In the broken windows thread, Aufero had this sharp piece of insight.

SOE has been responsible for drilling into many, many people’s heads over the years that selling in-game assets for real world cash is cheating. It’s due in large part to their own efforts on the subject that it will continue to be perceived as cheating in the games they started with those policies in mind.

True, true.

One of the interesting things about this whole debate is that whether or not you think it’s cheating is going to vary widely based on who you are and what motivates you as a player. For example, I would hypothesize that the people who would be most offended by sales of eBay goods would be Bartle’s Achievers. Why? Because to them, getting high level characters all tricked out with loot is the definition of winning! To many of them, paying for a level 50 character is analagous to a football team buying 4 touchdowns.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. If you are an explorer and winning is seeing the whole world, a level 50 character is merely a tool, a means to that end. If you are a socializer, a level 50 character is a way to be able to continue grouping with their friends. In theory, they would have much less of a difficult time with the concept of trading digital goods than their achiever friends.

What makes this crazy theory interesting to contemplate is that EQ and EQ2 are considered, by almost everyone, to be Achiever games.

Original comments thread is here.