Guild Wars 2

But that’s not ANet’s doing, that’s your bank card’s doing. They are the ones converting your currency into either Dollars, Euros or Pounds not ANet. ANet only accepts Dollars, Euros or Pounds.

Now if you have a bank card that ANet accepts that will convert Bitcoins into the currency that ANet accepts, you’re all set.

If I go to England and buy some fish and chips and pay with my American Visa card, I will see the charge in Dollars not Pounds. If I go to Tokyo and buy some sweet replica of a Silver Horn Trident, I will pay in Yen but the charge will show me dollars. It’s not the merchant accepting Dollars, he’s accepting Yen. Visa is doing the foreign exchange.

Behellagh.1468:

But that’s not ANet’s doing, that’s your bank card’s doing. They are the ones converting your currency into either Dollars, Euros or Pounds not ANet. ANet only accepts Dollars, Euros or Pounds.

Just like when using a Bitcoin payment processor you may choose to accept Dollars, Euros or Pounds. They arrive to your bank account just like they do when you receive a payment with a credit/debit card.

Behellagh.1468:

Now if you have a bank card that ANet accepts that will convert Bitcoins into the currency that ANet accepts, you’re all set.

Which misses the whole point (lower fees and fraud, faster settlement and less restrictions on the user’s country of residence and so on). That’s like saying that in order to pay to a US merchant I should take my Euro-denomianted card to an ATM, withdraw cash and pay with cash.

Furthermore, you switched your argument in the middle. Originally, you claimed that the problem is with quoting prices, now you argue that the problem is with the API compatibility. These are two entirely different arguments.

Behellagh.1468:

If I go to England and buy some fish and chips and pay with my American Visa card, I will see the charge in Dollars not Pounds. If I go to Tokyo and buy some sweet replica of a Silver Horn Trident, I will pay in Yen but the charge will show me dollars. It’s not the merchant accepting Dollars, he’s accepting Yen. Visa is doing the foreign exchange.

On newer POS systems, the merchant may allow you to choose whether you want his acquirer or VISA to do the conversion, but he does not quote himself, the POS machine does the quote. On older POS systems, you get charged in the local currency. Same with ATMs. And same with Bitcoin.

Your arguments make no sense. With respect to price quoting, for a merchant there is no difference between Bitcoin and a credit card, as both can be, if so desired, provided by a payment processor.

greatwolf.1758:

laokoko.7403:

You can trade bitcoin for real cash right? so you can already buy gems with bitcoin.

But if you do that than you’re just going back to the legacy financial system with all the problems and inefficiencies that come with it.

That’s the point, people dont’ want to deal with bitcoin because of the problems and inefficiencies that come from it.

If you think bitcoin is so convenient, just trade it “easily” to real money as you claim and buy gems with it. I certainly dont’ want to deal with it.

ArenaNet offers already different payment options for our convenience. We have the choice between paypal, paysafecards and credit cards. Bitcoin would just be another convenient payment option for those who choose it.

It doesn’t matter if you personally don’t like bitcoin. Offering bitcoin as an option is trivial with a payment processor like bitpay. Also I think ArenaNet doesn’t run the gemstore payment processing themselves anyway – but that’s another story.

Fact is using something like coinbase or bitpay offers no risk for ArenaNet and they can get directly their dollars and never have to touch bitcoin themselves.

Bitpay is happy to make that happen :P https://twitter.com/BitPay/status/493194497132474368

Yalon.6812:

Behellagh.1468:

But that’s not ANet’s doing, that’s your bank card’s doing. They are the ones converting your currency into either Dollars, Euros or Pounds not ANet. ANet only accepts Dollars, Euros or Pounds.

Just like when using a Bitcoin payment processor you may choose to accept Dollars, Euros or Pounds. They arrive to your bank account just like they do when you receive a payment with a credit/debit card.

Behellagh.1468:

Now if you have a bank card that ANet accepts that will convert Bitcoins into the currency that ANet accepts, you’re all set.

Which misses the whole point (lower fees and fraud, faster settlement and less restrictions on the user’s country of residence and so on). That’s like saying that in order to pay to a US merchant I should take my Euro-denomianted card to an ATM, withdraw cash and pay with cash.

Furthermore, you switched your argument in the middle. Originally, you claimed that the problem is with quoting prices, now you argue that the problem is with the API compatibility. These are two entirely different arguments.

Behellagh.1468:

If I go to England and buy some fish and chips and pay with my American Visa card, I will see the charge in Dollars not Pounds. If I go to Tokyo and buy some sweet replica of a Silver Horn Trident, I will pay in Yen but the charge will show me dollars. It’s not the merchant accepting Dollars, he’s accepting Yen. Visa is doing the foreign exchange.

On newer POS systems, the merchant may allow you to choose whether you want his acquirer or VISA to do the conversion, but he does not quote himself, the POS machine does the quote. On older POS systems, you get charged in the local currency. Same with ATMs. And same with Bitcoin.

Your arguments make no sense. With respect to price quoting, for a merchant there is no difference between Bitcoin and a credit card, as both can be, if so desired, provided by a payment processor.

You were the one that used the example that you can buy gems now via your bank card in a currency other than Dollars, Euros or Pounds at the current exchange rate into those currencies. Not Yen or Reals or Pesos or Canadian/Australian Dollars or Swiss Francs. I simply followed your example. ANet isn’t accepting your currency, your payment method is handling the currency exchange from yours to one of the ones ANet accepts.

If you can point their processing service to an outfit that would convert bitcoin to a currency they accept with the same safeguards that other payment services have then great. Otherwise this is the same argument that can be found on WoW or EVE or likely any number of MMO forums. If the 800lbs Gorilla of MMOs won’t accept it, why do you think our little, in comparison MMO would?

But my other argument still holds true, you can have more than one reason they don’t. ANet has not adjusted there exchange rate for gems relative to Dollars, Euros or Pounds. It is still $10€ or £8.50 per 800 gems regardless how those currencies fluctuated against each other. I saw the original request was to add Bitcoin to the currencies they directly accept and since they don’t adjust their rates with those, why would they do it for a currency as volatile as Bitcoin in terms of exchange rate. As I’ve said, Bitcoin is now worth 100x more than it was when the game was launched.

Samuirai.4561:

ArenaNet offers already different payment options for our convenience. We have the choice between paypal, paysafecards and credit cards. Bitcoin would just be another convenient payment option for those who choose it.

It doesn’t matter if you personally don’t like bitcoin. Offering bitcoin as an option is trivial with a payment processor like bitpay. Also I think ArenaNet doesn’t run the gemstore payment processing themselves anyway – but that’s another story.

Fact is using something like coinbase or bitpay offers no risk for ArenaNet and they can get directly their dollars and never have to touch bitcoin themselves.

Bitpay is happy to make that happen :P https://twitter.com/BitPay/status/493194497132474368

If my memory is right, I thought I saw some news on a japan bitcoin trading company get bankrupt because of it got hack.

I don’t know how many bitcoin users is out there, but I dont’ think there is that many. If there is that many bitcoin users then I can understand Anet can try it out.

Yeah someone mentioned it here already, Mt Gox. Part of the problem is a bug/vulnerability during a DDoS which allowed someone to double dip a withdrawal yet it only registered one or something like that.

Behellagh.1468:

You were the one that used the example that you can buy gems now via your bank card in a currency other than Dollars, Euros or Pounds at the current exchange rate into those currencies. Not Yen or Reals or Pesos or Canadian/Australian Dollars or Swiss Francs. I simply followed your example.

You’re yet again switching to another argument. Your argument was originally about quoting prices. This was shown bogus. Now you admit yourself that there is no difference, contradicting yourself.

Behellagh.1468:

ANet isn’t accepting your currency, your payment method is handling the currency exchange from yours to one of the ones ANet accepts.

This was precisely my argument from the start. Now you admit I was correct.

Behellagh.1468:

If you can point their processing service to an outfit that would convert bitcoin to a currency they accept with the same safeguards that other payment services have then great. Otherwise this is the same argument that can be found on WoW or EVE or likely any number of MMO forums. If the 800lbs Gorilla of MMOs won’t accept it, why do you think our little, in comparison MMO would?

Resellers do not have this problem and will happily sell you WoW or EVE subscriptions for Bitcoin. Also, I mentioned Bigpoint Games which is similar in size with ArenaNet and they have been taking Bitcoin since last year. The largest online merchant so far to accept Bitcoin directly is Dell, dwarfing any of these game companies. Earlier this year, Bitpay and Coinbase alone reported over 30.000 merchants each subscribed to their services.

My argument was actually that there is no need for ArenaNet to accept Bitcoin payments in the first place because resellers do it in their stead. I just pointed out that your objection was bogus and that ArenaNet earns less money when the gem card or the game is purchased via a reseller rather than directly.

Behellagh.1468:

But my other argument still holds true, you can have more than one reason they don’t. ANet has not adjusted there exchange rate for gems relative to Dollars, Euros or Pounds. It is still $10€ or £8.50 per 800 gems regardless how those currencies fluctuated against each other. I saw the original request was to add Bitcoin to the currencies they directly accept and since they don’t adjust their rates with those, why would they do it for a currency as volatile as Bitcoin in terms of exchange rate. As I’ve said, Bitcoin is now worth 100x more than it was when the game was launched.

The request is for the payment system, not for quoting. Just like when you ask a merchant whether he accepts credit cards, rather than whether he quotes in a particular currency.

laokoko.7403:

That’s the point, people dont’ want to deal with bitcoin because of the problems and inefficiencies that come from it.

You have it exactly the other way around. It is the credit cards and other older payment methods that are inefficient and problematic. Just because they have a larger user base does not negate the point.

laokoko.7403:

If you think bitcoin is so convenient, just trade it “easily” to real money as you claim and buy gems with it. I certainly dont’ want to deal with it.

Now you recommend people to be inconvenienced, contradicting yourself. You can sell bitcoins for dollars or euros easily, but that does not automatically mean that will allow you to use those euros or dollars to buy gems from ArenaNet if the problem is in the payment system. My wife and I have had tons of problems with using debit cards, pay pal or paysafecard with purchasing from ArenaNet. I have not found any way to purchase the gem cards for cash here. It is actually easier to buy from resellers for Bitcoin.

Denying this only shows how disconnected from reality you are.

ArenaNet will eventually have to accept Bitcoin payments in order to stay profitable and competitive. Until then, they will be losing money to resellers.

The misunderstanding was partially my fault. I thought the OP’s request was for ANet to accept Bitcoin up front and then ANet could use a Bitcoin service themselves to convert to dollars post transaction. In that case ANet would have had to keep up with the Bitcoin exchange rate so when they then used a service to convert the Bitcoin in their wallet into one of the currencies they can book.

It wasn’t until your example of using foreign currencies that ANet doesn’t accept to buy gems, with the payment provider doing the currency exchange that I understood what was being suggested.

The question becomes is there an Bitcoin payment service than is “big” enough, “stable” enough, for corporations to use the way they use bank cards and Paypal? How many years before places other than eBay users accepted Paypal? It wasn’t until Paypal got big enough and been around long enough for others to start, tentatively, accepting it. BitPay is the service that’s being suggested but that isn’t the one Dell decided to use which is Coinbase which Overstock also uses. Both are less than two years old and are barely beyond venture capital financing, which is like one step up from crowdfunded (okay I exaggerated).

My point with WoW and EVE is if Activision-Blizzard, a much larger company than NCSOFT, doesn’t feel secure enough to accept Bitcoin and EVE, a game that has a similar size income to GW2 but doesn’t have to fear shareholders have yet to accept it, why would NCSOFT? And yes, it would likely be NCSOFT’s decision to let ANet accept it or not. NCSOFT is a public company. It’s stock is languishing. Probably not to time to take a bold step into the world of a crypto-currency. Dell’s a private company now, it doesn’t have to answer to anybody other than themselves.

It’s a chicken/egg problem. No large corporation wants to go first. They don’t want to be the one that could get burned if Bitcoin fraud suddenly rears it’s ugly head or if the payment processor goes belly up before they pay their last payment to the corporation using them or the US or other governments bans it, taxes it or otherwise makes it’s use difficult.

Yalon.6812:

laokoko.7403:

That’s the point, people dont’ want to deal with bitcoin because of the problems and inefficiencies that come from it.

You have it exactly the other way around. It is the credit cards and other older payment methods that are inefficient and problematic. Just because they have a larger user base does not negate the point.

I think the reality is if there really isn’t that much people using bitcoin. It is probably problematic to create the service just for the tiny fraction of people that is actually using bitcoin.

Beside that, I’m not sure that many people can’t get their credit card or paypal working.

If there are more people using bitcoin, you’ll have a point. It might one day. I don’t know if that is right now. You probably have like a couple million bitcoin user on earth(i dont’ know if the number is accurate, if it is not let me know). Compare that to 200 million people owning a credit card in the US

PTWE ™: NO.
Bitcoin ™: duck
BGs ™: WEEOOOWEEOOWEEOO
Bitcoin tm: duck
PBG ™: Finn!
/shrik
PBG ™: JAKE!
Jake ™: Consider ‘cryptocurrency discovery’ as a train leaving a station and the station only has one opening, the gate the train leaves from. As the train increases in length, the engine must work harder and harder to keep that train leaving the station. Consider what would happen if you pluck cars from the train and threw them away.
GFP ™: Every bit of currency can be considered as the fourth dimensional shadow cast by a fifth dimensional paritied object.
Bitcoin ™: Can I say something besides duck?
LSP ™: As long as it has something do with the market value of lumps,

Behellagh.1468:

The misunderstanding was partially my fault. I thought the OP’s request was for ANet to accept Bitcoin up front and then ANet could use a Bitcoin service themselves to convert to dollars post transaction. In that case ANet would have had to keep up with the Bitcoin exchange rate so when they then used a service to convert the Bitcoin in their wallet into one of the currencies they can book.

Ok I’m glad that got cleared out.

Behellagh.1468:

The question becomes is there an Bitcoin payment service than is “big” enough, “stable” enough, for corporations to use the way they use bank cards and Paypal?

Yes, in a way you are right. However, Bitcoin dramatically decreases both direct costs and the risk of fraud for the merchant, and using Bitpay or Coinbase (or other processors) you also get a faster settlement than when using a credit card. Your risk is thus lower even if these companies go bankrupt. They also take care of legal aspects of the payment.

Behellagh.1468:

Both are less than two years old and are barely beyond venture capital financing, which is like one step up from crowdfunded (okay I exaggerated).

Actually, BitPay was founded 3 years ago, in July 2011, but that’s not that important. Even then, due to the features of Bitcoin, the risk a merchant carries is lower than when using a traditional credit card/paypal/etc.

Behellagh.1468:

My point with WoW and EVE is if Activision-Blizzard, a much larger company than NCSOFT, doesn’t feel secure enough to accept Bitcoin and EVE, a game that has a similar size income to GW2 but doesn’t have to fear shareholders have yet to accept it, why would NCSOFT?

If they put feelings before profit, that’s not the fault of people who disagree with them.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s a chicken/egg problem. No large corporation wants to go first. They don’t want to be the one that could get burned if Bitcoin fraud suddenly rears it’s ugly head or if the payment processor goes belly up before they pay their last payment to the corporation using them or the US or other governments bans it, taxes it or otherwise makes it’s use difficult.

I agree that noone wants to be the first. But the objections you bring up are more based on misunderstandings. For merchants, the fraud risk is actually much lower.

laokoko.7403:

I think the reality is if there really isn’t that much people using bitcoin. It is probably problematic to create the service just for the tiny fraction of people that is actually using bitcoin.

Actually, implementing Bitcoin processing using a processor is relatively easy. If you already support more than one processor, as ArenaNet does, it’s even easier.

laokoko.7403:

Beside that, I’m not sure that many people can’t get their credit card or paypal working.

That’s probably because you never left US and never bought anything from abroad. Several countries are entirely cut off from the systems. I always have problems when I move from one EU country to another one.

laokoko.7403:

If there are more people using bitcoin, you’ll have a point. It might one day. I don’t know if that is right now. You probably have like a couple million bitcoin user on earth(i dont’ know if the number is accurate, if it is not let me know). Compare that to 200 million people owning a credit card in the US

Sure, and in the meantime, more nimble entrepreneurs will be chipping off ArenaNet’s profits.

To the original poster: If you want to buy gems from a reputable official vendor, go to amazon, put gem cards on your wishlist, register on purse.io, send them your wishlist and deposit enough Bitcoins. Someone will buy it for you and you’ll receive the gem card from amazon by post, and due to the way purse.io works you’ll even get a discount.

lol no its unreal money

The major problem with bitcoin conversion is that it lies in a super grey area of the law as no government has control over the flow of funds, so you can launder illegally gained money or bypass sanctions into countries like russia/iran/syria etc which may lead to legal action (and significant fines) against the firm which accepted payment.

Currently though, for many consumer product firms, the potential revenue and thus risk is pretty minimal and most major companies do it for the publicity. Minor (relatively speaking) amounts usually doesn’t incur the ire of regulators.

The morality issues of any crytocurrency aside, the technicals of accepting any of the major bitcoin processors is fine. Bitcoin is technically a currency but treated like as assets/property. Any of the major bitcoin processors are doing the equivalent of equities/commodities/bonds exchanges. Which is fine to the end merchant as they receive usd/euro in the end. Basically it comes down to do they trust the payment processor with fund transfers, what the transaction costs are, and how the settlement of possible future disputes will be handled.

Yalon.6812:

laokoko.7403:

I think the reality is if there really isn’t that much people using bitcoin. It is probably problematic to create the service just for the tiny fraction of people that is actually using bitcoin.

Actually, implementing Bitcoin processing using a processor is relatively easy. If you already support more than one processor, as ArenaNet does, it’s even easier.

laokoko.7403:

Beside that, I’m not sure that many people can’t get their credit card or paypal working.

That’s probably because you never left US and never bought anything from abroad. Several countries are entirely cut off from the systems. I always have problems when I move from one EU country to another one.

laokoko.7403:

If there are more people using bitcoin, you’ll have a point. It might one day. I don’t know if that is right now. You probably have like a couple million bitcoin user on earth(i dont’ know if the number is accurate, if it is not let me know). Compare that to 200 million people owning a credit card in the US

Sure, and in the meantime, more nimble entrepreneurs will be chipping off ArenaNet’s profits.

I actually live in Taiwan. But I can understand, I have problems in other online games because they never made payment easy for people living abroad. I personally don’t have that problem with GW2 though.

I don’t think the topic is really about why GW2 dont’ use bitcoin. I don’t think many services or games actually use bitcoin. I’m sure Anet will follow if other game studio use it.

I don’t know much about bitcoin. But I think there is many security issue, along with legal issue. I think one of the major bitcoin trading company got closed and infact bankrupt because some hackers bypass the security and stole a huge sum of money. There are legal issue involved with money laundry online. And I think some country dont’ even prohibit bitcoin. What if someone in a foreign country use bitcoin to buy gems, when it is not even allowed.

I think the posters before me already pointed out why companies don’t use it. I don’t deny it is probably quite convenient though.

dodgycookies.4562:

Currently though, for many consumer product firms, the potential revenue and thus risk is pretty minimal and most major companies do it for the publicity. Minor (relatively speaking) amounts usually doesn’t incur the ire of regulators.

In addition, the gray market / currency control / tax evasion / money laundering etc concerns carry a lot less weight when you are delivering a physical product to a physical address that you probably don’t want tied to the above activities. When what you are selling is another virtual currency for a game store that can be further converted and traded to other players, all of the above start to look like very real concerns.

Yalon.6812:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NCSOFT runs a business, not a non-profit dedicated to changing the social order by promoting a potentially desirable alternative to government-backed currencies. There are almost no financial benefits to them to add bitcoin (over e.g. Yen or even Canadian dollars) and all sorts of downsides.

You got it exactly the opposite way. A decision to not accept Bitcoin is costing ArenaNet money.

You’ll have to demonstrate that your statement is true (not to me, but to NCSOFT, whose decision it would be). I think management is much more likely to assume that this is a net loss for them.

• How many people are willing to spend bitcoins, but not dollars/euros/pounds? How much money are they willing to spend?
• Compare that to how much money the company will need to spend to implement a payment system allowing bitcoins:
  • In-house and outside counsel have to vet the firms for reliability & risk.
  • Current software tools need to updated (best case) or overhauled (worst case) to accommodate the new systems.
  • Personnel in several areas need to be trained to handle situations involving the new system, including Support, Accounting, anti-Fraud, and software teams.
  • I’m sure there are a dozen other financial points that corporate managers will have to consider.

That’s aside from addressing questions of whether NCSOFT wants to be an early adopter of bitcoins. There are all sorts of reasons why gaming companies might prefer to avoid promoting what they will believe to be a system that benefits the very hackers and gold farmers/sellers who unduly impact the game for legitimate players. (Regardless of whether this is true, risk-adverse corporate management is going to be concerned about it.)

I think if you really want to make this happen, it would be more effective to ask NCSOFT to add to the list of accepted alternative banking systems. Or to work on PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, et al to accept bitcoins as payment. In this way, NCSOFT doesn’t have to care at all about bitcoins — they will just let the authorized payment service deal with it and collect the same dollars/euros/pounds that they would have in the first place.

Ill, he’s talking about adding another payment processor. I was confused myself but it should be no different than when they added additional methods in the past. The processor handles the exchange rate, etc. It’s “I want 20 dollars/euros of gems but I’m paying in Bitcoin”. ANet gets their money, minus fees, in a currency they accept while the customer pays with Bitcoin. No different than if someone in Brazil is paying with an accepted bank card. He sees the transaction in Reals, ANet gets dollars/euros/pounds.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I think if you really want to make this happen, it would be more effective to ask NCSOFT to add to the list of accepted alternative banking systems.

I don’t really need it to happen, as you can already buy gem cards with Bitcoins, and it’s often faster and cheaper compared to using ArenaNet’s online shop. This was also one of my points. The second point is that some of the arguments against accepting Bitcoin payments are based on misunderstandings and are irrelevant to ArenaNet’s decisions.

It is theoretically possible that the costs (e.g. implementation and support) ArenaNet would incur in adding a Bitcoin payment processor would at this time outweigh the benefits. I don’t think that’s the case but it’s possible. But resellers, who have different specialisations and/or business processes, can already now provide an alternative. The fact that ArenaNet has a distributor network that uses third parties irrespective of Bitcoin proves that they are aware that outsourcing can benefit their overall profits.

Maybe when people ask ArenaNet about Bitcoin, they can themselves point to those distributors that sell gem cards for Bitcoin (or a combination, like amazon + purse.io). That would be a well received effort for customer satisfaction, a win-win-win. It might not be as good for ArenaNet as if they accepted Bitcoin payments themselves, but it’s probably the next best thing.

greatwolf.1758:

laokoko.7403:

You can trade bitcoin for real cash right? so you can already buy gems with bitcoin.

But if you do that than you’re just going back to the legacy financial system with all the problems and inefficiencies that come with it.

Irony, sweet irony….how I love thee….