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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC)
China Bans Gold Farming
China Bans Gold Farming
Informationweek - June 29, 2009
Submitted by apujanata (14935) at 4:44PM PST on June 29, 2009
The Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services
The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.
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2oznerol posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 11:24AM PST on July 6, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,
I was just referring to your "How do you expect to make money off of yourself?" comment.
If that wasn't intended for zukaus, then I just took it the wrong way.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 1 ]bids
1zeromous posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 11:16AM PST on July 6, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@oznerol,
I very clearly didn't blame anyone so I'm not surprised it was zukaus. Glad to hear you are imagining context in my posts again, especially so openly. I did not blame Zukaus, someone else pointed out that it was him who was inflating the price though.
I was observing the same thing (re: volatility). This reminds me of bad banks and overpriced oil futures... the only difference being, this commodity has value, and is not subject to peak limitations.
So really...there's no excuse for this stock to be so out of whack with reality other than posturing by those who can.[ Veteran ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 878 ]bids
2oznerol posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 10:55AM PST on July 6, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,
I think it's pretty funny how the volatility in this fake market is similar to an actual one.
I imagine you were blaming Zukaus again, and while it's nice to put a face on losses, this time it was actually me. I made a bit of cash on this stock and was trying to cash out - so the wall was put up by me.
Didn't realize that it would trigger panic mode in the price.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 1 ]bids
1zeromous posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 10:27AM PST on July 6, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,
Looks like whomever is floating this stock is out of patience.
How do you expect to make money off of yourself? Thanks for all the free DKP over the past few months.
This reminds me of a bad bank.[ Veteran ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 878 ]bids
1zukaus posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 10:11AM PST on July 5, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@deftangel,
Excellent. All I wanted is for you to finally admit that the chances of this title not coming out in China is in your words "extremely long" and at best a "long odds punt". Funny how you've never once mentioned your true opinion in all your other carefully worded posts about how the chances of WoW:LK being canceled in China are "increasing".
And for the record I never once said that the decisions that the Chinese government won't affect their people. I am simply stating the obvious, that you can't take their state propaganda at face value.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
1zeromous posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 5:40AM PST on July 3, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farmingbids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 9:28AM PST on July 2, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold FarmingIncidentally it's worth pointing out. China hasn't actually banned gold farming. What they're taking action against is the use of virtual currency to purchase things in the real world. Not quite the same thing. Selling virtual goods / services for real money, i.e. gold farming! is the other way round.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 9:18AM PST on July 2, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zukaus,
Of course they are full of it. They have the most inconsistent net censorship regime as well as the most extensive in the world. Perhaps you would like to tell the people of China that their Government is "full of it" and the measures it takes have no material effect what-so-ever on their freedoms. Clearly it's all just talk :|
It's very clear that large companies like Google & Blizzard have a track record of bending to the whims of the government in order to do business there. I wouldn't argue otherwise.
However, I'm of the opinion that there is a small chance that this might not see the light of day over there and I don't think that notion is completely baseless. I'd be more than happy to put a small amount of real money on it too because at the end of the day it's a punt. A punt with pretty long odds admittedly but the way I see it, my extremely long odds punt became slightly less but still extremely long odds punt over the last couple of months.
And that's partly what this exchange is all about isn't it? Taking a punt. If that's "FUD" to you then so be it. You know full well there is exactly zip I can do to move the price even if I somehow convinced half of the exchange on the merits of my argument. I'm just posting relevant news and calling it as I see it. Part of the game. If a release date is announced you or someone else will be straight on here to post it with every expectation of seeing the price improve as a result.
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1zukaus posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 5:25AM PST on July 2, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@deftangel,
I am following, and I think the Chinese government is full of it. I also think Blizzard will bend to whatever petty demands the Chinese government makes. You can spread all the FUD you want but, a release for this game is guaranteed. I'd bet real money on it.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 4:03AM PST on July 2, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zukaus,
There's a very serious chance if you are following what the Chinese regulators are saying.
The Chinese Government want to "do something" about foreign games and protect home grown products. This is a country which is increasing internet censorship, not reducing it. They certainly want more regulation of games.
For now, the vanilla World of Warcraft seems to be ticking along very nicely without Acti-Blizzard rocking the boat. Especially as they have moved away from The9 into a much better deal. If I was them I would conclude that StarCraft II is a much better growth opportunity and it would be much more important to keep the regulators hands out of that than Lich King. They've already been told it's not coming out unless they make substantial changes and it still hasn't got a release date.
I don't think it's a banker at all.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
1zukaus posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 8:54PM PST on July 1, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@deftangel,
You can't seriously believe that there is even a realistic chance that WoW:LK won't be released in China, do you?[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
1apujanata posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 4:51PM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@deftangel,
I believe the main issues is not networth of zukaus, or any other player which goes long on WoW:WotLK.
The main issues is because me (and probably some other high networth players) are not willing to short this stock extensively. Why ? Because we are still trying to grow our networth the fastest possible way, and dumping all of our spare networth in this stock is not the best way to achieve that goal.
Having said that, I am pretty sure that sooner or later, this stock will move down, especially if China really didn't allow WoW to be played or sold there.
BTW, zukaus currently have 13.7K stocks of this game. Which means around 30 Million DKP investment at current price point.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 3:17PM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@Heloise10,
Stock manipulation is against the rules I'm afraid.
It wouldn't matter anyway because the trader behind this stock has a networth which dwarfs everyones.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 3:16PM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,
There is a similar discussion I'm having in another thread. I've a 10m short on this stock which is way over my 33% networth. I physically can't put any more in and the movement today has put me into a margin call. I've already had to reluctantly buy back shares in this just to avoid my portfolio getting ripped apart even more.
I have to be honest, I don't think the gold farming is a big deal in terms of WoW sales but the price of this is directly contradictory to increasing uncertainty about it's release in it's largest single territory.
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1Heloise10 posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 1:58PM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,And what if all the big players shorted this stock to more reasonnable level all at the same time? - let's say tomorrow?[ Elite ] [ Level 23 ] [ Rank: 14 ]bids
2zeromous posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 9:24AM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@zeromous,
Yup it is pretty lame that the spread between Buy/Sell on stocks 1k DKP+ can be manipulated so easily by those with 20 million+ such that the TSE becomes basically a caricature worse than vgchartz.
I've watched this stock go from 1850-2100 today on minimal volume.
Apparently there is little wisdom of the TSE crowd- or at least no one is willing to put up their money where their mouth is so that this stock reflect reality. I've made a ton shorting this stock, but for what really, some reflection of actual sales potential?
But the TSE has never been about reality has it? It's too bad since that was what attracted me and many others to this site a couple of years ago.
I'm considering dropping this site from my radar completely. Previously I'd established you weren't welcome in intelligent conversation if you weren't part of the clique to the point of being banninated.
Now that I've built up more cash I've seen a ton of stock gaming in the exact opposite direction of sense or related news/comments.
Clearly this is a game to lengthen each other's e-peen, rather than any sort of effort to provide useful information. IPOs used to be widely discussed, vetted, and even most games coming out had IPOs now its the only way to make money- solely by pumping and dumping before the stock dies. Stocks that should have been de-listed some time ago, still idle.
Most of the stocks I trade these days (or even make any sort of money on) are day old IPOs or some overprices stock one guy alone is pushing into the stratosphere.
I'm just going to stop playing. It's really too bad, since the TSE, better managed, and with an actual sense of community might have been a really good thing. It never really delivered on its promise and I see that what is left of the community is basically committed to running this site into the ground.
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1zeromous posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 9:04AM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farmingbids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 2:02AM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@deftangel,
Incidentally, the article estimates there are around 400,000 gold farmers working in Asia though the number of "accounts" are likely to be much more as they tend to play multiple accounts simultaneously.
I wouldn't want to over-egg the fact but I'd put it as mid-single digits percentage of the total WoW userbase.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
1deftangel posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 1:52AM PST on June 30, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@apujanata,
Decreased sales? It hasn't even released over there and it's getting increasingly likely it won't be.
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1apujanata posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 4:48PM PST on June 29, 2009. RE: China Bans Gold Farming@apujanata,
Will this mean decreased sales for WoW:WofLK ? I put a little short on this stock today.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
15apujanata posted on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) at 4:44PM PST on June 29, 2009. Article: China Bans Gold FarmingThe Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]
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Oh please. Don't give me that, if I was so obviously spinning my posts I'd have a ton of downbids which as you will observe, I don't.
Facts are Lich King has been out for quite some time and it still doesn't have regulatory approval and still doesn't have a release date so yes, I'd say there is a little bit more uncertainty over it than say, six months ago. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was also happy to play down/correct the "banning" of gold farming story.
The bigger question mark over this stock is what counts as a 'sale'. If the existing Chinese subscriber base get it for free like Burning Crusade then I think you can only count new subscribers post it's release as "sales" of this expansion. If on the other hand everybody has to effectively buy "new" copies when moving to the new operator then it could be a complete switch-er-roo.