Player Studio Houses Coming! Big Decorating Sale Too!

I'm not belittling anything. You're being overly sensitive. There is no implied tone in my comments. I'm trying to help simplify the process and help others understand how it works and how to best approach the idea of flipping a house.

I am just wondering about the real money that you get for the Player Studio items. I do not like the idea of giving SOE any more information than they already have (name, address, credit card,... etc...). I think that selling homes that players make should stay all in game. Sell your home for plat instead of dollars. You cut out the whole w9 and taxes issues, then you could buy krono with the plat that you make and pay for your subscription, or whatever you want to buy. I do not like the idea of people being able to buy your home in mass quantities. Each home should be one of a kind. I also dont like the idea of someone buying your house and passing it off as their own design, I think we (as decorators) should be able to put a tag on the house saying that this was designed by "so and so". That way if someone sees your house and wants something done for their own house.

Already answered .. You will be able to "unlist" the house until the house's 1st sale. Once 1 person buys the house, it will be locked in.... So worst case is that you only sell the house once and unless the SC prices on these are insane, you likely lose a little money.

I asked that a few pages back as well .. I don't think they thought of that since there has been no reply.

I know hehe. I know I will be able to take it down. I am just speaking hypothetically if I don't make back what I invested in it, but that's pretty much how any business venture works though. Was hoping not to start losing money and not breaking even. If the risk is too great I am going to strictly stick with the city houses only. That's the only no loss option for me.

Player studio items already have a creator's tagline on them. I'm sure these houses will be no different. If you go to the PlayerStudio section of the marketplace, you can see for yourself. You even get to decide how you want your name to be displayed.

SOE getting your tax info is no more dangerous than your employer having that same info. It's not an issue at all. It's a standard procedure. There's nothing to worry about. That kind of info will be kept safe and separate from your account. I know this because I've done this kind of thing before. Your SOE account will not have tax info added to it.They will simply keep their own reference of who is who, so the right people get paid for their work. You're not even dealing with the developers in this matter. You're dealing with the Human Resources department.

Yes, I do and was hoping this was something we would be able to do in Player Studio...

Are the city bought houses going to become rent free once they are bought on the Marketplace?

Terrogaunt regarding items. how will functional items fall in this: drinalian whisper column, pickaxe of the underfoot, harvest depot, crafting stations, other prestige portals in the house and deity altars etc.

will they be allowed or denied and is there any intention of creating a public list of items which will not be accepted in PS housing submissions?

Can you sell multiple copies of a house? Could you make a spiffy house, put it up for sale, buy a (locked) version of it for yourself to keep and also have it still be available for others to buy?

So, let me make it straight. With this great new "possibility" for players, we can:

• Not participate if we're from the other universe known as "outside US"
• Buy decorated houses for $$$ instead of using the existing commissioning service in game, aka hiring a decorator to decorate or buying a layout.
• If the house we want to sell is prestige, we get the amazing right of buying the house for $$$, selling the house for a tad bit of it's value (aka SoE will grab most of the money on it, so if it's not 10 times the price, there's noway to get back ones funds) and then re-buy the house if we still want to use this prestige house.

To cut it short, it's something for the selected few, bringing back nothing cash-wise on the customer side, costing them tons of money but SoE did manage to find a way to sell the same house 3 times or more while benefiting from the days or weeks the decorator spent decorating.
Kudos, if I had needed another reason to leave on the 1rst of April, I would have find it there. I'm really failing to see anything interest in this new system. Well, I see a single one, we'll be able to sell Purr her house on Test, I hope it'll be giftable at least.

Why am I not surprised...

This was the feature I was looking forward to more than anything else in the game, but of course I happen to live in Europe, so I won't be allowed to participate. Sigh...

Page 6: "Move, use, access, hide/unhide, destroy. Just can't pick it up, but you can rearrange to your heart's content." - Terrogaunt

"Assuming we allow storage containers like the Tinkered Personal Harvest Depot to be sold with the house, it probably won't include any of the items inside (and will actually error out for the seller if it has items in it in the current implementation)." - Terrogaunt

Page 3: "In the current implementation, we are keeping the house on the Marketplace after it is sold for other players to also buy a copy. The system is expandable though, so we'll have to see where we take it beyond that based on player feedback and what sort of awesome stuff we have time to do." - Terrogaunt

Real world laws are what they are. It's not SOE's fault. It's our governments. You could strike a deal with an American, but keep in mind they still have to pay taxes on earnings.

Spend wisely and decorate wisely and you could turn a nice profit. If decorators get the same 40% cut from net sales, it won't be too hard to get money back.The trick is making something people want.

You're half-right about one thing. It's not something for everyone to participate in, just like any other creative / business venture. Your encouraged to try, but success and decent profits aren't guaranteed.

I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Use SC or plats instead of real cash and your whole point is negated.

SOE can't just pay people in gaming currency. That's like paying someone in Monopoly money.

Uhm, not really. Gaming currency can easily be converted to dollars and vice versa. Here's an example: 1 tradable krono = $17.99 = ca 500-700 platinum. Platinum allows you to buy equipment, resources, services etc in the game.

I've heard talk about a feature that allows us to sell finished decorated houses to other players for a good year now. I guess I was hoping that the trade currency would be platinum, not dollars. Oh well.

We find it acceptable to exchange currency and goods this way in-game, but we're dealing with the real world. The values of SC, plat and Krono are constantly in flux and vary from server to server. It comes down to the fact that none of that is officially acknowledged currency. SOE would get in trouble if they tried to compensate people in any other way. It shouldn't come as any surprise that they're dealing in cash for decorated houses after PlayerStudio was initially announced.

Just because you and I know that game currencies are fungible into terrestrial currencies doesn't mean that the world's taxing agencies know that. And please don't tell them. Things would get much much more screwed up than they are now.

And SoE would love to deal with non-US customers more easily. I guarantee you that every bit of frustration you have with this pales in comparison to how frustrated SoE is that they cant have more of your money because terrestrial nations haven't figured out how to play nice enough with each other.

For folks getting stressed out about the tax implications, I know this past year I was required to issue 1099s to any contractor earning more than $400.00.

From the IRS site: http://1.usa.gov/WVKFzR

I fail to understand how selling an in-game house, decorated with in-game stuff and using talent to move said stuff in-game in a neat way has anything to do with real world cash to begin with. So why should SoE make any kind of real money or pay players some real money for stuff that is totally unrelated to real world*?

*yes, I'm aware that houses can be prestige and that SC items can be in. I used SC stuff to drop my SC balance to 0 on commissions as a give away. It's just a choice on the decorator part.

There are quite a few companies out there offering partnerships and paying commission outside of the US, Amazon springs to mind. It is not exactly rocket science, nor does it have to be invented from scratch since other companies are capable of paying commission to people abroad. It is more likely the traditional complete lack of priority to customers outside of the US; they have just never been a priority to SOE.

There are countries in which you yourself are responsible for paying taxes when it's a secondary source of income; in those countries there is "nothing to figure out" for SOE apart from getting the bank info to make the money transfer.