Mmorpg Money Making Madness?
Back to World of Warcraft (PC)
Posted by: EG Admin on October 01, 2007 4:17:24 PM (264 Reads)
Is this bad? It all really depends.
This piece is follow up of Peters “How to deal with the issue of selling in-game items for money” article of 2005. Back when World of Warcraft (WoW) was first coming out and thus the dawn of a new age of addicted games arose from the ashes of Everquest, Lineage and Diablo 2. Since then, everywhere you look there is bound to be an ad with the token Night Elf or Orc next to big words almost shouting at you: “CHEAP GOLD HERE. 10 CENTS A GOLD.” Because to these people, this is how they make their money. These are the people who play WoW for 12 hours a day, grinding for hours on end to make sure people can get said money, or to level their character so they don’t have to so as they need to stay indoors (And Gencon isn’t cheap.) Some people believe that this is not the proper way to enjoy the game that is WoW, or any other MMORPG for that matter, but who really knows what that is? In fact, I find it quite inventive to find a way to get money from something that was originally meant for entertainment.
And as you can see here, many of the people who do this are not regular guys in their basement, but actual paid workers in China, Romania and places all over the globe that have “sweatshops” where people work for 12-18 hour shifts just grinding away. But most of the time these people don’t have a choice whether they want to work there, as many of the places that gold-farming companies place their business are in rundown towns outside the large metropolitan areas. They know that jobs are scarce in those areas and that people will take whatever they can get, even if they only get paid less than minimum wages for it. Of course, they aren’t complaining. Adrian, the boss for one of these places says “Quite often at the end of the shift I have to tell people to go because they want to carry on playing. Sometimes they come in on their days off and play the game some more” This makes the bosses job’s ten times easier, as they don’t have to force their workers that hard because what they are doing seems like it isn’t even work at all. And they do this because they know that people are naturally impatient. They want to be powerful now, no matter what the cost.
EGN Notes: Eternal Gaming Network does not indorse, encourage, or condone the use of slave labor or any other human rights violations.
On the other side of the coin, there are those who buy the merchandise because, as I have mentioned earlier, they wish to follow a different path to their overarching goal. If that were reaching the highest level, getting the best equipment or being rich beyond your wildest dream, there are always 2 choices. One being the traditional way of actually playing the game, or buying these dreams from one of many websites advertised. Well, let me put down the pros and cons of doing the former.
The pros would be that you would be able to get straight into the game, being able to do elite missions made only for the most powerful gamers, and you would be able to be a part of that immediately. And most of the time, people only see this. As I have said before gamers are notorious for wanting things now, and fast. How would you explain the countless cheat websites that litter the internet? And how you would explain that people are actually able to make a decent living on selling people online royalties? It’s all based on basic human want.
The cons are numerous, the most obvious being the massive amounts of money you would pay for the services. Another would be that you wouldn’t get the experience, both in terms of pleasure and skills. Pleasure meaning that you wouldn’t have the feeling of getting to that goal and taking the short way out. Skills meaning that, even though you would have the gear, you still wouldn’t have the skills to take on the big quests and dungeons. So even if you bought 10000 gold, the best armor in the entire game and training to the maximum level, you would still be a level 1 character at heart and mind, and would be hard pressed to know how to correctly work your character to its full potential. I am not saying it is necessarily bad to buy your way through, but you miss out on a lot of things that you would if you stayed a “pure” path.
But I digress; the true meaning of this article is to check on what has happened since the last article focusing on this. In a way it is hard to find any changes in any other game than WoW as each MMO has a cycle on how these people are treated. The cycle is always the same and always around the same length. At first, people take it seriously: reporting people doing it and believed to be doing so. And, as the cycle goes, the meaningfulness for it goes down and down, until the people doing so are barely even recognizable beyond if they tell you. It becomes the norm in the game, and in my years of playing WoW, only in the beginning did people really care about this, and now it has become unnoticeable. It has, as I have said before, just a different path.
So, in conclusion, I would say that the online MMORPG has changed little since 2005, seeing as WoW doesn’t seem to be faltered by this. It seems very few MMORPGS are affected by the buying and selling of game content for money.
By Aleril
Keywords :
Ratings 0 %
Back to World of Warcraft (PC)
Posted by: EG Admin on October 01, 2007 4:17:24 PM (264 Reads)
ll video games begin with a goal. This goal differs from game to game, depending on one’s attitude while playing, and the game in which you are playing.
Whether destroying the Locust, defeating Ganon, or pushing back the Nazis (for the 100th time) there is always something to keep you going. This is true even in the world of MMORPGS in its almost unimaginable scale and endless possibilities, which is kept up by its ability to create a true living world. Of course, just like any other game, there are people who are tired of the mundane path they must follow to attain their goal, and therefore follow a different way to get there. This is true in MMORPGs with the almost constant stream of Websites advertising of buying their way through the games, and higher players who will boost their friend’s characters.Is this bad? It all really depends.
This piece is follow up of Peters “How to deal with the issue of selling in-game items for money” article of 2005. Back when World of Warcraft (WoW) was first coming out and thus the dawn of a new age of addicted games arose from the ashes of Everquest, Lineage and Diablo 2. Since then, everywhere you look there is bound to be an ad with the token Night Elf or Orc next to big words almost shouting at you: “CHEAP GOLD HERE. 10 CENTS A GOLD.” Because to these people, this is how they make their money. These are the people who play WoW for 12 hours a day, grinding for hours on end to make sure people can get said money, or to level their character so they don’t have to so as they need to stay indoors (And Gencon isn’t cheap.) Some people believe that this is not the proper way to enjoy the game that is WoW, or any other MMORPG for that matter, but who really knows what that is? In fact, I find it quite inventive to find a way to get money from something that was originally meant for entertainment.
And as you can see here, many of the people who do this are not regular guys in their basement, but actual paid workers in China, Romania and places all over the globe that have “sweatshops” where people work for 12-18 hour shifts just grinding away. But most of the time these people don’t have a choice whether they want to work there, as many of the places that gold-farming companies place their business are in rundown towns outside the large metropolitan areas. They know that jobs are scarce in those areas and that people will take whatever they can get, even if they only get paid less than minimum wages for it. Of course, they aren’t complaining. Adrian, the boss for one of these places says “Quite often at the end of the shift I have to tell people to go because they want to carry on playing. Sometimes they come in on their days off and play the game some more” This makes the bosses job’s ten times easier, as they don’t have to force their workers that hard because what they are doing seems like it isn’t even work at all. And they do this because they know that people are naturally impatient. They want to be powerful now, no matter what the cost.
EGN Notes: Eternal Gaming Network does not indorse, encourage, or condone the use of slave labor or any other human rights violations.
On the other side of the coin, there are those who buy the merchandise because, as I have mentioned earlier, they wish to follow a different path to their overarching goal. If that were reaching the highest level, getting the best equipment or being rich beyond your wildest dream, there are always 2 choices. One being the traditional way of actually playing the game, or buying these dreams from one of many websites advertised. Well, let me put down the pros and cons of doing the former.
The pros would be that you would be able to get straight into the game, being able to do elite missions made only for the most powerful gamers, and you would be able to be a part of that immediately. And most of the time, people only see this. As I have said before gamers are notorious for wanting things now, and fast. How would you explain the countless cheat websites that litter the internet? And how you would explain that people are actually able to make a decent living on selling people online royalties? It’s all based on basic human want.
The cons are numerous, the most obvious being the massive amounts of money you would pay for the services. Another would be that you wouldn’t get the experience, both in terms of pleasure and skills. Pleasure meaning that you wouldn’t have the feeling of getting to that goal and taking the short way out. Skills meaning that, even though you would have the gear, you still wouldn’t have the skills to take on the big quests and dungeons. So even if you bought 10000 gold, the best armor in the entire game and training to the maximum level, you would still be a level 1 character at heart and mind, and would be hard pressed to know how to correctly work your character to its full potential. I am not saying it is necessarily bad to buy your way through, but you miss out on a lot of things that you would if you stayed a “pure” path.
But I digress; the true meaning of this article is to check on what has happened since the last article focusing on this. In a way it is hard to find any changes in any other game than WoW as each MMO has a cycle on how these people are treated. The cycle is always the same and always around the same length. At first, people take it seriously: reporting people doing it and believed to be doing so. And, as the cycle goes, the meaningfulness for it goes down and down, until the people doing so are barely even recognizable beyond if they tell you. It becomes the norm in the game, and in my years of playing WoW, only in the beginning did people really care about this, and now it has become unnoticeable. It has, as I have said before, just a different path.
So, in conclusion, I would say that the online MMORPG has changed little since 2005, seeing as WoW doesn’t seem to be faltered by this. It seems very few MMORPGS are affected by the buying and selling of game content for money.
By Aleril
There are no comments attached to this item.
Post a new comment
Keywords :
Ratings 0 %
