LotRO’s Steefel speaks of their stand on gold farming

Gold farming is very much prevalent across the MMO video game industry. Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is one of the biggest gold mines around, so to speak. On the other hand, LotRO: Shadows of Angmar is just beginning to gain ground and Turbine Inc. is already thinking of ways to combat it.

According to Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel, Turbine’s stand on the matter is pretty much straightforward right now and Lord of the Rings Online is not going to tolerate any “secondary markets.” Steefel elaborated,

Our responsibility is to the subscribers of the game, to deliver to them the experience they expect. So we certainly do not support people farming or taking advantage of the system in that way. It’s against our Terms of Service and we do try and enforce that.

Despite these rather firm statements, Steefel also mentioned that they are expecting a change within the industry within the next five years so they are paying close attention to gold farmers. According to the official, the trick is to find a way for every type of person in the game to play the way they want to without adversely affecting anyone else. He added,

But, we all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we’re paying attention to what’s going on; watching what’s going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this.

Lastly, Jeffrey Steefel somewhat conceded and said that Turbine will be looking to accommodate using real-life money to buy in-game currency and items in the future.

Via Eurogamer

Gold farming is very much prevalent across the MMO video game industry. Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is one of the biggest gold mines around, so to speak. On the other hand, LotRO: Shadows of Angmar is just beginning to gain ground and Turbine Inc. is already thinking of ways to combat it.

According to Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel, Turbine’s stand on the matter is pretty much straightforward right now and Lord of the Rings Online is not going to tolerate any “secondary markets.” Steefel elaborated,

Our responsibility is to the subscribers of the game, to deliver to them the experience they expect. So we certainly do not support people farming or taking advantage of the system in that way. It’s against our Terms of Service and we do try and enforce that.

Despite these rather firm statements, Steefel also mentioned that they are expecting a change within the industry within the next five years so they are paying close attention to gold farmers. According to the official, the trick is to find a way for every type of person in the game to play the way they want to without adversely affecting anyone else. He added,

But, we all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we’re paying attention to what’s going on; watching what’s going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this.

Lastly, Jeffrey Steefel somewhat conceded and said that Turbine will be looking to accommodate using real-life money to buy in-game currency and items in the future.

Via Eurogamer