"Foreign Investments?": Shady Chinese Introduce Commercial RMTs
A few hours ago, I was in the game and about to sell off junk equipment to an NPC merchant when someone shouted out on my chat screen, selling gold... except that this particular one is armed with phone numbers, IM and email addresses, and a website.
WTF?
Immediately I made a screenshot, logged out, uploaded the pic, while I began probing the site, knowing whom I'm dealing with. It turned out to be a mainland Chinese-operated RMT company with branches not just here but also in Singapore, Malaysia and other places. They're well-equipped, with either "workers" or bots doing the dirty work of picking up gold, and disposable in-game characters charged with the job of picking up the quota, selling it to some players with real cash to spare (or they could even pick it up at the front office). Credit cards, Western Union and Express Padala are also welcome. Toll-free numbers and operators available for standby.
Know what that means? It means that this is no small-time college kid trying to find cash so that he could treat his buddies to several cases of beer. This is a huge fish to fry, one who knows that there is little or no legislation created to punish them, and little government intervention, and capable of defying national borders.
Why try to manufacture shabu or pirated DVDs when even the Triad could take worry-free advantage of commercial RMT businesses, and make huge money out of it? For them, the profits are huge, and the perfect investment for money laundering.
The scariest part about these organizations is the possibility of having someone infiltrate an online game operator by posing as a would-be GM or sysadmin, who will in turn create in-game items, customized characters or gold for their ring. This has happened before, with corrupt GMs or sysadmins making a profit for themselves, but with such "investors" there's the bigger temptation to dupe as much equips or gold and selling it to a larger clientele.
With this, along the bots that have the capability of punching a hole through protection software, the online game is watered down to the point of being unplayable. The end result is a huge PR blow to the MMO operator.
Next thing I fear about is the possibility of a major incident out of this phenomenon which could turn online gaming into a national scourge, exacerbated by the nosy local media and legislators grilling the MMO company presidents, and thus the end of online games as we know it.
http://playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/2006/01/C20.html
And this one seems to be a fairly accurate description of the ruthless underworld I seen:
http://www.therunescapeblog.com/2008/04/runescapes-cheating-scene-welcome-to-the-dark-side/#more-34
WTF?
Immediately I made a screenshot, logged out, uploaded the pic, while I began probing the site, knowing whom I'm dealing with. It turned out to be a mainland Chinese-operated RMT company with branches not just here but also in Singapore, Malaysia and other places. They're well-equipped, with either "workers" or bots doing the dirty work of picking up gold, and disposable in-game characters charged with the job of picking up the quota, selling it to some players with real cash to spare (or they could even pick it up at the front office). Credit cards, Western Union and Express Padala are also welcome. Toll-free numbers and operators available for standby.
Know what that means? It means that this is no small-time college kid trying to find cash so that he could treat his buddies to several cases of beer. This is a huge fish to fry, one who knows that there is little or no legislation created to punish them, and little government intervention, and capable of defying national borders.
Why try to manufacture shabu or pirated DVDs when even the Triad could take worry-free advantage of commercial RMT businesses, and make huge money out of it? For them, the profits are huge, and the perfect investment for money laundering.
The scariest part about these organizations is the possibility of having someone infiltrate an online game operator by posing as a would-be GM or sysadmin, who will in turn create in-game items, customized characters or gold for their ring. This has happened before, with corrupt GMs or sysadmins making a profit for themselves, but with such "investors" there's the bigger temptation to dupe as much equips or gold and selling it to a larger clientele.
With this, along the bots that have the capability of punching a hole through protection software, the online game is watered down to the point of being unplayable. The end result is a huge PR blow to the MMO operator.
Next thing I fear about is the possibility of a major incident out of this phenomenon which could turn online gaming into a national scourge, exacerbated by the nosy local media and legislators grilling the MMO company presidents, and thus the end of online games as we know it.
http://playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/2006/01/C20.html
And this one seems to be a fairly accurate description of the ruthless underworld I seen:
http://www.therunescapeblog.com/2008/04/runescapes-cheating-scene-welcome-to-the-dark-side/#more-34