Hunter's Insight – A Guild Wars 2 Blog

Dog Pile

Poor Suzina. She bought gold for World of Warcraft and then blogged about it. Many people had something to say about her post. It collected over 100 comments and a ton of people blogging about her. I’m sure I’m only adding to the mess.

She made a poor decision and then the blogging community dog piled on her. Oh no, I don’t mean buying the gold was a poor decision, I mean blogging about it. Overall her decision to buy gold is meaningless. She’s a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers of people who actually buy gold, and buy lots of gold.

Having played Runes of Magic, I know exactly how much money people are willing to spend on a game, and it frightens me to think there are people in WoW spending those amounts of money. One highly geared member of my RoM guild spent $2000 in one year. He is far from the only big spender in that game. Those are the types of people who keep RMT companies going, not $10 nickel and dimers.

Playing in a micro-transaction game has really changed my opinion on people who buy gold, legally or not. I don’t agree with anyone buying gold outside the system, but I also acknowledge that some people don’t have the time or will to farm gold. However easy it may be. I no longer think it’s a big deal, or at least I don’t think the people buying gold are a big deal.

The actual RMT people? They’re scum. Hackers, scammers, dishonest scum. I would never trust them with my money one way or another. That, I think, is Suzina’s only failure here, she should not have risked her security for in game gold.

I actually think she’s done a service for the community. She raised the issue in a very visible place. Not only was her post honest and sincere, revealing exactly why she was buying gold and giving us a peek inside the mind of gold buyers, she was very heartfelt. She couldn’t believe someone would treat her so badly over what is essentially a minor issue. She actually feels bad about it, and considering the reaction from the blogging community, I kind of wonder if she’ll retreat from blogging. There are a lot of jerks on the internet.

Okay, yes, the issue is far from minor when we start talking about how RMT affects online gamers. They raise costs, annoy us, steal from us, ruin our enjoyment of a game at times we’re just looking to unwind. Hacking our account is akin to hacking our time, effort, and the soul we’ve put into characters.

What I’m saying is, Suzina is not a villain. Just like people who smoke weed shouldn’t be sent to prison. I suppose I could make a whole analogy out of that, but I’m not going to. It does however confuse me that she didn’t seem to have any foreknowledge of how taboo RMT is in the blogging world or even in game.