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For years, a debate has raged between players, game publishers, and Cabal Alz sellers about the legality of RMT and its impact on games. Many people strongly believe that RMT is bad, that it goes against game rules and impacts in-game economies negatively.
Players are first and foremost, human beings. They may start out as simply customers but, since these games rely as much on user generated content as they do on game mechanics, and are as much real time social environments as they are games, the contribution players themselves make to the experience is crucial.
It ultimately determines the success or failure of the game. Good games are ones where many players are deeply committed to the game, both financially in terms of time and money and emotionally in terms of passion and creativity.
Publisher end-user-license-agreements essentially state that everything about the games they publish belongs to them; you (the gamer) have no rights. Selling a virtual item to someone for real money is said to constitute an infringement of publisher property rights. Anti-RMT groups claim that RMT floods the market with excess currency and causes inflation.
But are these claims really valid? I'm not so sure they are. RMT emerged as a player-to-player activity and today, one third of the player base is actively engaged in RMT. Does not that suggest that RMT may, in fact, be an important component of online gaming?