[Updated] Lost Ark RMT breaking game economy & players are frustrated, devs actively working on a fix

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on June 14, 2022) follows:

In the MMO segment, Lost Ark is currently one of the most popular games.

Lost Ark offers a huge world full of things to do and which you can access for free. The game was originally released in South Korea, and was later brought to the global market by Amazon Games.

Unfortunately, the Lost Ark servers are experiencing some severe issues that threaten the stability and viability of the game. For instance, they are currently full of bots that overload their capacity.

But, there is another problem related to the practice of the RMT. Apparently, the Lost Ark RMT is breaking the game economy for all players (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

‘RMT’ is the practice of trading in-game currency and items for real money. Players dedicated to RMT are there solely for the money and not for the game, so they use all kinds of hacks or exploits to get as much loot as possible (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

RMT practice is currently illegal in Lost Ark. While RMT is present in other similar games as well, it seems that the lack of really harsh penalties causes Lost Ark to be especially affected (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

According to multiple reports, RMT practice is breaking the economy of the game. Due to the large amount of in-game currency being farmed by RMT practitioners, item prices are increasing for everyone.

Are AGS/SG in collab with rmt?

Steam charts indicate that around half the player base is bots and they aren’t going anywhere. We’re being told they’re working on it. However, I can’t help but feel that there’s something underhanded going on with this game’s management in relation to the botting issue.
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Since the hole bots and RMT are a hot topic, I’ll just like to address something that I don’t see addressed that much:

In most of the RMT post I see that the economie is “in shambles”, and the reality is that the prices of lets say relic accessories being over priced is not the result of people who buy RMT gold, no it’s the result of people who wants to capitalize on the fact that people buy RMT gold.
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Some players believe that the rise of RMT in Lost Ark is because the cost of practice is too low compared to the economic benefit. Basically, the sanctions are not severe enough and many are seeing it profitable to do RTM.

Thus leading to the RMT issue, I’ve had probable 10% of my friends/guildmates RMT during the beginning stages of the game with some getting the hilarious 3 day ban. Currently the rate of my friends/guildmates has grown to about 50% RMTing now as I’ve learned the RMT cost is now half of what it was as $100 royal crytal value gives you nothing compared to the RMT value.
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The SmileGate team is aware of the issue and is actively working on a fix for both the RTM and the bots issue (which we covered in another story recently). But, there are no details yet on an ETA for a definitive fix.

@NorgannonHH Thank you for the feedback. The Bot and RMT situation is something the team is actively working on. I get the frustration you feel and why you want to make cheaters feel fear, but no kingdom ruled through fear is a kingdom worth ruling.

Editing for clarity: Cheating is wrong. Cheats should be punished. Cheaters are punished.
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We will update this story as events unfold.

01:07 pm (IST): In order to reduce the RMT practices, Lost Ark has announced that they will be rolling out a massive wave of bot bans over course of next week. You can check the full statement here.

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