Is there any illegality in this?

[Joxmb]

There seems to be something wrong I'm guessing legality of what I'm thinking about because it seems like the business is WAY too easy to do...

Firstly, per employee I could make $50-100 per day so even if I got just 10 employees that's $500-$1000 per day. I could also just hire a supervisor as there is no skills really needed so I wouldn't really be needed at all.. Seems too easy though. This would include bills/facilities really... I could pay employees decent wages here and no experience is needed. Training could take a few hours max. Seems like it's something that could be scaled to many employees easily. 20 employees could potentially mean making 700k+/year..

It involves selling virtual game currency for real life money and using botting programs. Is this illegal? Can a 17 year old even employ other people and pay their taxes and stuff?

Thanks for any info given.

 

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[JasonR]

How much do you plan on paying your employees? $100 per day per employee isn't much. Plus your overhead, fixed costs, marketing costs, etc. etc.

 

[Joxmb]

How much do you plan on paying your employees? $100 per day per employee isn't much. Plus your overhead, fixed costs, marketing costs, etc. etc.

Each employee would bring about 200-250 usd in so 100 usd for profit, a bit for facilities, 100 for them. Loads of people where I'm from (uk) would love for a chance at this type of job. Most people where I live make about $80 a day and that's in hard working factories. I could literally hire 18 year olds as they'd probably do the job better than older people as long as they aren't lazy. There would be no costs other than a room or two and a cubicles made in them(cheap where I am) and then just electricity and some online fees which would bring down the final profit for me down by about 10% so at the end I would still make $80 per employee per day. So $2400 per month (would get weekend workers) per employee profit.

 

[JEdwards]

what would these workers be doing, or more importantly how will they be selling it?

 

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[Joxmb]

what would these workers be doing, or more importantly how will they be selling it?

I'm selling it. All they got to do is make sure the bot programs are running correctly and if anything gets in the wrong spot on the game they just fix it real quick. Quite an easy job tbh especially if I could potentially afford a coder (would cost 100$/month maybe bit more for the best coders to program what I need) that would also make flawless programs.

 

[Determined2012]

I am worried about the barrier to ENTRY with this business...

If the entry is easy TMF says we should be wary... easy entry violates one of the CENTS Commandments.

 

[Joxmb]

I am worried about the barrier to ENTRY with this business...

If the entry is easy TMF says we should be wary... easy entry violates one of the CENTS Commandments.

Yeah it won't last forever, few years max. Profits have flat lined for a long time though so it won't really go anywhere quickly yet though.

 

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[Whole Paradigm]

Joxmb,

You'll need to be more specific here. If you're talking about using bots to "auto-mine" popular games for "gold" or game currency and then selling it to users for a fee, then no I don't believe it's illegal. Game farming is pretty popular and tons of hardcore gamers outsource this to people on places like Elance believe it or not. Now does it go against the TOS and/or agreements? Quite possibly so and you'll need to further investigate this.

Here is a good start:

Boring Game? Outsource It

All the best,

Cory

 

[Yussef]

Joxmb,

You'll need to be more specific here. If you're talking about using bots to "auto-mine" popular games for "gold" or game currency and then selling it to users for a fee, then no I don't believe it's illegal. Game farming is pretty popular and tons of hardcore gamers outsource this to people on places like Elance believe it or not. Now does it go against the TOS and/or agreements? Quite possibly so and you'll need to further investigate this.

Here is a good start:

Boring Game? Outsource It

All the best,

Cory

Hmmm. Interesting

 

[Giles]

There is a least one guy driving around in a lambo that is doing/did this, so there is money to be made :eusa_clap:

 

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[Joxmb]

Joxmb,

You'll need to be more specific here. If you're talking about using bots to "auto-mine" popular games for "gold" or game currency and then selling it to users for a fee, then no I don't believe it's illegal. Game farming is pretty popular and tons of hardcore gamers outsource this to people on places like Elance believe it or not. Now does it go against the TOS and/or agreements? Quite possibly so and you'll need to further investigate this.

Here is a good start:

Boring Game? Outsource It

All the best,

Cory

Yeah it's jsut employees watching over bots which get gold on the game and i sell gold to bulk buyers. They game owners are in my country though so it'd be easy to sue if they can? I will be using botting programs and they did sue a bot maker and if the bot maker makes anymore bots they have to pay 1 million $. Don't know if using them on a massive scale though is illegal

Basically employees watch over bots and fix the bot real quick if it went wrong.

 

[futhey]

I am assuming (it sounds like) all of the work they will be performing is in the game, not tied to any physical location?

You don't really have to employ people, legally. Sub-contract them to do it for you. It varies by jurisdiction, but usually if you're buying a service or end-product from someone (I.E. Purchasing virtual currency they mine using your method) and they can operate with little or no supervision, you can treat this as sub-contracting.

When I do this I have to report it on a 1099 form to keep it legal... The person receiving the goods/services (you) isn't really THAT responsible for what the sub-contracted person is doing (As long as you aren't breaking local rules on what constitutes a valid sub-contracting relationship. Some people are actually employing people and have a relationship that more closely resembles an employee-employer relationship, but wish to dodge taxes / legal issues.)

Aren't there already companies that outsource this kind of work to Chinese people to mine for virtual currencies and play video games? I swear, there used to be...

 

[Mr.Dietsch]

Sounds like hes talking about runescape... to bad this has been done before time and time again. Someone made a million dollars off that game selling money on ebay. Anyways most games have bot defense setup because essentially bots will ruin the game in the long run. Still everything is beatable if you are smart enough so I say if you got the know how, do it.

 

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[West]

It's a grey area for sure. I know about a couple of guys who make millions of dollars selling Diablo 2 items that they obtain by "reverse engineering" of the game. I wrote about their story here. Their company is completely legitimate. They are a registered California corporation, pay taxes, and have a full customer support staff. However, one of the guys recently revealed that his company has been sued multiple times by the game publisher (among others) but has successfully fended them off. If you are thinking of doing this at the scale you are describing be prepared for lawsuits and be sure to factor them into your costs.

 

[The-J]

They do this in China, and they do it better than you. They do it cheaper than you and longer than you. They are also better at escaping getting banned. Those gold farms that advertise selling in-game money and items? Chinese companies that make millions off of near-slave labor; just a bunch of people in a giant room monitoring their macros and bots.

Don't get into this market. It's saturated.

 

[futhey]

If you've found a niche and a market that's underserved, milk it while it lasts. Learn from it. If your model is working now don't give up on it, at least see where it leads you. Don't go into it with the mindset "Oh, I want to make millions off bot x or script y", just see where it leads you...

 

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[Joxmb]

Sounds like hes talking about runescape... to bad this has been done before time and time again. Someone made a million dollars off that game selling money on ebay. Anyways most games have bot defense setup because essentially bots will ruin the game in the long run. Still everything is beatable if you are smart enough so I say if you got the know how, do it.

I've botted over 50,000 bot hours 24/7 and never got a ban. Chinese get loads of banned to guy that said they do it better. The only reason they can do it better is because of super cheap labour :/ but other than that, they don't really. I'll probably just do this solo and just make an extra buck because I can make about 20-50$/hour doing it alone and hopefully think of something more legit to do lol.

 

[Dezzamondo]

Good luck if you do pursue this one Joxmb. How about expanding the botting to multiple games instead of just the one? Eve Online & its upcoming DUST 514 could be something to investigate BEFORE someone else does for example!

Not that I condone this sort of thing, but getting in first can certainly help you make some money! Good luck!