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Insights to MapleSEA mesos selling websites (Summary)

Author duststar | 02.01.2010 | Category MapleSEA

Summary

Out of 7 sites investigated, 3 sites were possibly owned and managed by Malaysians and 4 sites were possibly owned and managed by 1 unique Chinese. To be able to sells mesos, they will need certain means to get their supplies of mesos. Legit ways include buying cheap from players or become a trader. Intrusive or non-legit ways include spotting “mesos-rich” players and hack their accounts or, create their own mesos farming bots to farm mesos fast and easily through the use of in-game hacks or, duplicate items during game server roll-back through the use of packet editing hacks causing server to crash. There are just too many possibilities.

So what drives them to invest so much time and effort to run this “business”?

One possible explanation for Malaysians and Chinese’s determination in this black market is probably due to them profitting substantial amount from the difference in the real world currency exchange rate.
The rate of currency exchange between Singapore and China is (As of article published date): 1 Singapore dollar = 4.85942503 Chinese yuan
The rate of currency exchange between Singapore and Malaysia is (As of article published date): 1 Singapore dollar = 2.43718328 Malaysian ringgits

A standard package worth 1 billion mesos sold by them would get the Chinese $970 yuan, and the Malaysians $486 ringgits assuming the black market rate of 1 SGD to 10 million mesos.

For the Malaysians, their average GDP per capita is around $15,000 USD in year 2008. (Taken from CIA Factbook)  The rate of currency exchange between US and Malaysia is (As of article published date): 1 U.S. dollar = 3.42400088 Malaysian ringgits. That makes an average GDP per capita of $51,300 ringgits which translate to $4,275 ringgits per month. Now, imagine every billion mesos sold could pay them 3 days worth of living expenses.

For the Chinese, their average GDP per capita is around $8,000 USD in year 2008. (Taken from CIA Factbook)  The rate of currency exchange between US and China is (As of article published date): 1 U.S. dollar = 6.82701038 Chinese yuan. That makes an average GDP per capita of $54,560 yuan which translate to $4,546 yuan per month. Now, imagine every billion mesos sold could pay them 6 days worth of living expenses.

So how easy is it to get 1 billion mesos?

If an illbi star can be sold for 20 million mesos …
If a 30% cursed scroll for overall armor for INT can be sold for 30 million mesos …
If an Advanced DEX crystal can be sold for 170 million mesos …
If a Genesis Mastery Book 30 can be sold for 1 billion mesos …

It is real easy to get 1 billion mesos using legit or non-legit means.

So how can we contain this problem?

1. The developers (Nexon) need to facilitate easier means for players to sell in-game items for A-CASH, and to buy in-game items from A-CASH.
     – MTS is probably the reason for this, but it is still pretty beta and buggy as at point of writing.

2. The service provider (Asiasoft) need to exercise their IP (Intellectual Property) rights on behalf of the developers (Nexon) and pursue legal actions against those involved in illegal mesos sales.
     – When are they going to do this?

3. The players need to STOP buying mesos from the illegal sellers. When there is no demand, there will be no supply.

This post ends my “Insights to MapleSEA mesos selling websites” 4-part series. It takes a fair certain amount of time and effort to investigate into each and every of these sites. I will still try my best to cover new sites as and when they appear, or submitted by you.

.duststar