Do You Want To Trade?
by ted2112, HSM team writer
Trading and MMO games go hand in hand. In fact, I can only think of a few I have played that haven’t had some kind of trading system, but here in our little corner of virtualisiousness we have no means of trading. Why did Sony leave this out of Home?
What I am talking about is the in-game ability to move an item from one person to another, ether in trade for another item or for nothing.
It seems like a simple thing. If those developer wizards can make something as complicated as a reward item, it seems like it’s a no-brainer to take it a step further; but is it right for Home?
My feeling is no. Allow me to explain.
Let’s start by looking at Lockwood. They have taken matters into their own hands with the gift machine. It looks cool and it works great. Sending a gift to someone on your friend list makes you feel good. Every gift I have ever received on the gift machine — even the free ones — I have appreciated, and it’s such a nice gesture. However, the downside is it only deals with things that Lockwood has control of; that’s no reflection on their great stuff, though. Kudos to Lockwood — those guys get it.
Let’s dream a little dream. Imagine if you will just for a moment, gifting a personal space. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving! A few of my friends are broke as church mice, and if I had the chance I would gladly gift the Dream Yacht to them. Think of the sales potential to the developers if they could sell a space more than once to a person. How about Casino tokens or green tickets? Can’t afford to play some games on the Midway? No problem — it’s on me this week. After all, Home is a social game, right?
Over the virtual fence at Sony Online Entertainment, Free Realms trading is a cottage industry. Thousands of trades happen every day and items earned through games and quests offer a time in exchange for money system of equity. It’s a great idea for those who love happy meals, but I just don’t think it would work here.
You see, there is a dark and evil underbelly of trading in many of these online games, and the name of the pure evil is the dreaded “Rare Item.” What these are: some item that sends gamers into a freakish obsessive behavior to acquire the item through trading. It also breeds misunderstanding and problems. For some reason an item gets a rare tag, and sends it into hysteria much like an IPO stock offering of exclusive company.
Remember Krispy Kreme? People lined up to buy the stock at $21/share and that, whatever it was, drove the stock up to $50/share. It is a company that makes doughnuts, and it was worth more than GM at one point. A honey-dipped doughnut worth more than a Cadillac? I know it makes no sense, but that’s what I’m talking about. The rare item can turn the whole trading concept into a side show, and in most cases you can’t actually use the rare item in public because you will be badgered non-stop by trade requests.
The other evil side effect of the rare item: developers release an item in a strange color for a short period of time. Imagine the Home logo t-shirt in red, for sale for a week. As crazy as it sounds, it triggers that hunter-gatherer thing, and before you know it you’re willing to trade half your inventory for it. What this does is change the focus from innovative items to gimmicky items. It’s a road we should never go down…except maybe in a gold car. Sorry, I digress.
What I propose is: going to the Home store, buying an item and having the option to gift it, then and there. This way we get the freedom, 
the developers get the money, and we get to avoid the rare-item slippery slope. Simple and effective.
I also feel that if you can do it in the real world, than you should be able to do the virtual equivalent in Home. We gift each other all the time in the real world: holidays, birthdays, so much so that many times stores get a gift receipt now without asking. Do you trade much in real life? No, not really. In real life if somebody had a pair of rare green flip-flops and you thought they were ugly, you wouldn’t want them. Rare items might work in the sports memorabilia market, but not for most things.
Home is still trying to define itself, and somewhere down the road we as a community will have to decide whether we want trading in Home. I think that we should distinguish ourselves from most of the other games and resist that temptation. I love the idea of being able to buy an item for someone, and truly hope this comes to fruition, but the trading idea, in my opinion, just doesn’t seem to be a good fit for Home.
Is trading something that you think is a good idea? What if you knew you had a virtual closet full of rare items? Would that influence your decision? What would you do if someone walked up to you and asked, “Do you want to trade?”
May 4th, 2012 by ted2112 | 6 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Nah, not trading. Where does SONY gain. They lost money and therefore we lose.
I do remember trading stuff with friends when I was a young lad and it was fun except when someone traded something they regretted later and wanted it back. But it was a part of growing up and learning about life.
Gifting? Yeppers. That sounds grand. It works well with the Lockwood gift machine at least I think it does.
Could not gifting work to some extent by buying a $20 PSN card and giving the code the someone? Nah! Too expensive. I must say though I was pleasantly surprised and felt gratification in winning one of those in a contest from this magazine. And people have given card codes away on the Playstation Forum if I’m not mistaken. And some of us put put Dr. Pepper codes on the forum for free Battlefield outfits.
As to being against trading, I do wonder what my Chamber Apartment would be worth. Not that I’d trade it. No way.
Good article.
Bye.
Good article and I have to agree with everything you said. I think trading on Home would be a bad idea. Before Home, I played a game that allowed trading. There were very “rare” items and god forbid if you wore them in public that people would bombard you and want to be your friend and offer you most of their inventory. It got to be a very greedy thing and owning a rare item became unenjoyable when people would constantly ask me for it and if I said no, decided they didn’t want to be my friend.
I do however love the idea of gifting. I get joy giving my friends things from the gift machine but wish it was extended more to other items. I also love spaces where my friends can find cool rewards like the Dream Yacht (although to this day I still don’t have all my rewards!!)
I think trading on Home and making rare items would turn people more greedy. It’s ok if Home decides to stop making something, but if you bought it when it was out, it’s yours!!! LOL. I wish some of the costs of things were lower because I can’t keep buying PSN cards, so in ways being able to gift anything including spaces to friends, would be a cool idea!!!
Great article!
I LOVE THE IDEA OF GOIN IN ANY STORE AND HAVING THE OPTION OF GIFTING AMAZING IDEA A WIN WIN FOR EVERYBODY INCLUDING PS3 ,,ANOTHER THOUGHT IS WE HAVE TONS OF CLOTHS TSHIRTS THINGS ID LOVE TO GET RID OF -HOW ABOUT A GOOD WILL TYPE OF STORE EVERYTHING PRICED LOW AN CREDITED TO YOUR ACCOUNT BUT NOTHING OVER 1dollar or free for people who cant afford things ,it give us a chance to clean out our closets n makin room for other or even bid on some spaces furnitur games ,,capped at 5dollars for biddin tho ,,theres tons of furnituer ,some spaces, even ,,and of corse clothes ,,it clear our closets 1dollar or 25cents fist come first serve ,,i really think it be a hit and 25cents put in your wallet of course frees the best ,heck id delete some if i could ,,and soon nobody will hav room pshome good fortune ,or ROCSTAVIXENS CLOSET LO”L --THX GREAT IDEAS
My friends and I have been laughingly talking about a GoodWill store in Home for a long time. Technically I don’t think it can be done though, it has something to do with the coding I think, and might cause all sorts of server issues, something we don’t need any more of. But having a deeper storage closet, like a second layer, where you could put unwanted items would be nice. That way when you run out of room in your regular wardrobe and things get bumped to storage they would be easier to find, all you would have to do is deep-six the ones you truly don’t use.
I have a lot of friends in Home who have bought so much stuff that when you see them changing clothes you might as well go somewhere else for half an hour because it takes them that long to change. This is where a second, deeper storage would help a great deal.
Thanks for expanding and bringing attention to the gifting idea Ted. I have written a couple of things suggesting this as well, so I am totally on board with you where that is concerned.
Trading wouldn’t work on Home though and not just for the reasons you have stated. I don’t believe it is even possible to do with the technical side of things, at least that is what I have been told. But the option to choose to buy something for another person or keep it for yourself when you checkout in any store should be able to be easily added to the cart system. That way you choose how much you want to spend on any given person. Ten and twenty dollar PSN cards are too much for most of us to spend except in special circumstances, but the ability to spend a dollar or two isn’t.
I am actually amazed that Sony and the other developers haven’t done this a long time ago, the revenue boost they would get almost immediately would be phenomenal I think.
Great article and I totally agree with your assessment.
I personally love the idea of gifting, especially out of my packed to the max wardrobe. I often wonder why Sony can’t develop something like the vacuum storage bags for our wardrobes. I for one would dearly love to be able to pack up all my winter clothes, suck the air out of them and tuck them away neatly in my attic until next winter so I didn’t have to throw clothes all over the floor looking for a pair of shorts LOL