Aion, another world of warcraft to virtual currency industry?

By Teng
15 June 2009

It's a coincidence I met the buyback manager from swagvault and get a mini interview with him. For privacy he won't let me show his real name.

Q: We know the first beta event in USA and Europe was quite popular, do you have a general timeline of how long Closed Beta will last before we see open beta?

A: I'm afraid I can't really go into the exact schedule as of this writing. But there will be more Closed Beta events coming after this first one. The Open Beta should be this fall, not too far after the summer (definition of 'summer' evidently varying depending on where you live). Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) had opened a total of five server farms with 80 server groups for its licensed western fantasy MMORPG AION by April 9.

Q: Some players said they hope Aion or some other MMOs challenge WOW's throne. What’s your opinion?

A: AION is one of the most anticipated games in China and has been recognized by gamers as the next generation in online games. It’s true WOW does a very good game at decent graphics on decent hardware. It’s basically a game to appease to "everyone". According to Pearl Research, Aion marks the successful return of South Korean MMORPGs to the Chinese market after a brief respite period, during which local Chinese-developed MMORPGs dominated. Blizzard got extremely lucky with WOW (they’ve admitted to this). We can only predict Aion may act as a substitute if some players are tired of WOW in the future.

Q: Are you playing Aion?

A: Sure. As a buyback manager who should be a player first, right? Do you want to play it? Our website swagvault.com is giving away Aion CN free accounts to western players for fun. If you are interested, I can send you a couple. AHAHA... Sounds like AD.

Q: You said you play Aion, can I regard that you indicate Swagvault will sell Aion gold or power leveling soon?

A: You got a sharp nose. It's not a secret in Virtual industry that many websites are selling Aion CN gold, time card and power leveling, so I think Aion US and EU gold sales sooner or later.

Q: It's a stale and annoy question to you that many game developers think virtual industry is not legal and many people blame the companies like yours. What do you think about it?

A: In the real life, supply and demand decide the market. It’s same to Virtual industry. Many players need gold, power leveling service to support their game experience, so we served. It's fair trade. Some developers said we destroy the balance of game. Is really being balance if there is no virtual currency sales company? No, absolutely not! If the virtual industry can destroy the game balance, I only have to say your game is too weak. Some players enjoy playing by themselves to get success, but some players have not enough time to play game all the time, but they want to catch up with their teams. Can you say they must play by themselves or let their teams hold on to wait for him or her? In the real life we call on Freedom, but in game, we prefer autarchy? No, we also need freedom. Who needs gold or power leveling who pays. It's free transaction.

This interview is from http://blog.swagvault.com/2009/06/15/aion-another-world-of-warcraft-to-virtual-currency-industry/