rmt
Giant Online Revenue Falls, Still Rockin’ the Chinese Market
3:30AM Maggie Greene | Despite declining stock value, Giant Interactive — the company behind the intriguing MMO Zhengtu Online, which is a mix of MMO, gambling, real money transactions, and gold farming — is still tearing up the Chinese market. Steve of PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up of some recent numbers, which have indicated the the average revenue per player has dropped to around $US66 (RMB 282). Giant is moving to encourage ’steadier’ playing, instead of simply buying up cash shop items like there’s no tomorrow, so the drop was expected. Still, the money being made is pretty impressive for a domestic game (drop and all): More »
China to Levy Real-World Tax on RMT
2:30AM Maggie Greene | Figuring if you can’t ban them, you might as well make money off of them, the Mainland Chinese government has instituted a real tax on real money transactions, which is a very (very) big industry in China — and one that causes concern for the government, which fears money laundering and inflation. After attempting to severely curtail RMT, and realising that wasn’t really working, the government has moved to tax the hell out of RMT instead (a mere 20%!): More »
Launder That Money: RMTs in Asian MMOs
4:30AM Maggie Greene | A gold farming/money laundering ring in South Korea has been accused of moving somewhere in the neighbourhood of $61 million from Korea to China (with the help of real money transactions). According to PlayNoEvil, they made false purchases to a Hong Kong paper company to move the money, which is what eventually led to their arrest. In addition to the ring leaders, an additional 11 people were arrested: More »
