We stopped by Sony's oasis in the middle of the E3 floor to get a handful of demos on their new
products and initiatives. The Sony product on display that changes the rules of the game and the business of gaming the
most has to be the new "Station Exchange" application that will allow Everquest II players to buy and sell their
characters, coins, and items online.
The auction system is simple to use. In mid June, players will be given the option to transfer their existing characters to one of the two Station Exchange-enabled servers that will open for play in late June. Once on this server, players merely step up to the same in-game mailbox that they use on regular servers and the shopping process begins. I watched a Sony representative drag an item from his character into the mailbox and click a confirmation dialog to confirm that he wanted to list it for auction.
Then he logged in to a web interface, set an opening bid, an "instant purchase" price, a reserve price and an auction duration (from one day to one week). This is all pretty standard auction stuff, but Sony has clearly invested in a streamlined interface. It's so clean and easy to use that he could have completed the entire operation in under a minute.
Players will pay $1.00 to list coin or items and $10.00 to list characters. Hear that sound? It's Sony's cash drawer ringing. When an auction is completed, Sony skims 10% off of the proceeds of the sale before sending money to players' PayPal accounts. Sony's cash drawer rings. And that drawer will keep ringing if Sony manages to grab a significant portion of the illicit trade in virtual goods, which estimates peg $200 to $400 million dollars per year.
Of course we asked Sony how this will change the game for players of Everquest II and their response was two part: first, players will need to elect to take part in Station Exchange servers, so it’s not like real-money-trade will be imposed on existing populations of players. Second, Sony recognizes that many gamers are professionals who really don’t have the time in their lives to spend massive amounts of time per week camping the very best gear, yet they still want to keep those people as customers. Offering the money-rich, time-poor player the option of purchasing gear is just giving customers what they want.
