Teja.
Global Moderator
It is late 2017. You are the owner of a gaming company with 13 employees behind a popular online subscription based game with 5 million subscribers, each of whom pay 7$ a month to play your game. Selling of in-game currency outside the game for real world money is against the rules of the game and the concerned player is IP banned immediately. Using bots to play repetitive aspects of the game when you are away from your keyboard to earn in-game currency also is against the rules and has the same consequences. The above two problems have caused you a great amount of grief in trying to solve in the past and you've had more success with the former than the latter. Increase in either completely **** up your game's economy, devalue items and cause people to unsubscribe.
Your fanbase is extremely loyal and 90% consists of people from the ages of 18-35. Your game has a democratic ethos where all updates have to be mooted and voted by more than 50% of the fanbase. There have been boycotts even when minor fixes are made without following this process.
The country of Venezuela is in complete economic collapse and is suffering from shortage of essential resources like food and water. Unemployment is default and the streets are unsafe with a huge spike in crime, specifically muggings/robbery. There is a humanitarian crisis going on with people dying of hunger everyday and people are afraid of boarding buses because they will be robbed.
Venezuelans take to grinding your game obsessively so they can sell the in-game currency and make 50$ish a week which is 3-4 times the average wage in Venezuela and can feed a small family.
A former Venezuelan gold farmer interviewed says:
There's massive in-game resentment about the sudden increase in gold farmers and bots flooding the game. Players group up and devise ways to kill the gold farmers in-game, slow them down and get them banned and create elaborate guides around the activity. Among the players, there are a small but vocal minority whose problem is not with gold farmers but with Venezuelans. This causes huge media pressure against the company.
Your board comes to you with the following options:
I. Put all resources into better anti-gold farming farming software and implement it to ban all gold farmers when it becomes functional. This will take 6 months or so until it works and till then, you will have to suffer people leaving the game and unsubscribing. Your game's profit margin will go down by 50% for the next year. You will also face moderate media backlash due to acting this way at a time of humanitarian crisis.
II. Remove access to the game from Venezuela altogether (IP changing software does not exist in this hypothetical). This has been asked by the xenophobic section of your fanbase as well as other sections. This removes the vast majority of gold farmers while also hurting a few thousand regular players from the country. This is projected to maintain or slightly go above your standard profit margin for the next year. However, this will cause a massive media shitstorm, the consequences of which are unforeseeable and may turn off new subscribers.
III. Make a public announcement that you are conducting an inquiry and strict action will follow against gold farmers. Privately ask your team to not do anything against Venezuelan gold farmers for the next 6 months after which the situation can be reassessed. You are projected to run at a loss of 50% of your expenses for the next year with a lot of people unsubscribing. You have reserve and won't have to close the company but will have to downgrade and become a much smaller game after the wave.
IV. Make a public announcement that you are fully supporting the people of Venezuela and 10% of every subscription will go to a Venezuelan charity. Very discretely run software and ban goldfarmers as in option 1. Consequences are not certain.
V. Kill the gold farmers market by deciding to create in-game micro-transaction market where any player can buy in-game currency for real world cash on their website itself. Consequences are not certain.
What would you decide to do?
Your fanbase is extremely loyal and 90% consists of people from the ages of 18-35. Your game has a democratic ethos where all updates have to be mooted and voted by more than 50% of the fanbase. There have been boycotts even when minor fixes are made without following this process.
The country of Venezuela is in complete economic collapse and is suffering from shortage of essential resources like food and water. Unemployment is default and the streets are unsafe with a huge spike in crime, specifically muggings/robbery. There is a humanitarian crisis going on with people dying of hunger everyday and people are afraid of boarding buses because they will be robbed.
Venezuelans take to grinding your game obsessively so they can sell the in-game currency and make 50$ish a week which is 3-4 times the average wage in Venezuela and can feed a small family.
A former Venezuelan gold farmer interviewed says:
Venezuelans make up 2% of your subscriber base but are accounting for 20% of your game's in-game hours spent and are 95% of the gold farming population. The average time spent in-game for the countrymen is 13 hours.
There's massive in-game resentment about the sudden increase in gold farmers and bots flooding the game. Players group up and devise ways to kill the gold farmers in-game, slow them down and get them banned and create elaborate guides around the activity. Among the players, there are a small but vocal minority whose problem is not with gold farmers but with Venezuelans. This causes huge media pressure against the company.
Your board comes to you with the following options:
I. Put all resources into better anti-gold farming farming software and implement it to ban all gold farmers when it becomes functional. This will take 6 months or so until it works and till then, you will have to suffer people leaving the game and unsubscribing. Your game's profit margin will go down by 50% for the next year. You will also face moderate media backlash due to acting this way at a time of humanitarian crisis.
II. Remove access to the game from Venezuela altogether (IP changing software does not exist in this hypothetical). This has been asked by the xenophobic section of your fanbase as well as other sections. This removes the vast majority of gold farmers while also hurting a few thousand regular players from the country. This is projected to maintain or slightly go above your standard profit margin for the next year. However, this will cause a massive media shitstorm, the consequences of which are unforeseeable and may turn off new subscribers.
III. Make a public announcement that you are conducting an inquiry and strict action will follow against gold farmers. Privately ask your team to not do anything against Venezuelan gold farmers for the next 6 months after which the situation can be reassessed. You are projected to run at a loss of 50% of your expenses for the next year with a lot of people unsubscribing. You have reserve and won't have to close the company but will have to downgrade and become a much smaller game after the wave.
IV. Make a public announcement that you are fully supporting the people of Venezuela and 10% of every subscription will go to a Venezuelan charity. Very discretely run software and ban goldfarmers as in option 1. Consequences are not certain.
V. Kill the gold farmers market by deciding to create in-game micro-transaction market where any player can buy in-game currency for real world cash on their website itself. Consequences are not certain.
What would you decide to do?
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