Policy change: Sales of art for gil forbidden

[V'aleera]

"Alternative payment accepted, PM for details"

 

Problem solved. Also, I didn't see anywhere that SE said they would be vigorously enforcing this part of the ToS. Just that it falls under the ToS.

[Melkire]

This is all rather silly. #GrahamChapman

 

That said, I can see why they're tightening their stance on the matter. Essentially what they're trying to avoid is real market value for gil, i.e. a relatively stable conversion rate. That means being against trading of real goods for virtual currency, regardless of whether said goods are hard currency or something you could purchase with hard currency.

 

I don't know. I personally prefer CCCP's approach, which is to roll with it, but E.V.E. is a vastly different game, environment, community, etc.

 

The spice must flow.

 

Muad'Dib, Muad'Dib, Muad'Dib!

 

Leto the II was a creepy ass mofo.

[V'aleera]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

[Titor]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

It is opening up more options for people to get scammed. If an artist says they will take alternative payment, and all the negotiations take place in skype/etc there is no way to enforce payment, there is no social front to go with. The artist could be like "person x never paid me, so I never drew the art"

 

and the other person can be like

 

"I did pay you! Where is my art" And never did pay, but could cause a scene against a particular person to ruin their reputation and there will be no proof to either the artist receiving the money or the person paying it, or the public eye being a pseudo-observer of the agreement

 

These sneaky transactions leave a loootttt of room for scamming.

[Dravus]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

 

It doesn't reflect very well on the site as a whole to be discussing how to circumvent the established rules. It'd be far better and more constructive for people to rally together and make a thread about it over on the official site to see if the rule can be adjusted.

 

Then there's the stuff that Titor outlined above. It's a bit of a slippery slope.

[Titor]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

 

It doesn't reflect very well on the site as a whole to be discussing how to circumvent the established rules. It'd be far better and more constructive for people to rally together and make a thread about it over on the official site to see if the rule can be adjusted.

This too

[Zaheela]

"Alternative payment accepted, PM for details"

 

Problem solved. Also, I didn't see anywhere that SE said they would be vigorously enforcing this part of the ToS. Just that it falls under the ToS.

 

But if they do enforce it or are forced to look into it because of someone (namely the commissioner) claims they were scanned, they do have logs. I would say that in order to protect not only your SE account, but also this site, take such things to a Private messaging site or such, like skype.

[V'aleera]

It is opening up more options for people to get scammed. If an artist says they will take alternative payment, and all the negotiations take place in skype/etc there is no way to enforce payment, there is no social front to go with. The artist could be like "person x never paid me, so I never drew the art"

 

and the other person can be like

 

"I did pay you! Where is my art" And never did pay, but could cause a scene against a particular person to ruin their reputation and there will be no proof to either the artist receiving the money or the person paying it, or the public eye being a pseudo-observer of the agreement

 

These sneaky transactions leave a loootttt of room for scamming.

But that is nothing new. Regardless of where negotiations take place (and they rarely do so publicly as is anyway), the possibility of being scammed exists.

 

As the buyer, the tool already exists in order to prove your claim that payment was delivered: screenshot the trade. As the seller, you should never, ever be handing over a product without first receiving payment.

 

None of these issues are newly created. Buying things from individuals on the internet has always been a very caveat emptor situation.

[Gegenji]

The artist could be like "person x never paid me, so I never drew the art"

 

"I did pay you! Where is my art" And never did pay, but could cause a scene against a particular person to ruin their reputation and there will be no proof to either the artist receiving the money or the person paying it, or the public eye being a pseudo-observer of the agreement

 

These sneaky transactions leave a loootttt of room for scamming.

 

The issue I have with this statement is you could've done this even before art sales were forbidden. What proof would someone have of the payment being made in this case that's different? The only thing I can think of is the art threads marking that the person has paid, but they could still take the gil and say they weren't.

 

The issue now becomes that if someone does that, BOTH could are liable to get in trouble. The person who scammed, and the person who broke the rules by making/paying for art with gil.

[Cliodhna Eoghan]

I, for one, welcome our noir-as-fuck futurepast.

 

[Dravus]

Well, that's why this thread is useful: sufficient forewarning is being given and so anyone who goes ahead and tries to circumvent the established rules only have themselves to blame.

[Dat Oni]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

It is opening up more options for people to get scammed. If an artist says they will take alternative payment, and all the negotiations take place in skype/etc there is no way to enforce payment, there is no social front to go with. The artist could be like "person x never paid me, so I never drew the art"

 

and the other person can be like

 

"I did pay you! Where is my art" And never did pay, but could cause a scene against a particular person to ruin their reputation and there will be no proof to either the artist receiving the money or the person paying it, or the public eye being a pseudo-observer of the agreement

 

These sneaky transactions leave a loootttt of room for scamming.

 

There is a thing we have that prevents that from ever happening.

 

It's called a list. I never gave you art? You paid me? Where's your name on the fucking list, then? Oh, it isn't there? Then there was no transaction, was there? *Watches as argument falls apart*

 

We've been doing that since before the TOS update. And people have been trying to scam us since before the TOS update. You act as though we never had to put up with it before.

[Titor]

it is making it worse.

How, specifically, is it making things worse?

It is opening up more options for people to get scammed. If an artist says they will take alternative payment, and all the negotiations take place in skype/etc there is no way to enforce payment, there is no social front to go with. The artist could be like "person x never paid me, so I never drew the art"

 

and the other person can be like

 

"I did pay you! Where is my art" And never did pay, but could cause a scene against a particular person to ruin their reputation and there will be no proof to either the artist receiving the money or the person paying it, or the public eye being a pseudo-observer of the agreement

 

These sneaky transactions leave a loootttt of room for scamming.

 

There is a thing we have that prevents that from ever happening.

 

It's called a list. I never gave you art? You paid me? Where's your name on the fucking list, then? Oh, it isn't there? Then there was no transaction, was there? *Watches as argument falls apart*

 

We've been doing that since before the TOS update. And people have been trying to scam us since before the TOS update. You act as though we never had to put up with it before.

 

Right now anyone can say that they had an agreement over skype for art, but since there is no public record of the agreement people can literally go around slandering people's names. There is no defense of an open agreement with third party validation. Artists not following through with art can no longer be held accountable to their public image, as they can simply deny that the agreement or transaction ever took place.

 

This has happened to me (And some others I know) in the past before, which is why I make sure that everything is very clearly explicitly known.  If an artist gets paid and does not follow through, their public image is still kept since there was no easily validated appearance, aside from skype/3rd party contacts but at that point you are basically just screaming that you violated tos which beats the point of taking it to secret.

[Gegenji]

It's called a list. I never gave you art? You paid me? Where's your name on the fucking list, then? Oh, it isn't there? Then there was no transaction, was there? *Watches as argument falls apart*

 

That works from the artist's angle, and if they request payment before starting work. The list doesn't hold much water, though, if the art is made first and the buyer states that they paid and they haven't. How can you prove you were paid?

 

And, while I severely doubt any of the artists here would do such a thing... the list also means nothing against a buyer who is being scammed by the ARTIST. Since, what's to keep the artist from taking the payment and then just not putting the name on the list? Oh, they're not on the list, so they obviously haven't paid.

 

As mentioned, there's a lot of faith being put on freeform internet transactions such of these, whether it be in gil OR in cash. At least with Paypal and the like you can have receipts of payment.

[QueenFrejyalen]

I have updated my threads to reflect the stance the forum is taking on the ToS.

 

And for those worried about scams:  I'm with you there.  Though I would say that people still scam even if there's a public eye watching.

 

My advice is to document everything you can in case that does happen, but it'll indeed be tricky to prove/use in light of the ToS.

 

Also I would like to add my support to Aya's idea of some sort of trading board for art!  =Oc

[Kestrael]

Well, now that those low-life black market artists have been dealt with and the integrity of the game is safe once more perhaps SE can turn their attention to the obviously lesser evil of Gil selling. /sarcasm

 

If someone creates a thread on the official forum I will gladly sign my name to it. Our artists play an integral part in helping to bring our characters and stories to life and shouldn't be treated like those who help destroy the game economy and experience daily.

[QueenFrejyalen]

Yeah I would definitely say that on a scale of what's hurting the game and what isn't, the numerous bots and gil sellers are at the 9 and 10.

 

Whether SE will actually uphold their stance on art for gil, we'll have to wait and find out.  My guess is that if they put even a fourth of the time they spend on gil sellers/bots into the art issue, then we'll never be affected by it anyway.

 

;P

[Titor]

I would sign my name on the OF for it too, I do enjoy art, but I not enough to risk my account over.

 

But I can see how hard it would be for SE to draw the line. Would it only be non-tangible art? Digital only and no traditional, and no giving printed copies? Would any art be allowed, such as sculptures and jewelry? At that point it can become any goods that fall into the scope of art, which is a lot.

 

While here we seem to only be selling digital non-tangible art, in terms of tos they would have to really clearly define it.

 

I think it would be good if art sold for gil could not have a real world currency option. No either gil or usd, but only gil, that way there is no conversion

[K'nahli]

 

To be the advocatus diaboli: RMTers could claim they did not sell those gil for money, they received art for it. Pretty hard to disprove.

 

 

Re-quoting this since it seems like the most logical reason as opposed to SE being arbitrarily against such a function.

[Ha'uruh Nunh]

I'm probably the minority in that I prefer to pay cash rather than Gil anyway - my in-game wallet has yet to recover from Novus, and time has become more precious to me than money.

 

I guess this is proof that I don't buy Gil, haha.

 

However, the one time I did do a Gil art commission, as of now, two months after I paid, still haven't seen the art, whereas had it been a cash commission, I could've filed a Paypal complaint and gotten my money back.

 

That said, it's a shame that this could deter our fabulous artists from plying their trade. That to me would be the true tragedy - less art flowing into the community.

[Titor]

Well, that is another thing, why would art be 'alright' to buy with, whereas other services would not be? I am a freelancer and do a variety of electrical engineering and computer science tasks right now prior to going back to college, yet I could probably not offer, say, tutoring services for payment in gil, could I? Why is art alright to buy, but not coding work or tutoring services? 

 

If they are, at what point do we disallow trading gil for services? Art is not that much different than tutoring services or code work, in that both of those services are not physical products. Could we buy music with gil? It gets a bit tricky, and while I do enjoy art I am not sure why it should get special treatment. 

 

I would still sign a petition to allow the buying of art (and possibly other non-tangible services?), but, those are just my small thoughts.

[Warren Castille]

Just for the record: I've paid plenty of artists here who just... stopped posting. As it stands right now I've given someone real cash money and they never turned up with art, and there's people in front of me on the list.

 

I don't want to turn it into a witch hunt or make accusations, but paying someone and having them vanish isn't new. It won't change if things are arranged in PM.

[Perth]

Well, that is another thing, why would art be 'alright' to buy with, whereas other services would not be? I am a freelancer and do a variety of electrical engineering and computer science tasks right now prior to going back to college, yet I could probably not offer, say, tutoring services for payment in gil, could I? Why is art alright to buy, but not coding work or tutoring services? 

 

If they are, at what point do we disallow trading gil for services? Art is not that much different than tutoring services or code work, in that both of those services are not physical products. Could we buy music with gil? It gets a bit tricky, and while I do enjoy art I am not sure why it should get special treatment. 

 

... What? Coding or tutoring has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, roleplay, or the characters created in junction with the two.

[Kage]

Just for the record: I've paid plenty of artists here who just... stopped posting. As it stands right now I've given someone real cash money and they never turned up with art, and there's people in front of me on the list.

 

I don't want to turn it into a witch hunt or make accusations, but paying someone and having them vanish isn't new. It won't change if things are arranged in PM.

I've had this off-site as well. It's not new. It happens.

[Titor]

Well, that is another thing, why would art be 'alright' to buy with, whereas other services would not be? I am a freelancer and do a variety of electrical engineering and computer science tasks right now prior to going back to college, yet I could probably not offer, say, tutoring services for payment in gil, could I? Why is art alright to buy, but not coding work or tutoring services? 

 

If they are, at what point do we disallow trading gil for services? Art is not that much different than tutoring services or code work, in that both of those services are not physical products. Could we buy music with gil? It gets a bit tricky, and while I do enjoy art I am not sure why it should get special treatment. 

 

... What? Coding or tutoring has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, roleplay, or the characters created in junction with the two.

What does art have to do with FF? I could commission most artists to draw any character I want, even off game, and many of the artist on here would take gil to draw characters from Wildstar or WoW or even OC's, I do not recall an artist that said they only drew final fantasy characters.

 

Also some coding can be FF related, I am coding some RP applets/interactive things for my FC, which is definitely FF related. I could offer to code websites for FCs as well. When the FF API comes out I could offer to code plugins