Sony have launched an official marketplace for EverQuest II items to be bought and sold for real money, the first major producer of a MMOG to do so.John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment released an open letter to the community explaining the reasons behind Sony's change in policy, namely (1) their recognition that the sale of virtual items is a whopping $200 million dollar worldwide market, (2) Sony takes too much time dealing with complaints from players who've been victim of fraudulent transactions, and finally (3) because it may be an interesting model for future games, Sony may come up with a game specifically based around these sort of transactions.
He then explained the process of implementing Station Exchange:
After about a week, we will conduct an in-game poll that's going to ask whether you:
1) Want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
2) Do not want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
3) Don't really care
Based on the results of this poll, we will light up a certain amount of new servers that are specifically "Exchange enabled." If the percentage of players who want this service is high enough, we might consider converting some existing servers to "Exchange enabled." Players who want to play on those servers will have the opportunity to transfer over to the "Exchange enabled" servers for free on a one-time-only basis (but you can't ever move that character off these servers). We will, of course, let people who don't want to stay on an "Exchange enabled" server off with a free transfer.
I want to be clear here: We will be lighting up a few new servers that are specifically “Exchange enabled,” and the number of existing servers we convert to “Exchange enabled” will be based on how many people actually want to be on "Exchange enabled" servers.
John Smedley Discusses Station Exchange
Related:
Wired: Sony Gets Real on Virtual Goods
Sony Online Entertainment opening game-item auction site
Sony Backs EverQuest 2 Item Sales
Blizzard: Sale of WoW Property Illegal (Dec 2004)
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