In the superhero MMORPG DC Universe Online (DCUO), an exploit was discovered that significantly affected the game economy. To manage this, players now have to pay taxes.
What happened? An exploit caused trillions of counterfeit money to circulate in the superhero MMORPG DC Universe Online. This money has greatly influenced the economy in the game.
The exploit led to high price increases, and those who exploited it are now able to enrich themselves significantly.
Players must pay taxes
How are the developers reacting? A hotfix has already been deployed that removes the exploit. Additionally, measures have been initiated against the respective cheaters. However, trillions are still circulating that shouldn’t belong in the game at all. These now need to be removed somehow.
Other games, such as MU Legend perform a rollback in such cases and revert the game several weeks back. However, the developers of DC Universe Online did not want to do that. Instead, they have now introduced a tax aimed at removing most of this money.
Who has to pay the tax? Everyone. Anyone who has accumulated more than 500 million dollars in in-game currency must pay the tax. The more money you have, the higher the tax amount. However, the tax only needs to be paid once.
Why does everyone have to pay the tax? Due to the exploit, the money has distributed itself throughout the entire economy. According to the developers, essentially every player received a part of the money that is illegal in the game. Therefore, everyone has to give something back – unless they have no more than 500 million dollars.
Does this measure solve all the economic problems? No. The team explicitly states that this is only meant to largely remove the money from the game that came in through the exploit. There are still some other economic issues in DCUO that are not resolved by this.
Unfair but necessary
How are players reacting to this? There are certainly voices that find it unfair. Not everyone knowingly participated in the exploit, yet now everyone is being punished. Nevertheless, part of the community understands that this step is necessary to bring the economy back into balance and to move forward.
Myandria summarizes it well in the official forum: “It’s easy to be frustrated. But we need patience now, and the players must understand that the developers need time to move forward with their plans.”
Has it really made a difference? Players report that prices in the game are rising again. It seems there are still more problems. But at least the trillions that illegally entered the game through the exploit are now removed. However, there is still more for the developers to do.
What do you think, is DCUO’s tax solution a good way to fix exploits in the economy of an MMORPG?
