A couple Smed interviews.

Gori · 01-16-2008, 05:45 PM

A couple interesting things in here about microtransactions in the first article and why SOE really hates farmers in the second.

A CES interview with SOE CEO John Smedley (pt. 1) - Massively

A CES interview with SOE CEO John Smedley (pt. 2) - Massively

LFG · 01-16-2008, 06:14 PM

Smed, on how farmers hurt SOE:

Quote:

Massively: Earlier you mentioned the problem of farmers with regards to Station Access. I know that's something the company feels very strongly about?

John Smedley: I think the issue of farming is higher on the radar now than it ever has been. The behinds the scenes things are really frustration. A lot of these farmers are essentially stealing from us. What they do is they charge us back all the time. They use a credit card –sometimes stolen, sometimes not – to buy an account key. They use the account for a month, and then they call the credit card company and charge it back. We have suffered nearly a million dollars just in fines over the past six months; it's getting extremely expensive for us. What's happening is that when they do this all the time, the credit card companies come back to us and say "You have a higher than normal chargeback rate, therefore we'll charge you fines on top of that." We're really trying to get on top of that. We're taking our current efforts up about five notches to Defcon 1 on this issue. They bug us even more than they bug our customers, and we're definitely taking steps to implement rigorous anti-farming efforts.

It's actually really amazing to sit and watch these people work. I've personally sat with them as they're tracking a farmer, and you'll see a mob spawn – this guy's got a bot that within half a second has them moving towards the creature even if it's halfway across the zone. It's a serious problem.

Massively: And you can't fight the chargebacks with the credit card companies?

John Smedley: No, and the reason for that is very simple. Visa and MasterCard have these rules about chargebacks, and I personally think they're antiqued. Digital delivery isn't covered by their rules very well. So if you order something from Amazon and pay thirty bucks for a book, if it doesn't show up at your house you can fight it because you can say "I never received that thing." They do not cover that with digital delivery. In my opinion the world has changed a lot and I think that needs to be addressed.

Massively: Is there any sort of collaboration on that subject with other MMO developers?

John Smedley: I have to say "We are in close contact with our friends in the industry."

Massively: Of course. Many thanks, as always, for your time sir.

Good interview, from:

A CES interview with SOE CEO John Smedley (pt. 2) - Massively

Illuminator · 01-16-2008, 06:19 PM

Does that mean fixing speed hacking is a top priority?

leonpozo · 01-16-2008, 11:43 PM

The solution is very simply. 99% of the fraud credict cards is stolen and used by Chinese gold farmers. (SOE should thank Blizzard ,WoW makes the fraud credict usages pop in China)

But why WOW(and all MMO games) in China have no trouble with fraud credict cards? That's becuase in China ,all the MMO companies never accept credict cards. They use game card from stores . OR ,important, the Online Bank. Yes ,online banking never get fraud problems.

As I said the solution is simple ,it depends on wether you want to deal with it ,or you SOE wanna suicide.

Davdman · 01-17-2008, 09:42 AM

Massively: And you can't fight the chargebacks with the credit card companies?

John Smedley: No, and the reason for that is very simple. Visa and MasterCard have these rules about chargebacks, and I personally think they're antiqued. Digital delivery isn't covered by their rules very well. So if you order something from Amazon and pay thirty bucks for a book, if it doesn't show up at your house you can fight it because you can say "I never received that thing." They do not cover that with digital delivery. In my opinion the world has changed a lot and I think that needs to be addressed.

now if soe is gettin hammered on chargebacks just think what a few motivated people can do.

see my post here> http://www.eq2flames.com/farmers-alm...-spammers.html

Hoss · 01-17-2008, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Smedley

I think the issue of farming is higher on the radar now than it ever has been. The behinds the scenes things are really frustration. A lot of these farmers are essentially stealing from us. What they do is they charge us back all the time. They use a credit card –sometimes stolen, sometimes not – to buy an account key.

I guess I sit corrected then. I assumed they turned a blind eye because the farmers were legitimate paying customers. But it sounds like this is new, so maybe they will get serious about them now. Problem is, banning them as quickly as possible does not help the charge back problem. It actually makes it worse, because now that farmer will have to make 3 or 4 accounts with chargebacks that month instead of just one. They're probably going to start selling the memberships through someone else so THEY take the hits on all the fraudulent claims. and, of course, that'll most likely mean a sur-charge for us.

-h

Rommie · 01-18-2008, 10:59 PM

It's the golden rule - don't hurt the bottom line. SOE was tolerant of farmers (if you think that way; call it keeping them in check if that's agreeable) because they weren't taking significant money out of the system.

Now the game has changed - the farmers are costing SOE (and other companies) bigtime so they have a business interest in stopping it.

I'd say it's another reason SOE is looking strongly at the Item Mall/Free game for future MMOs. You can't get chargebacked if you charged zero. The "nuke from orbit" solution, but I don't see MMO's refusing credit cards or investing in added security that has no guarantees.

leonpozo · 01-20-2008, 09:29 PM

I don't understand why SOE is so stupid. If Chinese could use fraud credict cards , why not SOE? SOE could use these cards to buy plat from Chinese. And then they could make the Chinese company bankrupt.

Did you remember what blz has done to IGE. IGE is nearly dead in China.

Caswydian · 01-20-2008, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leonpozo

I don't understand why SOE is so stupid. If Chinese could use fraud credict cards , why not SOE? SOE could use these cards to buy plat from Chinese. And then they could make the Chinese company bankrupt.

Did you remember what blz has done to IGE. IGE is nearly dead in China.

Um, no. SOE would be rather foolish to engage in credit card fraud.

leonpozo · 01-21-2008, 06:30 AM

Blizzard could handle this why SOE can't ,there are more farmers using stolen credit card in WoW.

SOE and Blizzard should share their anti-credit card fraud skills. They also should share their data base of BAD credit card info.