SOE to Facilitate Sale of Virtual Goods

Sony Online Entertainment today announced that they will be providing players with a secure service to trade in-game good for real-world cash.

EverQuest II took an interesting turn today as John Smedley, the president of the game’s publisher Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced that a new service known as “Station Exchange” will be opened to players in late June.

Station Exchange will allow players to buy and sell the right to use in-game characters, items and gold, something which was previously specifically disallowed by the EULA imposed on players by Sony themselves.

Mr Smedley states that research into the selling of virtual goods has been carried out by SOE and they have estimated the worldwide market to around $200 million, a figure too irresistible for SOE to ignore. He goes on to say that he sees this as an “interesting model for future games” and adds “If we came up with a game specifically designed around these sorts of transactions, it might be pretty cool.”

SOE are adamant that they will not going to be selling virtual goods themselves but there is no mention of how much they will be charging players to use the Sony Exchange service or what benefits it offers over carrying out trades through a third party such as eBay.

This Sony Exchange service may be a shadow of things to come for SOE games. The virtual goods market has clearly now been recognised as being very lucrative so if Sony Exchange is as success for EverQuest II, one can only assume that it will be pushed out to the other SOE games such as Star Wars Galaxies and PlanetSide.

SOE aren’t selling the goods yet, but you can bet it won’t be long before they dip a toe in those waters.