How the Bot Disease Creates a Win Win

Skillet

Seems to me that the Bot disease is a result of simple economic enterprise. People making money, its been around for hundreds of years.

- Developer creates great game, sells licenses, profits = Win

- Botter buys licenses, farms gold, sells gold (items), profits = Win

-Developer bans limited / selective bot accounts, who then go ahead and re- purchase new licenses to continue profitable business = Win Win

As long as both parties maintain profitability, the cycle continues.

Only way to break this is for the developer to hard Rambo all the bot accounts so that Botters can no longer be profitable. But in doing so, they give up a continuing supply of relicensing profit that Bots are actually providing.

It has to be something like this, else in todays technology, the Bot disease would already be eliminated.

Shimond

I know who John Rambo was but I'm unfamiliar with the term "hard Rambo".

You want the devs to fire explosive arrows at the botters? I mean, apparently they're using giant hammers right now but I'm not opposed to something stronger.

Orizuru

Except ZOS loses money for every account botters create.

If you're going to create a game account to do something you know the game devs will eventually ban you for doing, are you really going to use your own credit card to pay for the account?

Botters are not the enterprising individuals you think they are. They are criminals who live in countries that are beyond prosecution within what we consider the civilized world. They are buying game accounts with stolen credit cards and the banks eventually will be taking all the money back from ZOS.

ZOS does not make one red cent from these accounts. They only lose money because they have to pay credit card processing fees as well as other fees associated with the cost of doing business for every single sale they make. When the banks do the charge backs to ZOS for fraudulent credit card charges made by the botters, ZOS loses all the profit from the sale, plus any fees paid as the cost of doing business.

Saihung423

If the botters are doing all this through filched credit card information then there is no winner, certainly not Zenimax.

Skillet

Saihung423 wrote: »

If the botters are doing all this through filched credit card information then there is no winner, certainly not Zenimax.

Someone is winning here, otherwise it would not be going on. The scammers and thieves would be busy somewhere else.

Saihung423

Well considering the time and effort put in by the botters, I would say they are profiting.

They can transfer the ill gotten booty to a safe account that doesn't violate every line of the EULA and then sell it at their leisure.

Abigail

@‌Skillet

You lost me with ...

Skillet wrote: »

People making money, its been around for hundreds of years.

Hundreds of years? And to think I suffered through six years of post-graduate History lectures indicating a much longer period.

(Just kidding, of course. Carry on)

Shimizu

After reading through the threads about crafting, guild stores, bots, an elegant solution seems to present itself even though it may seem a bit radical.

Currently, we have gold in the game. We get this in 1 to 4 coin bits from drops occasionally, or from selling (to vendors) stuff we pick up.

This cash is used for primarily:
Buying & feeding mounts
Buying consumables
Buying inventory space upgrades
Buying items off other players
Cash sinks


What if we just got rid of the money?
Then we wouldn't need: cash sinks for repairing, cash sinks for listing things in shops, we wouldn't need shops. The great auction house debate? Irrelevant.

There is no reason why feeding oats to your mount couldn't involve going and getting actual oats out of a crate or some other 15 second task. Inventory & bank space should just be set to a reasonable cap (like 300 each reasonable), grow with your character level, or be expandable by skill points (see merchant guild skill line example in skill lines section), independent of currency

Consumables such as potions drop from mobs and are craftable, don't really need to be on npc vendors. In fact increasing itemisation of the few things that people might actually need to buy from an npc vendor would alleviate this. Make it so that crushing racial armor always gives the gemstone for the style and you don't need to buy those either.

Really want a different economy? The guild store becomes a trading hall where people can set up trading x for y and currency becomes irrelevant. If currency has become irrelevant or nonexistent, there's no market for the gold farmers to sell and no reason to buy it. Demand for individual particular items is too localised and too specific to set up an effective real cash scheme and even in the event that one is set up, it would not have all the bots farming all the low lvl starter dungeons for soul gems as they'd need to diversify their farming to satisfy the 'real cash market'.

I've not fleshed this out particularly well but its an interesting concept

Jeremy

Skillet wrote: »

Seems to me that the Bot disease is a result of simple economic enterprise. People making money, its been around for hundreds of years.

- Developer creates great game, sells licenses, profits = Win

- Botter buys licenses, farms gold, sells gold (items), profits = Win

-Developer bans limited / selective bot accounts, who then go ahead and re- purchase new licenses to continue profitable business = Win Win

As long as both parties maintain profitability, the cycle continues.

Only way to break this is for the developer to hard Rambo all the bot accounts so that Botters can no longer be profitable. But in doing so, they give up a continuing supply of relicensing profit that Bots are actually providing.

It has to be something like this, else in todays technology, the Bot disease would already be eliminated.

You make an interesting point. But I think bots do a lot more harm then good because they are likely to run many legitimate players off the game.

No one likes competing against a program that doesn't need to eat or sleep and never loses patience.

Orizuru

@Shimizu While that is an interesting concept, I doubt it would change much. It would just turn into an economy system that reflects what happened in Diablo 2. In diablo 2 there was a barter system like you describe because the games currency was worthless. So instead of saying an item was worth X amount of gold, people would equate value to the value of the most popularly traded item, the vaulted Stone of Jordan. The people selling things for real money, would put a price in US dollars on 1 Stone of Jordan, then other items were valued as being worth X Stones of Jordan.

Basically, the gold sellers would start selling Stones of Jordan for cash instead of gold.

Jeremy

NaciremaDiputs wrote: »

@Shimizu While that is an interesting concept, I doubt it would change much. It would just turn into an economy system that reflects what happened in Diablo 2. In diablo 2 there was a barter system like you describe because the games currency was worthless. So instead of saying an item was worth X amount of gold, people would equate value to the value of the most popularly traded item, the vaulted Stone of Jordan. The people selling things for real money, would put a price in US dollars on 1 Stone of Jordan, then other items were valued as being worth X Stones of Jordan.

Basically, the gold sellers would start selling Stones of Jordan for cash instead of gold.

Ugh. The SOJ spam in diablo 2 was an abomination.

caschotchb14_ESO

Shimizu wrote: »

After reading through the threads about crafting, guild stores, bots, an elegant solution seems to present itself even though it may seem a bit radical.

Currently, we have gold in the game. We get this in 1 to 4 coin bits from drops occasionally, or from selling (to vendors) stuff we pick up.

This cash is used for primarily:
Buying & feeding mounts
Buying consumables
Buying inventory space upgrades
Buying items off other players
Cash sinks


What if we just got rid of the money?
Then we wouldn't need: cash sinks for repairing, cash sinks for listing things in shops, we wouldn't need shops. The great auction house debate? Irrelevant.

There is no reason why feeding oats to your mount couldn't involve going and getting actual oats out of a crate or some other 15 second task. Inventory & bank space should just be set to a reasonable cap (like 300 each reasonable), grow with your character level, or be expandable by skill points (see merchant guild skill line example in skill lines section), independent of currency

Consumables such as potions drop from mobs and are craftable, don't really need to be on npc vendors. In fact increasing itemisation of the few things that people might actually need to buy from an npc vendor would alleviate this. Make it so that crushing racial armor always gives the gemstone for the style and you don't need to buy those either.

Really want a different economy? The guild store becomes a trading hall where people can set up trading x for y and currency becomes irrelevant. If currency has become irrelevant or nonexistent, there's no market for the gold farmers to sell and no reason to buy it. Demand for individual particular items is too localised and too specific to set up an effective real cash scheme and even in the event that one is set up, it would not have all the bots farming all the low lvl starter dungeons for soul gems as they'd need to diversify their farming to satisfy the 'real cash market'.

I've not fleshed this out particularly well but its an interesting concept

Interesting concept really...Basically a game with just a barter system. You should look up Path of Exile which did away with gold and everything is bartered with there form of currency called orbs (which are supposed to be used as Crafting but there crafting systems sucks soooo bad its laughable and not worth mentioning). Gold sellers now just sell those orbs and/or items. Gold sellers will always find a way to sell something whether it be Gold, orbs, equipment, time, etc.....

Your ideas though....I would really like to see a game like that.

Shimizu

While I know the 'Stone of Jordan' example points out a problem even with something like this, the idea is to eliminate the need to have a specific item as 'currency'. Sure, you'd probably still have bots listing gold craft upgrade items on website for howevermuch apiece, but I think people would be less willing to violate the ToS to go buy something like this to upgrade from epic to legendary, (as opposed to finding it themselves/trading for it in game) than people would to buy cash to buy basic things in the game, such as bag/bank space that is extremely limited, horses, etc. If there wasn't a brick wall of expenses unattainable for some players, there'd be no need to buy from goldfarmers.

The problem is really one of drilling down the game into time spent vs. reward.
If I can spend one hour's wage worth of money at my job, and get 50,000 gold in the game for example, when earning 50,000 gold in the game would probably take me the better part of a week /played, the appeal to buy from a third party seller increases. If the economy were developed in a way to reduce this appeal, you could stifle the gold farmer's market.

For myself, I looked at 42k for a horse? And said, Nah, imperial edition. At least this way the developer's getting the money to further improve the game, and I'm saving 42k gold per character. I'm not necessarily saying I think that Zenimax should sell money to players, but if the game itself, in a legal, endorsed manner, provides alternatives to senseless cash grind either by modifying the economic system to not NEED so much hard currency (90% of which are just sinks to remove it!), then bots have less appeal.

SadisticSavior

Skillet wrote: »

Seems to me that the Bot disease is a result of simple economic enterprise. People making money, its been around for hundreds of years.

- Developer creates great game, sells licenses, profits = Win

- Botter buys licenses, farms gold, sells gold (items), profits = Win

-Developer bans limited / selective bot accounts, who then go ahead and re- purchase new licenses to continue profitable business = Win Win

Here is the flaw in your logic...Zenimax REFUNDS the money on all accounts they ban. Yes, really.

Also, bots make the game less appealing, which means people are less likely to buy it or stick around.

So it is "lose" for everyone except the bots.

SadisticSavior

Saihung423 wrote: »

Well considering the time and effort put in by the botters, I would say they are profiting.

They can transfer the ill gotten booty to a safe account that doesn't violate every line of the EULA and then sell it at their leisure.

True...but of course Zenimax can track those transfers. And then either reverse the transfers or ban the recipient as well.

demendred

Bots are the disease, and I'm the cure....

7788b14_ESO

NaciremaDiputs wrote: »

Except ZOS loses money for every account botters create.

If you're going to create a game account to do something you know the game devs will eventually ban you for doing, are you really going to use your own credit card to pay for the account?

Botters are not the enterprising individuals you think they are. They are criminals who live in countries that are beyond prosecution within what we consider the civilized world. They are buying game accounts with stolen credit cards and the banks eventually will be taking all the money back from ZOS.

ZOS does not make one red cent from these accounts. They only lose money because they have to pay credit card processing fees as well as other fees associated with the cost of doing business for every single sale they make. When the banks do the charge backs to ZOS for fraudulent credit card charges made by the botters, ZOS loses all the profit from the sale, plus any fees paid as the cost of doing business.

Not all bot companies are the same. If they constantly stole your credit card info they would have no repeat customers, and they love repeat customers because they will buy gold for the different games they play. Most pay for accounts because their profits are just that good. They can afford to hire people to power level and grind and protect their bots in games that have open pvp. In some countries the player is entitled to a refund if his account gets perma banned. A small percentage of the player base buy and use bot programs to grind gold, level, and use cheats like radar to see who is in the area. I wouldn't be surprised if some companies paid some devs to be allowed to continue to operate under the radar. Do a youtube search for gold sellers and see the interviews sometimes.

nerevarine1138

Remove your tinfoil hat.

Developers lose money with all the employees they waste on security. Botters and gold sellers are criminals. They use stolen credit cards and compromised accounts. This should not surprise anyone.

Stop posting ridiculous conspiracy theories, because there's always a slim chance some poor, naive new player will think that it's true.

silent88b14_ESO

The customers of the spammers are victims because by the time they get their powerleveled character it is associated with gibberish-named alts that were used to gold/mat spam the rest of us and were reported. So when the devs catch up to that case their expensive PL's character is banned. The spammer meanwhile is sitting pretty selling all those rare mats the PL'd character's disposable alts harvested.

ChairGraveyard

Skillet wrote: »

Seems to me that the Bot disease is a result of simple economic enterprise. People making money, its been around for hundreds of years.

- Developer creates great game, sells licenses, profits = Win

- Botter buys licenses, farms gold, sells gold (items), profits = Win

-Developer bans limited / selective bot accounts, who then go ahead and re- purchase new licenses to continue profitable business = Win Win

As long as both parties maintain profitability, the cycle continues.

Only way to break this is for the developer to hard Rambo all the bot accounts so that Botters can no longer be profitable. But in doing so, they give up a continuing supply of relicensing profit that Bots are actually providing.

It has to be something like this, else in todays technology, the Bot disease would already be eliminated.

Your premise is greatly flawed.

For one thing, botters use stolen credit cards, which get charged back, COSTING Zenimax money.

Every botter is a CC account that gets chargebacks, and huge fees for Zenimax dealing with said chargebacks.

nerevarine1138

silent88b14_ESO wrote: »

The customers of the spammers are victims because by the time they get their powerleveled character it is associated with gibberish-named alts that were used to gold/mat spam the rest of us and were reported. So when the devs catch up to that case their expensive PL's character is banned. The spammer meanwhile is sitting pretty selling all those rare mats the PL'd character's disposable alts harvested.

The "customers" here are anything but victims. They deserve everything they get and more. Powerleveling and gold selling wouldn't happen without them.

blueline

silent88b14_ESO wrote: »

The customers of the spammers are victims because by the time they get their powerleveled character it is associated with gibberish-named alts that were used to gold/mat spam the rest of us and were reported. So when the devs catch up to that case their expensive PL's character is banned. The spammer meanwhile is sitting pretty selling all those rare mats the PL'd character's disposable alts harvested.

I tend to believe the "customers of the spammers" are the real culprits and root of the problem, certainly not victims.