Duping

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Duping refers to the practice of exploiting a bug in a video game to illegitimately create duplicates of unique items or currency in a persistent online game, such as an MMOG. Duping can vastly destabilize a virtual economy or even the gameplay itself, depending on the item duplicated and the rate at which duplication occurs. Modern persistent world games include automated detection of duping.^[1]

1 Effects
2 Response
3 Other notable cases
4 References

[edit] Effects

The effect of duping on the game's economy depends on whether an item or currency was being duplicated and to what degree the duping took place. Currency dupes cause inflation and conversely item dupes cause the item to lose value.

When currency is duplicated, it increases the overall amount of money in the virtual economy and increases prices in player-to-player transactions. In a 2005 case of currency duping in EverQuest II, the game's developers noticed an unexpected 20% rise in the total money found in the economy over a 24 hour period following the dissemination of the dupe.^[1]

Item dupes generally have the opposite effect, causing the price of the duped items to drop as the supply of that item increases. In RuneScape duping was used on rare items, such as party hats. The pink party hat, which used to be the most expensive one, ended up being the cheapest one.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to the effects on the game economy, the sudden influx of currency or items also affects players involved in real-money trading. In the EverQuest II case, the dupers attempted to sell the illegitimate currency on Station Exchange for real money and supposedly made over US$70,000 from online auctions.^[1]

[edit] Response

As with other exploits, a common response to duping is to ban the involved players. Banning players for duping can be controversial though depending on how the game developer determines a player to be "involved" in the dupe. In Star Wars Galaxies some players learned how to dupe the currency. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) banned players who possessed duped currency. It is alleged that people who were not directly involved in the exploit, but who accepted duped currency in legitimate trade were also banned. In reaction to what was perceived to be an unjust punishment, several players joined a mass demonstration at a central location in the game world. SOE responded to the disruption caused by the large gathering by teleporting all player characters involved away from the demonstration area. A popular online urban legend is that many player characters were teleported into space, essentially killing them.^[2] Although evidence as to whether or not this occurred cannot be substantiated, it has been voiced in many popular gaming avenues, such as Penny Arcade.^[3]

Another method to mitigate the effects of duping would be a rollback, in which game data is reset to an earlier data backup prior to the first known instance of duping. This can include all game data or be limited to specific items, characters, or other means determined to be involved in the duping. Significant rollbacks can be a highly unpopular decision with the players and is best done before much time has passed. Similarly, SOE was able to track and remove the duped currency in EverQuest II.^[1]

An immediate, although often temporary, step to prevent further issues from duping calls for aspects of the game to be disabled until the exploit can be addressed permanently. SOE stopped Station Exchange auctions to prevent the dupers from selling the illegitimate EverQuest II currency.^[1]

[edit] Other notable cases

Another example is Neopets' "Dupe Day". One day, the most expensive items were duplicated by a player, in which he sold them very cheaply, or/and donated them. No one knew what was happening at the time, as they bought items they could not have obtained. Hundreds of accounts were frozen (term used in Neopets when referring to "disabled") for just having one. This day is probably the most well-known day in Neopian history.^{[citation needed]}