Years ago, ZOS made the conscious decision to facilitate an exchange of real money currency (crowns) for time-based currency (gold) in-game.
Since its inception, the primary use of this system has and continues to be trading in-game gold for crown store items. While some may claim this is an unintended use such views are either misinformed or disingenuous. Not only have ZOS repeatedly stated such exchanges are NOT against their policy on the use of this system, they do NOT ban or otherwise discipline accounts engaging in it and furthermore,
they maintain an official company staff presence to facilitate this exchange on the largest Crown Exchange monopoly sites.
To continue claiming this is somehow unintended flies in the face of overwhelming evidence.
The simple and obvious question is,
why after so many years is the in-game method of conducting these exchanges STILL totally unsafe and unsecured?
The question is particularly relevant as REAL MONEY is involved, and even more so when it was revealed that IF you are scammed ZOS's official policy is to only help customers restore their lost currency ONCE, after which they are told they will receive no further support whatsoever.
How is it acceptable for a company to facilitate a real money exchange and NOT include a secure system for exchanging that currency?
Further, by NOT securing the in-game exchange system they create a scenario where these one or two monopoly exchange sites, seizing on the demand for a "safe" way to exchange currencies, have literally TRIPLED the conversion rate over just the past couple years.
ZOS directly benefits from this (at least in the short term) while customers suffer, as their time is worth less and less as the middlemen drive prices higher and higher.
Because most newer players and even veterans simply can no longer afford 4+ million gold for basic crown purchases like a banker NPC, they are put in a position of either going without (not everything is available with Endeavor Seals and those take MONTHS to save up), or simply buying the item with real money.
The more people forced out of the exchange market into using real money, the more ZOS pads it's short term profit margins.
HOWEVER on the reverse edge of the double-sided FOMO sword, this also leads to BURNOUT in the long term which ultimately HURTS profits.
Furthermore, by officially supporting crown to gold exchange with company staff presence on these sites,
ZOS is knowingly facilitating an UNSECURED and UNSAFE exchange of REAL MONEY with no protection and NO SUPPORT after the first time you get scammed.
How do people get scammed?
The game provides no direct method of exchange. Instead, one party must either send the other the gold first, otherwise the other part must send the crown store item first. All one party would need to do is wait to receive the other person's trade, then disconnect, go offline, or otherwise run away without paying their half. ZOS provides NO SUPPORT for this after the first offense, making is easy for people to create duplicate accounts, scam multiple people out of millions of gold, then either get by with a reprimand or lose a throwaway account with basically no other consequence.
Meanwhile, the person getting scammed is left simply out of luck with the official company stance being NO SUPPORT after the first incident.
How to solve the problem?
ZOS could literally spend 15 minutes coding a secure in-game interface widget to allow people to queue up crown items in exchange for gold.
I offer to code this for them FREE OF CHARGE (and it would literally take me 15 minutes).
There is simply no justifiable reason to continue to facilitate unsecured and unsafe real money transactions, especially in a game targeted primarily at young people.@ZOS_GinaBruno@ZOS_KaiSchober@ZOS_Kevin
Can we please and finally get an official statement as to how this easily avoidable security vulnerability has been allowed to persist in-game so long and what your plans are for addressing this serious problem for your loyal customers?