A Gold Mine of Gold Miners

[HuoMaKe]

For those of us who play World of Warcraft, our life (or lack thereof) is filled with messages asking us if we want to buy X amount of gold for Y amount of dollars (US), or inquiring about renting a character, or buying one.
I, for one, am tired of it.
Blizzard puts this in their Terms of Use contract (found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html, pay close attention to section 8) but they simply don't seem to enforce it.
Now, if I were the exec at Blizzard, I would put an option in the "report a bug" section of the game that allows players to report such spammers. This, of course, presents the problem of automated character creation and subsequent deletion (after sending off a few hundred spam messages and emails).
The option of image verification (the sort used on countless websites to combat automatic account creation) is difficult to do on a client wherein lie all the game files, including (probably) all of the images that might be used for verification. However, since the game requires an Internet connection for character creation anyway, they could be loaded from an external source.
Not only that, they could ban the IP address of the offenders from connecting to their servers--harsh but necessary. If the other members of the household have a problem with it, they can certainly report the offender to Blizzard. Monetary compensation would follow.
But maybe the problem is the same anti-P2P organizations find: use is far too widespread to deal with it at any one point, and huge steps must be made in order to see progress, or the metaphorical fire will only spread in another direction.
So take some of the steps described above, Blizzard. Maybe it'll slow down, if not stop.

Anyone else is welcome and invited (in fact, I beg of you) to post their opinions, suggestions for Blizzard, and so forth. Blizzard employees are welcome to do the same....

[Shellar]

Now, if I were the exec at Blizzard, I would put an option in the "report a bug" section of the game that allows players to report such spammers.
You can report goldsellers using this option already (I prefer the 'verbal harassment' category).

[det]

SpamSentry FTW

ofc...automated GM replies FTL :(

[HuoMaKe]

You can report goldsellers using this option already (I prefer the 'verbal harassment' category).

Verbal harassment really doesn't have an explicit "Report spam" or "Report violation of contracts" option. I think that deterred me a few times already, and then there's the random character name thing. That screws it up.
Could someone post a link to the spam-blocking addon?

[Kinjal]

Yeh the spam-blocking addon would be nice to have, I haven't ventured long enough to find my own copy.

However - I'm sure blizzard will bother to getting it one day - until then they will lose the not-so-often pissed off subscriber.

Until they lose a huge amount of subscribers they wont bother to change anything.

[poopsmcgee]

i was a bit pleased with myself the other day when i was actually talking to some powerleveler guy who spammed me. after his spam i just quickly said "wow thats cool i want in on that." i was just waiting for my group to get together in ironforge so i had time to waste. i ended up wasting about 20 minutes of the guys time getting him to tell me all about thieir service and how cool it was. when i was ready to go i just said something along the line of "so you really want to know what i think of your company. i think you guys are the scum of the gaming world and i wished blizz would ban any account who even spammed someone once with such messages LOL HAHAHAHAHA." the guy just quickly logged off. but on my server, executus, i seem to get spams about 1 every 15 minutes if i am in a starting zone or major alliance city. not quite as often in other places. but it is very annoying. i didn't used to think it was a big deal, but the spams are so often these days it really is effecting my enjoyment of the game.

[mesonm]

Anyone else is welcome and invited (in fact, I beg of you) to post their opinions, suggestions for Blizzard, and so forth. Blizzard employees are welcome to do the same....

My opinion is that you need to play more....

The spam isn't quite that annoying...especially if you get a spam-blocker mod.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

SpamSentry is a godsend. with it, reporting spam is made simple, and elegant. Further, 2.1 is supposed to be bringing in some changes to significantly cut down the levels of spam received in the game, so you're left with a "please be patient like everyone else" sort of situation.

[HuoMaKe]

Mcgee: I get spams like every 5-10 minutes regardless of where I am (on Anetheron). There are people who make randomly named characters and then run a macro to message random people with advertisements.

It does not make me happy. And this is against a contract that BLIZZARD set forth, and should start to enforce rather than letting it go by because they aren't losing members. They are still losing money, because other people are making money off of their property. They could sue some of the bigger gold-sellers.

Edit: Here is the link to SpamSentry, hosted at WorldofWar.
http://ui.worldofwar.net/download.php?dbtable=maps&id=3451&g=1&title=SpamSentry%20-%20anti%20goldspam&flink=link

[mesonm]

Mcgee: I get spams like every 5-10 minutes regardless of where I am (on Anetheron). There are people who make randomly named characters and then run a macro to message random people with advertisements.

It does not make me happy. And this is against a contract that BLIZZARD set forth, and should start to enforce rather than letting it go by because they aren't losing members. They are still losing money, because other people are making money off of their property. They could sue some of the bigger gold-sellers.

Edit: Here is the link to SpamSentry, hosted at WorldofWar.
http://ui.worldofwar.net/download.php?dbtable=maps&id=3451&g=1&title=SpamSentry%20-%20anti%20goldspam&flink=link

The keys, for me, are highlighted....

Let Blizzard enforce it how they wish.

They are losing money? How so? They are making PILES of money...

If you don't like it, you can always transfer, get a spam blocker mod, or leave the game...

[JPaterson]

How does Blizzard lose money if someone chooses to buy gold from an outside "company"? Is that less money in Blizzard's bank because no one is using Blizzard's Buy Gold system, you know that thing they heavily, heavily advertise on their official site all the time?

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

How does Blizzard lose money if someone chooses to buy gold from an outside "company"? Is that less money in Blizzard's bank because no one is using Blizzard's Buy Gold system, you know that thing they heavily, heavily advertise on their official site all the time?

It is more that it is a violation of the contract that Blizzard set forth./ It makes Blizzard lose money, because in order to protect the community, they have to continually ban accounts that are used to sell gold/power-leveling, or that have used them. It doesn't necessarily make them lose money in the literal sense, more that it cuts into their profit margins, which cuts into Vivendi Universal's as well. They also have to hire more people on their staff to handle the gold-seller/power-leveler situation, which cuts deeper into the profit margins. So, there is a direct, negative impact from a business perspective, for the gold-sellers/power-levelers to continue to show up in WoW.

Blizzard *does* handle them. Heck, the 2.1 patch will cut down the number of spam ads through whispers considerably. But like every other spam-marketing scheme, the problem is that there's always a need to build a better mousetrap. It's never 100% flawless or foolproof. So, Blizzard people are spending an ever-increasing amount of their time figuring out how to fight this, rather than spending that time on other things for the game.

[JPaterson]

It is more that it is a violation of the contract that Blizzard set forth./ It makes Blizzard lose money, because in order to protect the community, they have to continually ban accounts that are used to sell gold/power-leveling, or that have used them. It doesn't necessarily make them lose money in the literal sense, more that it cuts into their profit margins, which cuts into Vivendi Universal's as well. They also have to hire more people on their staff to handle the gold-seller/power-leveler situation, which cuts deeper into the profit margins. So, there is a direct, negative impact from a business perspective, for the gold-sellers/power-levelers to continue to show up in WoW.

I can't see the loss, in either time or money, something that's going to hurt Blizzard too much in the long run. The company makes millions on World of Warcraft alone, not taking into account it's other properties, royalties (from the trade card game, for example), and it's other ventures. If they have to hire an additional three GM's at $30,000 a year (I don't know if that's what they actually get, just using a number), I doubt $100,000 is going to even put a dent into their final numbers.

If nothing else, and I obviously don't like these idiots who spam, gold-sellers may actually have a slim positive aspect on Blizzard. A guy who normally wouldn't want to take the time to level to 70, just wants to experience the end-game stuff (why, I don't know), might buy the game and pay a company to level him to 70. Assuming that character isn't caught and account banned, there's another $60 or so to Blizzard (WoW + BC), plus monthly fees.



But I am looking forward to that patch. As nice a job as SpamSentry and STFU do, I'll love not getting whispers from trial accounts without the use of a third-party addon. Now if only Blizzard could make it so trial accounts cannot buy/sell over trade channel, and we'd lose that spam too. Unless they are, which would be even better. I lost the link to the patch notes and have been too lazy to search.

[Tanitha]

Not only that, they could ban the IP address of the offenders from connecting to their servers--harsh but necessary. If the other members of the household have a problem with it, they can certainly report the offender to Blizzard.

What about universities? Smaller ISPs? Any organisation or collective that uses a NAT? What about dial-ups or other devices which obtain a new IP regularly?

No, IP bans sadly do not work in a case like this. I do the same as Shellar though, report verbal harassment. I usually get a polite, one shot message + the obligatory 2 mails from a GM saying thank you, they'll clear it up and so on. It takes a few minutes out of my play time, but at least it's helping a bit.

And you want to see a game overrun by gold sellers? Log into Guild Wars. Go to any of the known botting spots. It's insane. And they don't even have GMs.

[HuoMaKe]

That's the thing, isn't it? No one will leave it because it's not that big a problem for us. But, for example, would cable companies let just anyone advertise on their channels for free? No. Blizzard could, in fact, sell gold. But they don't because IT RUINS THE GAME FOR EVERYONE ELSE. Blizzard know that and makes the game much better through it (when it's a rule that is followed).
Blizzard's money isn't lost directly, but if someone is making money off of Blizzard's game, it should be...Blizzard, not anyone else.

What about universities? Smaller ISPs? Any organisation or collective that uses a NAT? What about dial-ups or other devices which obtain a new IP regularly?

No, IP bans sadly do not work in a case like this. I do the same as Shellar though, report verbal harassment. I usually get a polite, one shot message + the obligatory 2 mails from a GM saying thank you, they'll clear it up and so on. It takes a few minutes out of my play time, but at least it's helping a bit.

And you want to see a game overrun by gold sellers? Log into Guild Wars. Go to any of the known botting spots. It's insane. And they don't even have GMs.

Sorry, missed this, was replying to first page before.

For mass IP addresses, that can be the provider's problem. The University has to identify the violator, then Blizzard can take them to court, or ban them, or anything else. Account bans still work.

And I know that other games have similar clauses in their Terms of Use contracts, so there's no excuse there. SWG also has that clause, credits are still sold elsewhere.

Second Life is the only exception, and it works pretty well. Maybe, to control this, Blizzard should allow it? Maybe they SHOULD allow gold selling, but only on their website, and no spam allowed in-game, but the gold selling site is still there, endorsed by Blizzard (and they can take a cut of the money). I guess there might be some strange rules that would come out of that, but it might work.

[Gekothan]

Second Life is the only exception, and it works pretty well. Maybe, to control this, Blizzard should allow it? Maybe they SHOULD allow gold selling, but only on their website, and no spam allowed in-game, but the gold selling site is still there, endorsed by Blizzard (and they can take a cut of the money). I guess there might be some strange rules that would come out of that, but it might work.
That'd suck, all of the rich kids would just spend their parents money and become rich, while all of the real players who work for their gold would be poor in comparison. It'd be a bad move imho. SpamSentry does a suffecient job of blocking goldspam, and the new patch looks to eliminate a large portion of it.

[Tanitha]

For mass IP addresses, that can be the provider's problem. The University has to identify the violator, then Blizzard can take them to court, or ban them, or anything else. Account bans still work.

Account bans yes, IP bans no. Because suddenly you are punishing all the World of Warcraft players behind that IP for the transgression of one fool. While this example might be extreme, it's like putting an entire neighbourhood in jail because one person living there exceeded the speed limit. It's just not a fair and reasonable response to the problem.

As to selling gold - I'm still in two minds about that. On the one hand, I can see the trade off that some players have between time to play and real world money. While some are poor in one area, others are richer in another. Myself, for example, I don't have the time to play for full on raids and so on, but I do have the cash available to buy a nice suit of armour from Blizzard. Other players might have the time to raid, but not have the cash. So in my mind, were Blizzard to begin selling gold and effectively undercutting the gold sellers, I'd be reasonably happy with it.

That'd suck, all of the rich kids would just spend their parents money and become rich, while all of the real players who work for their gold would be poor in comparison. It'd be a bad move imho

As Gekothan said. Although, I really really really dislike the "rich kids spend their parents money". I might as well retort and say "worthless bums living in their mothers' basements who play World of Warcraft all day" ... and it would be just as fair and reasonable a stance. Point is, it eventually will become a trade off between time and money and different players will fall on different points in that scale.

However, there are some fairly good points made against that in this thread (http://forums.worldofwar.net/showthread.php?t=391261), which SLUGfly raised a few weeks ago.

[HuoMaKe]

As to Gekothan's comment, I am a "rich kid" but my parents don't let me use too much money online, so really there's a balance there, too.

Thanks to Tanitha for the great opinions....I think I agree with most of it. Except that IP bans might be unfair. I think that Blizzard has discretion to do whatever they want, as they are a private company, and do not have to comply with everyone's needs. They do, however, have the right to take people to court for violating a contract they signed. Something I'm waiting for, myself.

[Penny]

Services that take real life cash and turn it into virtual accomplishments create imbalance. I'd argue that alts/twinks stay run in the same circles and they don't affect others outside those circles anywhere near as much as gold farmers.

[Tanitha]

Services that take real life cash and turn it into virtual accomplishments create imbalance.

Arguably. Once could say that players with an excessive amount of free time create imbalance too, no? Sure it's through playing the game but if you want to create something perfectly balanced everyone should only be allowed a set number of hours per month to play :wink:

I'm not arguing entirely for it, I'd love it but can see that it would alienate too much of the player base. The aspects of it that intrigues me is (a) the marvelous way it works in other games like Second Life, Project Entropia and a slew of far Eastern MMOs and (b) HuoMaKe's idea that it could take the gold sellers out of business and keep the money people are spending there in Blizzards' hands.

I've always loved reading your comments Penny, you've come across as a fairly mature, level headed individual and some of the snarky responses sometimes have left me giggling way too much. So I'm going to plumb that brain of yours for a bit. Ignoring that momentary distaste people feel immediately for the idea of Blizzard actually selling gold / items / whatever for real world cash, do you think there are possible restrictions that could be placed on something like this that would make it workable?

Remember, the goal is to either restrict or eliminate gold sellers without creating a grossly unfair advantage or imbalance within the game itself.

[HuoMaKe]

I think that people with more free time are at least using their own resources to accomplish something rather than paying someone else to (I think my grandparents might say something similar), and the number of players is high enough that there are people at every kind of level at any given time on any given server. There's simply no way it can suck the fun out to have different levels of players (or different wealth levels) as long as the players do the work themselves, which is the ultimate balancer. Commercializing the game does nothing for its players.

[Penny]

Ignoring that momentary distaste people feel immediately for the idea of Blizzard actually selling gold / items / whatever for real world cash, do you think there are possible restrictions that could be placed on something like this that would make it workable?Blizzard already does have items that are restricted to people who pay extra, they're TBC quest items, content, and the gold in them thar hills of Outland.

And that's the only workable way to do it. A small cost for large returns, egalitarian in design, and as long as the level cap exists and you can't use the portal 'till a certain level, it will do exactly what they want without negatively affecting people that haven't paid.

It's a sphere of influence thing, in my opinion. If someone has something better than you in the game that RL cash made available, it affects you and creates imbalance. Making a whole new continent, raising the level cap, providing items, recipes, craftables, etc, all tied to a level and an area only available via the cash upgrade - all that creates a separate sphere of influence from those that haven't paid...one that doesn't have much of a negative effect (except for the twink aspect, but that's inevitable in a game where multiple characters can exist on the same account/server).

[Valas Azuviir]

But I am looking forward to that patch. As nice a job as SpamSentry and STFU do, I'll love not getting whispers from trial accounts without the use of a third-party addon. Now if only Blizzard could make it so trial accounts cannot buy/sell over trade channel, and we'd lose that spam too. Unless they are, which would be even better. I lost the link to the patch notes and have been too lazy to search.

Now unless something was changed and as far as I can tell, this is not the case. You are not getting mail spam from those using trial accounts, nor are they active on the trade channels. Whispers? Possibly, up to a point, but even then there is a limit on the number of whispers you can perform anyway.

How so??


What restrictions apply to trial accounts?
The following restrictions are placed on all trial accounts:

* A level cap of 20.
* A maximum of 10 gold.
* Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
* Inability to trade via the auction house, mailbox, or player-to-player.
* In-game chat channels will be unavailable.
* A limit on the number of tells that can be sent.
* Realms with login queues will give priority to customers with retail accounts.

These restrictions are only in place during the trial period. Players who decide to upgrade their accounts will be able to continue adventuring with the same characters and take full advantage of all features included in the retail version of the game.


Source (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aInformation01964p1).

All in all, not that attractive to goldsellers, least from my perspective anyway.

[HuoMaKe]

No, you'd think that they would register the account but then have a million dynamically-created characters that advertise.

[Wiired]

SpamSentry FTW

ofc...automated GM replies FTL :(

Automated player messages FTL.

If you can take the lazy way out, then so can they.

[HuoMaKe]

Automated player messages FTL.

If you can take the lazy way out, then so can they.

Exactly the problem that needs fixing.

[Tanitha]

Exactly the problem that needs fixing.

There is a slight difference between an automated response to the player who reported issue and the GM dealing with the problem.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I can't see the loss, in either time or money, something that's going to hurt Blizzard too much in the long run. The company makes millions on World of Warcraft alone, not taking into account it's other properties, royalties (from the trade card game, for example), and it's other ventures. If they have to hire an additional three GM's at $30,000 a year (I don't know if that's what they actually get, just using a number), I doubt $100,000 is going to even put a dent into their final numbers.

If nothing else, and I obviously don't like these idiots who spam, gold-sellers may actually have a slim positive aspect on Blizzard. A guy who normally wouldn't want to take the time to level to 70, just wants to experience the end-game stuff (why, I don't know), might buy the game and pay a company to level him to 70. Assuming that character isn't caught and account banned, there's another $60 or so to Blizzard (WoW + BC), plus monthly fees.

I love this kind of argument. The one that assumes that it is spoken from a position of authority, when in ofact, it is complete speculation and conjecture. Just because Blizzard has a high amount of revenue coming in for WoW, that does not mean there's an equivalently-large amount of profit. I can stake my life on the fact that Vivendi Universal gets a pretty hefty percentage of those profits. And then, of course, there is the upkeep -- for as many servers as there are, for as many players as there are, that's a lot of money going in bandwidth and server space in colocation facilities around the world. There are the additional costs of upkeep, the wages for employees to keep things running, and a number of other things I'm not even necessarily thinking of right now, which all dip heavily in that revenue. By having ti increase the GM workforce, that's more money needed to go toward those salaries -- so if you can't see how that alone can impact the profit margins, I just don't know how else to put it to you.

But I am looking forward to that patch. As nice a job as SpamSentry and STFU do, I'll love not getting whispers from trial accounts without the use of a third-party addon. Now if only Blizzard could make it so trial accounts cannot buy/sell over trade channel, and we'd lose that spam too. Unless they are, which would be even better. I lost the link to the patch notes and have been too lazy to search.

Agreed, I can't wait.

[Shadowpup]

I think the best solution would be to open new servers in which buying gold from Blizzard would be an option.

The gold sellers would gravitate to servers that this is not an option, so they could still make their money. But by the same token, the players that would buy gold in the first place would gravitate to the servers that Blizzard provided the gold buying option.

[HuoMaKe]

I think the best solution would be to open new servers in which buying gold from Blizzard would be an option.

The gold sellers would gravitate to servers that this is not an option, so they could still make their money. But by the same token, the players that would buy gold in the first place would gravitate to the servers that Blizzard provided the gold buying option.

I dunno if that would solve anything, because the players are still annoyed about it and the gold selling is still illegal...

[bwirum]

I love this kind of argument. The one that assumes that it is spoken from a position of authority, when in ofact, it is complete speculation and conjecture. Just because Blizzard has a high amount of revenue coming in for WoW, that does not mean there's an equivalently-large amount of profit. I can stake my life on the fact that Vivendi Universal gets a pretty hefty percentage of those profits.
However good your arguement is, I highly doubt that Vivendi (as a major shareholder or owner, not sure which) get a "hefty percentage" per se (sp?). When you own a company you wait till the end of the fiscal year, let the board take a look at he books, see how much is left in the bottom and decide how much to plow back into the company and how much to give out to the owners. It's not like Vivendi takes a percentage of he revenue.

[Daidoji Sagara]

You'de be surprised. It is highly common for shareholders to ask for a 10% yield on their investment.

The point being, shareholders don't give a damn wether a company lives or dies. they pay good buck on their share, and if they don't get enough back every year, they'll go looking for another share that DOES give back.

In fact, shareholders tend to be at the same time the biggest decision-makers (altough indirect) and the saddest bunch of [Innapropriate language] in a company.

[MadVlad]

^ It's exactly that sort of behavior that leads to short term thinking in business.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I think the best solution would be to open new servers in which buying gold from Blizzard would be an option.

The gold sellers would gravitate to servers that this is not an option, so they could still make their money. But by the same token, the players that would buy gold in the first place would gravitate to the servers that Blizzard provided the gold buying option.

No, that would not be the best solution. That would be capitulating to the gold sellers, and giving credence to their activities. It would end up with things being just as they are (only the new Blizzard-sanctioned gold-selling servers would be impacted by this), if not worse, now that the gold sellers could point to those servers and say "see, Blizzard does it too". The best solution is to continue to weed out these irritations, until it is made so complicated and difficult to continue conning people out of their money to be profitable. It's the same problem that e-mail servers have had for over a decade with spam.

However good your arguement is, I highly doubt that Vivendi (as a major shareholder or owner, not sure which) get a "hefty percentage" per se (sp?). When you own a company you wait till the end of the fiscal year, let the board take a look at he books, see how much is left in the bottom and decide how much to plow back into the company and how much to give out to the owners. It's not like Vivendi takes a percentage of he revenue.

If you look at Vivendi's trade values before and after WoW, you will see that the company was literally showing signs of going belly up. They were trying to sell off pieces of themselves to make ends meet, and things were in significant disarray. Heck, they even had tried to sell of Blizzard and their entire games department because they saw it was losing them significant money (I wonder how many other companies are kicking themselves for not buying up Blizzard when the price was good).

Then WoW gets launched, by some prodding from Vivendi to finally just get it out to the public and forcing Blizzard to do so before they were really "ready". Then WoW becomes an overnight phenomenal success that is studied now in business schools across the world to attempt to figure out why it has been such a success and how to attempt to duplicate the results. If you see Vivendi's stock value, it also skyrocketed. The company went from its dying last legs to completely revitalized. Why? Because what was sucking them dry (WoW's development costs) replenished them 100 fold or more.

vivendi Universal, if memory serves from past articles I read on a few sites, does take a certain percentage off the top from WoW's revenue. 10% may not seem like much, but when you think how much is coming in, that's a pretty good pile of money. Heck, even 5% is a very good sized pile of money. Then throw in all of the other costs just to keep WoW up and running -- which if you think that the server space/storage, power use, and bandwidth costs are trivial, I happen to have this red bridge out in San Fransisco that's up for sale if you are interested. Not to mention paying the salaries of the ever-increasing work force just to keep things afloat. Blizzard, as a company, has increased the number of people working there by droves. Many are their customer service people -- Community Representatives for the forum site, and GMs in-game. Those numbers keep increasing as the numbers of customers increase. The more people who play WoW, the more expensive it is to run WoW. The net profit margin Blizzard sees from that game is probably nowhere near the revenue for the game, due to the costs of just doing business.

[Penny]

You'de be surprised. It is highly common for shareholders to ask for a 10% yield on their investment.

The point being, shareholders don't give a damn wether a company lives or dies. they pay good buck on their share, and if they don't get enough back every year, they'll go looking for another share that DOES give back.

In fact, shareholders tend to be at the same time the biggest decision-makers (altough indirect) and the saddest bunch of [Innapropriate language] in a company.A 10% yield? There's lots of stocks that don't pay dividends at all - big name stocks. Heck, Microsoft only started paying dividends in 2003...Exxon Mobil offers a 1.6 percent forward annual dividend yield, 2.2% for the last 5 years ...you need to remember than a stock's yield is the dividend per share divided by its current price per share. It's not money in your pocket 'till it's money in your pocket...

Shareholders own the company. I really don't know that I'd characterize ANY shareholder as not giving a damn if their company lives or dies - after all, their return on their investment lives and dies in direct proportion.

[Valas Azuviir]

I think the best solution would be to open new servers in which buying gold from Blizzard would be an option.

The gold sellers would gravitate to servers that this is not an option, so they could still make their money. But by the same token, the players that would buy gold in the first place would gravitate to the servers that Blizzard provided the gold buying option.

That would open up another can of worms with the various tax departments across the world, with in-game gold having an actual real world monetary value. I don't think we want to go there.


Shareholders own the company. I really don't know that I'd characterize ANY shareholder as not giving a damn if their company lives or dies - after all, their return on their investment lives and dies in direct proportion.

Certain Hedge Funds do tend to act more like Gordon Gecko, than that they're actually interested in the companies themselves and their long term health. TakeTwo had a bunch of those guys acting up as of late iirc.