in-game trading.
How this thing actually works? Sony states (on the Station Exchange): “Station Exchange offers secure transactions and prevents the parties from reneging on the deal. When a character is listed, it is effectively removed from the game world. When the auction closes, the character is added to the successful winner’s EverQuest II character roster – so it cannot be taken back.”
Click here to read it all on C|Net.