PHP Trading

PHP Trading

An Issue/A possible solution

Almost 90% of MMORPGs revolve around a Secondary Market, a trading done outside the “game”; some may know it as Real Money Trade. Here it is locally known as PHP Trading. The question being asked is [1] Why is this an issue? [2] How does the trade affect the balance of the game? And [3] how does trade affect the culture of the game?

According to our Mobius Recovery supervisor, almost 40-60% of Hack cases are composed of Illegal trading. These hack reports are automatically deemed as first-hand hacking since our Game logs shows that item/s were traded to the other account with no valid trade. Hence, the “buyer’s” account will be blocked and the “seller” will re-acquire his item/s plus the real money given to him by the “buyer”. This has been one of the most talked-about issue circulating both in-game and in our Forums. Some players affected by this have either quit, or pissed-off one of our GSS agents. Though some may say that RMT is natural for MMORPGs, it has definite effects on the game economy. If we let players keep doing this it may devalue the game for other players. On the positive side, vibrant secondary markets not only motivate gamers to keep their existing accounts, but they can ultimately provide a more stable in-game economy.

Mobius Recovery policy states that trades done using illegal items, “PHP” trades, cross server trades, Cash transactions for items and similar trades, will not be entertained. I believe that this policy should still stand, but this may raise another important issue, which is, “Consideration”, for those other players that may not have other options. [1] Can we have solutions for this kind of trading? [2] Can we consider other methods of proving that “this” kind of trading really did take place? I have a suggestion:

· Can we consider semi-legal documents as proof that an actual trade did really happen? I’m thinking of two people as signatories in that document (the buyer and the seller), the seller would be required to provide and scan at least two valid IDs attached in that document that can be send as proof. Now, the signature on the valid ID must match the signature on the said document. This can be contested, yes, but it could be revised until we reach to a certain point that loopholes are patched.

· Additional security in our MobiusOnline e-pasa option, were customers can only use e-pasa after verifying/inputting another security code. In this way, PHP traders may use this option as part of their trading. This may be used as additional evidence that an actual trade did happen, plus the fact that in can increase the usage of our payment system.

Pros and Cons for PHP Trading when using our e-pasa system:

Imagine a single player out of lets say hundreds per server involved in PHP trading, that single player can convert a minimum of Php5,000 into our Mobiusonline ePoints for just 1 item that he’ll buy. To date, our Recovery team has processed thousands of hack cases were PHP trading is involved. Imagine if players then were using our payment system in their trade, imagine how much php have been converted into ePoints.