Tuesday, August 9, 2011

I'm Going Digital!

One day, I was looking on eBay for deals on Pokemon White for my friend. The 3DS drive was a success in that I managed to scrounge up almost enough in gift cards to buy the system. This meant I still had to gift my friend in another way. Still on the hunt for that Pokemon White, guys.

While I did find a few good deals on Pokemon White, I also noticed a suspicious amount of deals on Pokemon. Not toys. Not cards. Actual little bits of data for your Pokemon B/W game. The main creatures up for grabs were (likely cloned) event and shiny Pokemon. Others were selling literally ANY Pokemon you could ask for with a certain price. Some came with attached Master Balls if one paid a certain amount. They were cheap and came with free shipping, but the idea of selling data (let alone HACKED data) over eBay still made me WTF inside.

Alas, I had seen this trend before. Yu-Gi-Oh! has it even worse. People will actually pay decently high amounts for Pot of Duality in the YGO online game. Sure, the shipping's free, but am I the only one who  feels a little leery towards the idea of selling data on eBay?

Comment below. Vote on the upcoming poll. Peace!

2 comments:

  1. See, this is the problem I have with "legal tender for game money" ads for stuff like Final Fantasy 11 and World of Warcraft; in addition to paying cash for what is basically game data, there is also the concern of getting a lemon or some similar issue, esp. if it turns out the data is faked or corrupt anyway.

    This leads into my other issue with this concept: that is, it is impossible to confirm the existence of the data. It's like with Limewire; unless you're REALLY genre savvy about how to determine what data is faked, you are entirely at the mercy of the seller, as you have NO way to confirm the legitimacy of his digital product.

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  2. Mm, I don't know if this is -quite- the same as selling MMO tender for one simple reason: It's harder to bot. Bots SUCK, but it seems like they work.

    Also, the temptation is greater in MMOs due to a monthly payment system + eating up one's life. Take it from me, MMOs are crack.

    With Pokemon in particular, there are a MILLION red flags if something is hacked. One would have to be very unfamiliar with the genre indeed to accept an offer of the three FR/LG starters, each with a Master Ball attached.

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