Why are characters permitted to be sold for platinum here?

[Anaiyah]

I know its against the server rules to participate in RMTs for in game items/characters, however it was also bannable to sell and advertise trades/sales of accounts for in game items and platinum on live.

Is this actually legitimate here? There are several posted in the EC section so I assume it is accepted...strange.

[Elissa]

Seems to me there's a difference between a retail product with an active subscription service and a free download, free-to-play service. One has a monetary interest in maximizing subscriber base and doing whatever maximizes profit (sell more retail product, sell more subscriptions), and the other really doesn't care about such things.

As such, it makes sense that Live would frown/ban account traders/sellers and P99 doesn't care. P99 cares about things that give unfair advantages from outside the game, which I imagine is why RMT is illegal. If you trade 50k plat you earned in game for an account, that's not really unfair is it? Technically, even with two accounts, you still can't two box so someone isn't gaining an advantage there either.

I dunno, just some thoughts.

[President]

It's also worth mentioning that SOE/Verant used to perma-ban any account that they thought was sold/traded/changed hands. They seemed to let changes on your account info to slide, but if you ever called them up asking about it, ban hammer.

I used to do a trade/buy/sell accounts back in the day, and there was always the occasional shadester who would steal the account back. Every time it happened I called up SOE with the account info and my info that used to be on the account and they would ban it. I wouldn't request they ban it, just say I bought/sold/traded and it was stolen and they would go, well sorry, we aren't giving it back to you, just banning it.

[stormlord]

I was never against RMT or account trading. I've never understood why people feel so opposed to it. It's going to happen. It's easier to accomodate it in the long term than ti's to fight it. "If you can't beat em, join em," is as true today as it was then. Our world is filled with this. You can't win by fighting it.

If you earn 25k plat and you want an account, I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not coming from outside the game anyway (not that I have a problem with that either).

[Droop]

No, I think it's pretty easy for them to ban accounts for RMT's. Probably just a couple of seconds :-p.

[Noleafclover]

Someone already mentioned the difference between free-to-download and sony's monetary interest.

That aside, selling an account is to me similar to selling an item. It's something someone put their time into getting in-game which other people wish to pay platinum for so they can enjoy it. Like farming an FBSS.

I could be biased, since I do have something of a vested interest.

I've got to admit, I find the idea of personally buying an account distasteful, but that's a personal preference. I'd want to play the character up, have the experience and memories and friends and knowledge to pass on to the little uns.

[Omnimorph]

I'm against it, once you reach end game there isn't a great deal to do outside of raiding and a number of the high play farming camps are locked down, you'd have a bunch of people levelling toons with no purpose but to sell.

I just think it would do more harm than good.