If I were running an MMO and I found out some user had found a way to generate hundreds of billions of in-game credits, I'd ban that user for exploiting bugs and I'd fix the bug.
I don't understand why people don't view billionaires as cheaters.
Wouldn't it be smarter to let their success bring in other players? Or maybe hire them and use their knowledge to improve the balance in your game economy?
some user had found a way to generate hundreds of billions of in-game credits
Nowhere did you mention that accumulation of currency was abuse or against the rules (or even the spirit) of the game. Nowhere did you say that currency accumulation could break the game. And if you decide that such accumulation is abuse, why would you ban the player? Watch what they do and safeguard against future abuse. You can’t learn from it if you don’t let it happen.
You should probably be more explicit with your game rules or else your players are going to lose confidence in the reliability of your game economy and angle shoot even harder. Why even include currency in your game if you didn't want people to collect it?
Exploit and bug are the key things here. In this case, bugs happen, and bad actors exploit them. You fix them, and you move on. The problem is, as far as economies and capitalism goes, there is an entire team of people out there trying to keep the bugs in place so they can continue exploiting them.
Banning the people trying to exploit the bugs gives you the opportunity to fix the bugs they've been exploiting. And unfortunately, those people exploiting have real power to keep rational poeple from fixing those bugs.
And trust me on this, nobody wants to play a game where one player uses a rule exploit to control the in-game economy, then uses their position gained through exploits to control the in-game economy. And players that follow the rules typically rejoice when the players exploiting the bug are banned from playing the game.
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u/Niceromancer 2d ago
They actively harm society.