Is Europe the "Third World" of WoW ?
Is Europe the "Third World" of WoW ?
January 12, 2007
GamerPrice, in a well-reasoned article, wonders whether Blizzard has ignored gold farming on European servers to the detriment of game players.The site, which offers a free price comparison service for various MMOs, conducted a realm-by-realm survey of third-party gold prices for both Horde and Alliance and found that market prices were roughly eight times cheaper on European servers when compared to servers in the United States. By way of example:
The average USD value for 1000g (Alliance side) on the US realms was $255.25. Horde gold was slightly more expensive, averaging $263.79. This gives us an overall average cost of $259.52 per 1000 gold on the American servers.
However, the European average for the same 1000 gold was just $31.78 for Alliance players and an even lower $30.72 for the Horde. That’s an overall average price of $31.17 per 1000 gold
The authors discount standard of living and supply-and-demand issues, and attribute the gold price differntial to "a phenomenal bias on behalf of Blizzard towards their American clients." By that they mean that Blizzard has been more diligent in banning gold farmers on U.S. servers:
What this means is that Blizzard is policing its American realms far, far more rigorously than it is policing its European realms. The figures are so very different, that they suggest an extreme imbalance, even extreme negligence on behalf of Blizzard Europe...
In fact - the situation is so bad that for an English player on the Aman'Thul server (horde side), you could buy an epic mount for less than a small Dominos Pizza. On some well policed USA servers, the cost is 14.26 times this price.
GP: It's an interesting thought, although we're not completely convinced the research is definitive. And while the authors work from a basic assumption that gold farmers detract from the WoW gaming experience, gold that is eight times cheaper seems to be a nice perk for gamers who aren't troubled by the practice of buying the stuff.
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Posted 11/20/09 at 05:42pm
ZippyDSMlee: oh may the cute stab out your eyes, http://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat
ZippyDSMlee: oh may the cute stab out your eyes, http://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat
Posted 11/20/09 at 05:17pm
JDKJ: O.K. Suit yourself. But when you're wearing Ray-Bans, sitting on a curb with a white cane and a cup of pencils, and doing Stevie Wonder impersonations, don't say I didn't warn you.
JDKJ: O.K. Suit yourself. But when you're wearing Ray-Bans, sitting on a curb with a white cane and a cup of pencils, and doing Stevie Wonder impersonations, don't say I didn't warn you.
Posted 11/20/09 at 05:10pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:No thank you I don;t want your cooties...or STDs...
ZippyDSMlee: JD:No thank you I don;t want your cooties...or STDs...
Posted 11/20/09 at 05:01pm
JDKJ: Me. I'm rehearsing the role just in case I do get dubbed Zippy The Soecnda.
JDKJ: Me. I'm rehearsing the role just in case I do get dubbed Zippy The Soecnda.
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:59pm
DarkSaber: Wait, is that meant to be Zippy, me or you?
DarkSaber: Wait, is that meant to be Zippy, me or you?
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:49pm
JDKJ: I cud caer lez. =^^= *wakes up in mid-afternoon after staying up until 3:00AM soldering resistors on to circuit boards, stumbles around in formerly white but now grey underwear, while simultaneously scratching groin with vigor and making coffee*
JDKJ: I cud caer lez. =^^= *wakes up in mid-afternoon after staying up until 3:00AM soldering resistors on to circuit boards, stumbles around in formerly white but now grey underwear, while simultaneously scratching groin with vigor and making coffee*
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:46pm
DarkSaber: knell? Don't you mean Neil? Anymore of tht and I'll dub thee Zippy The Soecnda
DarkSaber: knell? Don't you mean Neil? Anymore of tht and I'll dub thee Zippy The Soecnda
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:44pm
JDKJ: Now, now, Saber. Don't be salty. You weren't the first one to knell and bob and you ain't gonna be the last one, either.
JDKJ: Now, now, Saber. Don't be salty. You weren't the first one to knell and bob and you ain't gonna be the last one, either.
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:42pm
DarkSaber: JD's feeling rather desperate it seems.
DarkSaber: JD's feeling rather desperate it seems.
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:33pm
JDKJ: C'mon, Zip. You already touch yourself way too much. Spread the love. Before you go blind.
JDKJ: C'mon, Zip. You already touch yourself way too much. Spread the love. Before you go blind.
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:27pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:No and I ain't touching any part of you or your friends!! :P
ZippyDSMlee: JD:No and I ain't touching any part of you or your friends!! :P
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:25pm
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Lik Mitaint?
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Lik Mitaint?
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:18pm
ZippyDSMlee: neill and bob,oldest giveing head joke and most lamest...
ZippyDSMlee: neill and bob,oldest giveing head joke and most lamest...
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:18pm
JDKJ: But thanks for the memory. MIB's a classic. *sings* "Here come the Men in Black. Galaxy defenders. Here come the Men in Black. They won't let you remember."
JDKJ: But thanks for the memory. MIB's a classic. *sings* "Here come the Men in Black. Galaxy defenders. Here come the Men in Black. They won't let you remember."
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:18pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:for the record I told you you can suck your own dck.
ZippyDSMlee: JD:for the record I told you you can suck your own dck.
Posted 11/20/09 at 04:07pm
JDKJ: Naw, man. That's Mueedeegiaap and Bob. And you can stop bobbing. I got Zippy bobbing now, too.
JDKJ: Naw, man. That's Mueedeegiaap and Bob. And you can stop bobbing. I got Zippy bobbing now, too.
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:56pm
DarkSaber: OH I get it now! It's Men In Black quote! The twins that run the comm centre in HQ.
DarkSaber: OH I get it now! It's Men In Black quote! The twins that run the comm centre in HQ.
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:49pm
JDKJ: I'd like to introduce you to them. First, Neil. Then, Bob.
JDKJ: I'd like to introduce you to them. First, Neil. Then, Bob.
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:47pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I know they are intimate friends of yours...
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I know they are intimate friends of yours...
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:44pm
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Neil and Bob?
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Neil and Bob?
Copyright © 2007 ECA. All rights reserved.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Comments
That's a completely stupid argument. Companies won't farm where there's the most demand, they'll do it to the point of highest revenue; ie. max(price of gold * quantity sold). So, if they can sell, for the sake of round numbers, 1000 units of gold at $250 a unit ($250,000) they'll do that over selling 10,000 units at $20 ($200,000). That doesn't factor in the costs of production.
Disposable income makes all the difference in this case. I can't imagine that anyone that's taken Econ 101 would say otherwise. This is just a flimsy excuse to complain.
What makes you think we can find a wii any easier in the US?
One, it is possible to create a character outside your continent. I'm in Europe, but I can play on the US realms if I sign up a US account and use a US CD-key.
Two, if more people are buying gold and using it to purchase items on the Auction House, demand will increase, therefore so will the prices. Players who don't buy the gold are left in the dust, as the prices increase far beyond what they are capable of paying. This means that some of them resort to buying gold to afford the more expensive items, and thus the circle continues.
Importing is a good idea, but what do you do when Sony do this:
...and we don't get the game legally imported? Apart from illegal downloads, they don't give us a choice! And yes, the same applies to import of games as well as consoles...
OK, I know it's getting off-topic, the main point regarding above comments is that compared to US and Japan, Europe seems to be regarded as a 3rd world market. This is especially annoying to those of us in the UK, who don't need translation to play a US game, we just need the manufacturers to get round to releasing the damn game!
The fact is that these things aren't released because we are worth any less to their market in their eyes, it is because those studies, whether right or wrong, have stated that they wouldn't sell enough units to run a profit. Europe is not as interested in 'gadgets', I'm not talking about you personally, or the Nintendo Wii in particular, I'm not saying 'nothing sells', of course there are popular lines as well as unpopular ones, but the computer industry is a cut-throat market, better to not release something in a country than risk running it at a loss, games or hardware.
That is why you don't see many Wii on the market over here, because Nintendo, like Sony, would rather release enough to sell out than produce more than they can sell.
Companies can only respond to consumer demand, and when it comes to the games market, the fact is Europe just isn't demanding enough.
You neglected to note that I listed games and technology we didn't get AT ALL, not just late. Your comment about us not rushing to buy things straight away is incorrect too. Can you find a Wii anywhere in the UK even now? No me neither. I'm praying someone has one today. My search continues...
Thing is Europeans are, by habit, less likely to spend large sums of money just to be the 'first to own something', or for what is essentially a status symbol, such as gold in MMOs or, indeed, the PS3.
You are right that Europeans don't get some of the good games. The only thing I can say is that you guys didn't get the Wii the same month as the US. The US was able to get it long before Japan got theres (November 19th). Followed by Jaapan (December 2nd), Austrailia (December 7th), and then Europe (December 8th).
The only thing I can suggest is to start importing the games. It's going to be expensive for some occasions, but it's already unfair that Europeans do not get the games that are revered so well.
Yeah, I'm not one for gold farming (I'm short on gold at the moment, 2 more lvls til 60 ^.^). There are advertisements for gold farming and even the selling of gold on WoW (as in I can sell my gold to the company for cash). Farmer's are there for the money, so they can buy stuff for their other characters as well. Not just for business outside of WoW.
IT also raises the costs of world drop blues and boe purples in the AH. As people have more money to spend prices tend to move up. Those of us who get gold through legit means sometime have trouble getting the rarer stuff.
Over the past few weeks I have been finding gold seller spam in my mailbox when ever I log into wow. Basically once a week they send out a price list to everyone who name they mined. THe price fluctuates a little bit, and prices vary by server in some cases.
SOmething I noticed (Could be random, most likely is) when gold was cheaper prices on rarer blues would move up(10 to 20 gold on late game blues and purples that are +100g)
In a real economy you have money leaving circulation in many ways. On a basic level the money supply determines how much a dollar is worth. If need be they can slow the rate at which money is put into circulation.
Blizzard on the other hand can't change npc prices and gold drop rates on a weekly basis to keep the gold supply down.
THe only ways gold leave circulation are for repairs, ammo, food, flights, mount purchases, and training.
Blizzard designed the economy to make it ideally stay stagnant inflation wise or expand slowly. However, gold farmers tend to make way more gold that the average person. That gold is then thrown into the money supply. The more money in the supply the less each gold is worth and the harder it is to remove it from the supply.
That is why gold farming is bad for the game. Its not equipment its gold.
That's just me though.
NES - Earthbound
SNES - Super Mario RPG
SNES - Secret of Mana 2
SNES - Chronotrigger
Gamecube - Animal Crossing
Playstation - Chronocross
Playstation 2 - Katamari Damacy
Final Fantasy series of games, many have EVENTUALLY been released here about 10 years after they were in the US.
Now this comes from someone who liked his old Nintendo consoles a lot so I cant list all the Sega games that never got a release this side of the atlantic but this list took me all of 40 seconds to put together without thought. All were classics and all were US and Japan but not here.
Then we have the respective release dates. PS3 is due here in March. Nice huh? Last for the Xbox 360, last for the Playstation 1 and 2, last for the N64 and Gamecube and Wii. We are always an afterthought in the UK and yet per capita we buy more games and consoles than anyone else. You can choose to ignore it if you wish, but I speak the truth.
"One theory is that the US servers have more demand. However, realm population statistics (see WarcraftRealms) indicate no statistically significant difference – so we can rule out population arguments. (The number of realms is also roughly equal: WOW EU has 185, while WOWUS has 166.)"
Population has very little to do with demand if both parties are of equal size. It comes down to a DEMAND for a product. Lets take cars for example, in europe they like small highly gas efficient cars. While over here in the states we like SUV's. Would companys expect to sell SUV's over in europe? probably not, and the same thing goes for small cars here in the states. The assumption that just because the population is the similar the demand will be similar as well is completely retarded.
"Another theory is that American players have more disposable income, and so are disproportionately likely to spend more real life money on virtual gold. This will probably be true to an extent, but we can rule out this reason too. Why? On this scale, the supply adjusts to the demand. All things being equal, companies will farm gold where there is most demand. Proof of this can be found in the incredibly similar prices for Alliance and Horde: overall, prices are almost identical, despite a considerable disparity in population. The difference in demand is equalled out by the economy of scale (sheer numbers involved) and by the demand adjusting to meet the supply."
Here they're assuming the company's have the same number of farmers on both factions for each server. Which I highly doubt. Why would you put equal numbers of farmers on the faction whos population might be less than a half of the other population?
"So, with these two possibilities exhausted, economics lead us to a third reason – one which has implications regarding Blizzard’s equality of service. The cost involved in producing (farming) gold on Europe must simply be lower than the cost involved in producing the same gold on World of Warcraft USA."
I think you guys need a better course of economics. The first step should have been to focus on the supply and demand of gold in europe and the states (which you didnt). Now if the supply and demand show that europe demand is the same but the supply is bigger then yes, I could see how you came to your conclusion however without this information your just assuming that blizzard is enforcing its policy more rigorously in the states.
Now if the demand is less on european servers then there would naturally be less farmers on the servers. Since you have established that the populations are of a similar size means you have a smaller farmer to player ratio making it more difficult to find said farmers. Which lowers the cost of production in european servers.
So yes while the article is interesting it does not have enough information to support its conclusion. Also I realize how hard it would be to get the numbers of farmers currently on each server from the companies that run the farming process.
Final Fantasy X International
That is all...
Part of this is just bad habits and expectations. When Europe got a WoW patch before the US there was bitching and moaning aplenty on the forums.
It would be nice if there was just a little more respect shown to Europe and the UK in particular. I say the UK because the translation is not required after the US and there is no excuse for the tardiness in releasing games here.
How can an American make a character on an EU server?
Oh, I dunno... I think it's a kind of a unique story...
That being said, I’d gladly trade a Domino’s pizza for an Epic Mount. ^_^
Not that I want to advertise anything here, but I am running a new form of web site for MMORPG gold sellers. The model is based on the London Stock Exchange! You are not buying like on eBay the feedbacks of a seller, but you are buying at the best price available on the market as the web site is ensuring the transaction for the player.
So, there is a market price for wow europe servers and it is currently going up as Blizzard has again banned many wow europe accounts in China.
Do I really care all that much about gold farmers in WoW? Not really.
I am just wondering, if some players farm gold and cheat in WoW... How does that detract from other players gaming experience?
"These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players."
I could see that happening if a players % drop rate is changed due to how much gold/items are in that realm. But if some players are farming gold/items they have some better equipment so it would be harder for duel. So, there is always someone better then you. Welcome to life. Eh, maybe I don't play enough WoW to understand. I just bought it 3 months ago.
Exactly. To understand the impact of this kind of behavior on the overall game experience, you must first understand its impact on the economy. With a economy that includes 6,000,000 players and counting, that can be hard to do.
Still, let's assume that each server of WoW is an economy of scale, and operates under the economic rules of meatspace. This situation in Europe means either of two things.
1: That Europe's server economies are overall smaller that those in America. This would explain why the former has less value than the latter when they are compared with the same currency (in this case, the dollar). Remember, Europe's economic growth is more sluggish across the board than America's. People in Europe have certainly adjusted their buying habits differently than folks in the U.S., where booms and busts come and go in the blink of an eye. As such, as the1jeffy suggested, European players spend less, and as such, the market does not expand.
2: That something, whether it is gold farmers or otherwise, is intentionally forcing Deflation on the economies of Europe's servers. Why or how gold farmers (the most likely culprit) would do this is still a mystery to me, because A: A drop in prices means less profit for selling them, which is what the goldfarmers are after in the first place; and B:From what I've heard, "farming" usually puts more supply into the economy, which lead to inflation, not its polar opposite.
Admittingly, I've never played an MMO, and my conclusions are drawn from what I've learned about Economics. However, the existence of virtual economies is very interesting, more so when real-life currency gets involved. There should definately be more serious study on this matter, and less ignorant generalizations (such as the assumption that goldfarming is ALWAYS bad).
My question to the authors is, "So, what?" Their data is interesting as all hell, but their assumption that higher price is due soley due to Blizzard's 'negligence' is specious at best. A much simpler, and therefore more likely, theory is simply that more players on US servers buy gold.
I base this also on the fact that Blizzard periodically posts, "X,XXX number of accounts closed world-wide," on the main WoW site, as well as the forums.
Source: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/news/rss-12-2006.xml
World of Warcraft Accounts Closed Worldwide
Posted by: Tyren 12/21/2006
In our continued efforts to combat cheating in World of Warcraft, more than 105,000 accounts were closed and over 12 million gold was removed from the game economies in Europe, Korea, and the US in the month of November. The closed accounts were associated with activities that violate World of Warcraft's Terms of Use, such as using third-party programs that allow cheating, and farming gold and items. These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.
We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and its players from the harmful effects of cheating. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in a permanent ban of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft.
Many account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in game or emailed to our Hacks Team by legitimate World of Warcraft players. If you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction via one of the means listed above. All reports will be investigated, and those that prove false will not result in corrective action.
As always, thank you for your continued support, and best of luck with your continued adventures in Azeroth!
Despite what the vocal, whiney minority of Counter-Strike Kiddies on the WoW forums think, Blizzard really isn't in the business of, well, lying. I politely suggest that the authors are conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy theorists with good/interesting data, but strange conclusions.
We just don't play crappy MMO's. ;)
1) US players can create accounts on European servers.
2) European players cannot create accounts on US servers.
3) The boxed copy I can buy in the shops is the European version.
4) After three all-nighter attempts to download the US client from the invite, each download was identically corrupt.
So if I want to play WoW, I won't be able to play alongside the character of the person who invited me. Thus ended my brief half-week career in MMORPGs.
/b
thnx adam
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It's amazing how much moeny is being made as part of the WoW franchise.
Forgot to leave my linkback, doh !
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