Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?ex=1339732800&en=1676d344608cb590&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
44 comments
[Disclaimer: I work for a MMOG company that is not Blizzard.]
I'm with you, and still I can see how it makes business sense for Blizzard to discard your suggestions:
- WoW is doing well, gold farming and all. If Blizzard can contain the problem in tolerable levels by playing whack-a-mole with the most ostensible farmers, then it's not a huge deal for them.
- Actual plot and compelling narrative aren't what Blizzard brands are made of. The more personality a world has, the harder it gets to keep it appealing for everyone. Stereotypical/generic/mildly cartoonish themes are easier to mass market.
- I believe allowing scripting would make any MMO better (long story, and this is not a game design forum; email me if you want to discuss this further), but it would favor programming savvy players, discouraging the vast majority of your audience. This would also make problems like security or game balancing harder to deal with.
I believe you could make an interesting MMOG that has mass appeal, but unfortunately it's a harder design and execution problem than if you relax the 'interestingness' constraint.
I wouldn't want to come across as cynical, though. I'd rather make something I love even if it makes less money, and I can see how smaller studios can make a niche for themselves, and even get a shot at big time eventually, by committing to outstanding game design.
But WoW? They won't mess with their cash cow, and it makes full sense.
I'm with you, and still I can see how it makes business sense for Blizzard to discard your suggestions:
- WoW is doing well, gold farming and all. If Blizzard can contain the problem in tolerable levels by playing whack-a-mole with the most ostensible farmers, then it's not a huge deal for them.
- Actual plot and compelling narrative aren't what Blizzard brands are made of. The more personality a world has, the harder it gets to keep it appealing for everyone. Stereotypical/generic/mildly cartoonish themes are easier to mass market.
- I believe allowing scripting would make any MMO better (long story, and this is not a game design forum; email me if you want to discuss this further), but it would favor programming savvy players, discouraging the vast majority of your audience. This would also make problems like security or game balancing harder to deal with.
I believe you could make an interesting MMOG that has mass appeal, but unfortunately it's a harder design and execution problem than if you relax the 'interestingness' constraint.
I wouldn't want to come across as cynical, though. I'd rather make something I love even if it makes less money, and I can see how smaller studios can make a niche for themselves, and even get a shot at big time eventually, by committing to outstanding game design.
But WoW? They won't mess with their cash cow, and it makes full sense.
I don't understand why this post is getting so many points.
Any computer game can be automated if you can implement an AI that is good enough. Saying that "any game that can be automated deserves to me" seems kind of silly to me.
Calling WoW a glorified Skinner box seems like a similarly useless thing to say. At that level of lexical precision, news.yc is also a "glorified Skinner box," as is driving to work in the morning and going out for dinner at night. I don't really see the point of the analogy.
It's easy to automate "various game activities," but certainly not all game activities and not most of the ones that really matter. It would be more accurate to say that there are some specific activities that can be automated, but the expense of that versus the reliability of a human operator is not worth it. MMOG environments are too volatile, even without considering admins.
Warcraft actually allows a great deal of scripting. Coming from a game like Everquest, the level of automation Blizzard allows is mind-boggling.
Any computer game can be automated if you can implement an AI that is good enough. Saying that "any game that can be automated deserves to me" seems kind of silly to me.
Calling WoW a glorified Skinner box seems like a similarly useless thing to say. At that level of lexical precision, news.yc is also a "glorified Skinner box," as is driving to work in the morning and going out for dinner at night. I don't really see the point of the analogy.
It's easy to automate "various game activities," but certainly not all game activities and not most of the ones that really matter. It would be more accurate to say that there are some specific activities that can be automated, but the expense of that versus the reliability of a human operator is not worth it. MMOG environments are too volatile, even without considering admins.
Warcraft actually allows a great deal of scripting. Coming from a game like Everquest, the level of automation Blizzard allows is mind-boggling.
The point you are missing is that WoW becomes more enjoyable if its repetitive, mindless parts are automated. There would be no point to automating News.YC discussion or going out to dinner, but driving to work surely would be a candidate for automation for most people. The Skinner Box analogy is directly applicable to mindless, repetitive behavior like clicking to kill monsters over and over again, while thoughtful discussion does not fit into that category.
Similarly, you could create a robot to watch movies for you or go on dates for you, but there'd be no point, as you'd be missing out on the enjoyment. The statement about whether something can be automated refers not to mere physical possibility, but to whether it improves your subjective human experience. Thus you can't really automate watching movies or going out on dates because you can't have someone else live life for you. The benefit you gain is all in the experience of it, not the accomplishment of it.
The mindless activities these MMOGs subject you to are all of the accomplishment variety. Those shouldn't even exist, but if they do, they deserve to be automated. Then people enjoy the experience of being able to engage in the non-mindless activities.
The amount of scripting WoW allows is trivial compared to what you can actually do.
Similarly, you could create a robot to watch movies for you or go on dates for you, but there'd be no point, as you'd be missing out on the enjoyment. The statement about whether something can be automated refers not to mere physical possibility, but to whether it improves your subjective human experience. Thus you can't really automate watching movies or going out on dates because you can't have someone else live life for you. The benefit you gain is all in the experience of it, not the accomplishment of it.
The mindless activities these MMOGs subject you to are all of the accomplishment variety. Those shouldn't even exist, but if they do, they deserve to be automated. Then people enjoy the experience of being able to engage in the non-mindless activities.
The amount of scripting WoW allows is trivial compared to what you can actually do.
Scripting via programmable keyboards doesn't make WoW more fun except for a small minority of people. Most of the repetitive parts are not necessary to advance, and certainly not necessary to have fun.
You can't bring a shovel onto a soccer field. You can't drop kick a basketball during a game. Why shouldn't Blizzard prohibit tools and activities that are not deemed fair?
My only problem with the Warden is that they did it without telling users it's there and what it's doing.
My only problem with the Warden is that they did it without telling users it's there and what it's doing.
I wonder if some of the tedium in Gold Farming could be automated away with bots, or some kind of macro recorder?
Sure, automating the grind is easy; the problem is other humans noticing you're a bot. Turing Test anyone?
The surest way to make a game less automatable is to link progress to social factors. It would also make the life of everyone more interesting- including sweatshop workers. If someone is making my game more interesting and meaningful through human interaction, they're legitimately earning their dough in my book.
Of course, easier said than designed.
The surest way to make a game less automatable is to link progress to social factors. It would also make the life of everyone more interesting- including sweatshop workers. If someone is making my game more interesting and meaningful through human interaction, they're legitimately earning their dough in my book.
Of course, easier said than designed.
Sad. I work in the game industry, and it's sad seeing a work as nice as World of Warcraft perverted in that way. The designers never intended for such a thing to happen.
The future seems like it's going to be a balance between freedom to entertain and moral standards. With the way movies are going, games are in danger of becoming morally questionable too (think of a Saw game or a Hostel game where your main objective is to torture someone). Time is a valuable human resource, and a game like World of Warcraft wastes a lot of it. But it does give people satisfaction. So if it's morally wrong to waste a valuable resource, is the game morally wrong?
Maybe everyone has ways of perverting everything, and we shouldn't worry about it. But it must be painful to watch your creation destroy lives like that.
The future seems like it's going to be a balance between freedom to entertain and moral standards. With the way movies are going, games are in danger of becoming morally questionable too (think of a Saw game or a Hostel game where your main objective is to torture someone). Time is a valuable human resource, and a game like World of Warcraft wastes a lot of it. But it does give people satisfaction. So if it's morally wrong to waste a valuable resource, is the game morally wrong?
Maybe everyone has ways of perverting everything, and we shouldn't worry about it. But it must be painful to watch your creation destroy lives like that.
On that note, here's a hilarious link to a South Park episode which nicely illustrates your point.
http://video.glath.com/view/southpark.Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft
http://video.glath.com/view/southpark.Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft
I haven't finished reading the article yet, but I suspect this problem is a little blown out of proportion. The designers most definitely did plan for this, and the game is built to be resiliant to gold farming. The player economy is huge and important, but nevertheless a marginal aspect of the game. You can accomplish virtually anything without using it.
I suspect most of the millions of people who play Warcraft have fun and are not addicted to it.
I suspect most of the millions of people who play Warcraft have fun and are not addicted to it.
Uhh, excuse me, but the designers didn't expect sweatshops to pop up and waste asian people's lives farming gold. That's what's sad about it, the waste of time. I'm not talking about the people having fun, I'm talking about the people having to work for next to nothing doing something they hate and wasting their time on it.
I'm strongly fighting the urge to downmod your comments, because you seem to "mean well". But "meaning well" is the sort of attitude that leads otherwise intelligent people to turn away from the basic facts of the free marketplace.
People want "gold coins" or whatever.
So and so wants a job.
A middleman arranges for an exchange of "gold coins" for real money by setting up an apparatus of technology, labor, marketing, and sales to allow it. (THIS ISN'T EASY.)
Everyone is richer for it, with the possible exception of the people buying the "gold coins" who are high-class cheaters. But the guy who buys a Porsche is an extra-high-class cheater on the dating market, and I'm more worried about him any day of the week.
The important thing is: Everybody is free, and it's this freedom (and not the FSF's "freedom") that took Ling or Wang or whoever out of the rice field.
People want "gold coins" or whatever.
So and so wants a job.
A middleman arranges for an exchange of "gold coins" for real money by setting up an apparatus of technology, labor, marketing, and sales to allow it. (THIS ISN'T EASY.)
Everyone is richer for it, with the possible exception of the people buying the "gold coins" who are high-class cheaters. But the guy who buys a Porsche is an extra-high-class cheater on the dating market, and I'm more worried about him any day of the week.
The important thing is: Everybody is free, and it's this freedom (and not the FSF's "freedom") that took Ling or Wang or whoever out of the rice field.
Unskilled wage workers of all sorts have been wasting their days almost exactly in this manner since the industrial revolution. It's worth noting that when Karl Marx wrote "Estranged Labor" the working conditions were much worse.
Incidentally, pages 6 and 7 makes it sound as if working in a good RMT outfit is actually fun and challenging. Apart from the exaggerated description of the time and effort it takes to reach the "maximum number of experience points," it's a very accurate description of what it's like to play Warcraft. I'd certainly rather spend 12 hours a day as part of a 40 man team solving Warcraft raid encounters than spending 12 hours a day packing sneakers or something.
Incidentally, pages 6 and 7 makes it sound as if working in a good RMT outfit is actually fun and challenging. Apart from the exaggerated description of the time and effort it takes to reach the "maximum number of experience points," it's a very accurate description of what it's like to play Warcraft. I'd certainly rather spend 12 hours a day as part of a 40 man team solving Warcraft raid encounters than spending 12 hours a day packing sneakers or something.
The wage is comparable to other menial jobs in China. I personally would rather farm gold than work 12 hour days in a manufacturing plant. At least you can chain smoke and maybe even listen to music.
What's sad is the hundreds of millions of Chinese people that would kill to have a standard of living as high as a city-dwelling gold farmer.
What's sad is the hundreds of millions of Chinese people that would kill to have a standard of living as high as a city-dwelling gold farmer.
Well said. If there was better work than Gold Farming they would do it.
I'm with Milton Friedman in thinking that Sweatshops are a good thing, in that they provide a job for people who've got no place else to work. Remove the sweatshops and they starve.
I'm with Milton Friedman in thinking that Sweatshops are a good thing, in that they provide a job for people who've got no place else to work. Remove the sweatshops and they starve.
The real problem is that we have an economic system where people would starve without sweat shops. Capitalism has this nasty little problem of all the wealth getting concentrated in the hands of the few and globalization exacerbates the problem. Unfortunately, no one's figured out a better way of distributing wealth.
And the alternatives to capitalism have an even nastier problem: absolute instead of merely relative poverty.
Incidentally, the Chinese wouldn't starve without sweatshops. They'd be peasant farmers. The reason they work in sweatshops is the same reason workers chose to work in the "satanic mills" of England in 1800: being a peasant farmer is a very hard life.
Incidentally, the Chinese wouldn't starve without sweatshops. They'd be peasant farmers. The reason they work in sweatshops is the same reason workers chose to work in the "satanic mills" of England in 1800: being a peasant farmer is a very hard life.
I don't know about China, and not about the satanic mills, but as I have recently about the industrial revolution: back then actually it wasn't possible for everybody to be a farmer anymore. On the one hand, there was an enormous population explosion (which had also been encouraged by Feudalism, I think, the "owners" of the people had an interest in owning more people for a while). Then Feudalism was abolished, and nobody took care of the people anymore. hence the poverty and their willingness to do awful work. In that sense, I don't think Capitalism was really to blame. I suspect a similar thing could be going on in China.
Are you implying that the Industrial Revolution was caused by population pressure? That would be an amazing coincidence, wouldn't it, if jobs in factories appeared at just the moment it "wasn't possible to be a farmer anymore."
In fact the history of every country that industrializes is the same. People work on farms till jobs appear in factories, and then they move to the cities-- not because it isn't possible to work on farms anymore, but because it's such a grim life.
And incidentally, feudalism was over in England centuries before the Industrial Revolution got started in the late 18th century.
In fact the history of every country that industrializes is the same. People work on farms till jobs appear in factories, and then they move to the cities-- not because it isn't possible to work on farms anymore, but because it's such a grim life.
And incidentally, feudalism was over in England centuries before the Industrial Revolution got started in the late 18th century.
Exactly. The guy above got it back to front. The population explosion was because of the extra wealth from the industrial revolution lowering the death rate due to the end of famine. http://www.mises.org/books/conquest.pdf
Feudalism ended in England in the 16th century, hundreds of years before the industrial revolution http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0006447.html
Feudalism ended in England in the 16th century, hundreds of years before the industrial revolution http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0006447.html
Well then it wouldn't be a coincidence, would it? I mean if population explosion was caused by the industrial revolution. I didn't mean the industrial revolution was started by population explosion, only the squalor was (among other factors) caused by it.
Sorry I don't have the books with me right now (until next week), and I didn't learn them by heart. I seem to also remember that there were machines before the "revolution" - maybe it still was a change of political circumstances that permitted the revolution (free trade between countries, possibility of ownership giving incentives for entrepreneurs etc.). Certainly several factors worked in combination, it's not like the invention of a particular machine triggered it all.
I also seem to remember that China has the fewest farmland per person of all countries in the world. I don't think anybody can simply be a farmer. I know I couldn't just be a farmer in my country.
Sorry I don't have the books with me right now (until next week), and I didn't learn them by heart. I seem to also remember that there were machines before the "revolution" - maybe it still was a change of political circumstances that permitted the revolution (free trade between countries, possibility of ownership giving incentives for entrepreneurs etc.). Certainly several factors worked in combination, it's not like the invention of a particular machine triggered it all.
I also seem to remember that China has the fewest farmland per person of all countries in the world. I don't think anybody can simply be a farmer. I know I couldn't just be a farmer in my country.
Not to mention that wages in the mills were much much higher than in farming.
[deleted]
It's a myth that capitalism concentrates wealth into the hands of the few. In reality the opposite is the case: Capitalism is better at spreading the wealth among everyone than any other economic system. Look at the Gini coefficient, the freer the economy (the more capitalist) the less economic inequality there is:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/efw2006/efw2006es.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/2gd7ue
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/64/375px-Index2006_EFCapita.gif
Also the gap between rich and poor has been essentially static for the past 50 years, and shrinking since the 80s http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2005/12/images/walton3.gif
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=859
Yet more proof is in the Economic Freedom index. All rich countries have free economies, and all poor countries have un-free economies: http://www.heritage.org/index/countries.cfm for me that's the smoking gun that capitalism works.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060111094731/truckandbarter.com/tb_images/ef_in.gif
"Unfortunately, no one's figured out a better way of distributing wealth."
There are only 2 choices in economics: Capitalism, which is really just people trading freely (and seems to distribute the wealth the best) and communism/socialism, which doesn't allow anybody to trade (and has the worst distribution of wealth). The only other options are systems which are somewhere between, and evidence (from the Economic Freedom index) shows the freer the economy the better off everyone is.
Further China isn't particularly capitalist, it's still very heavily socialist: http://www.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?id=China (although that's changing year by year). So if people are starving in China it's not really capitalism's fault.
It's also a myth that capitalism causes starvation. In fact there were no famines in the 20th century in any capitalist countries. All the famines were related to Marxism (China, Russia, Ethopia, North Korea etc.)
(This has an indepth look at famines through the ages: http://www.mises.org/books/conquest.pdf)
http://tinyurl.com/2gd7ue
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/64/375px-Index2006_EFCapita.gif
Also the gap between rich and poor has been essentially static for the past 50 years, and shrinking since the 80s http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2005/12/images/walton3.gif
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=859
Yet more proof is in the Economic Freedom index. All rich countries have free economies, and all poor countries have un-free economies: http://www.heritage.org/index/countries.cfm for me that's the smoking gun that capitalism works.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060111094731/truckandbarter.com/tb_images/ef_in.gif
"Unfortunately, no one's figured out a better way of distributing wealth."
There are only 2 choices in economics: Capitalism, which is really just people trading freely (and seems to distribute the wealth the best) and communism/socialism, which doesn't allow anybody to trade (and has the worst distribution of wealth). The only other options are systems which are somewhere between, and evidence (from the Economic Freedom index) shows the freer the economy the better off everyone is.
Further China isn't particularly capitalist, it's still very heavily socialist: http://www.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?id=China (although that's changing year by year). So if people are starving in China it's not really capitalism's fault.
It's also a myth that capitalism causes starvation. In fact there were no famines in the 20th century in any capitalist countries. All the famines were related to Marxism (China, Russia, Ethopia, North Korea etc.)
(This has an indepth look at famines through the ages: http://www.mises.org/books/conquest.pdf)
[ I hesitate to comment, because this is all steering away from 'startups'... ]
I think the rebuttal to rms' comment that "Capitalism has this nasty little problem of all the wealth getting concentrated in the hands of the few" is very simply this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_sum_fallacy
While some kinds of wealth are limited, it's generally not a zero sum game.
I think the rebuttal to rms' comment that "Capitalism has this nasty little problem of all the wealth getting concentrated in the hands of the few" is very simply this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_sum_fallacy
While some kinds of wealth are limited, it's generally not a zero sum game.
Good call.
Startups are all about capitalism though aren't they. They are capitalism in action.
Startups are all about capitalism though aren't they. They are capitalism in action.
Yes, I'd kind of assumed that being pretty comfortable with capitalism was a given for those using this site, even though we may all have differing views on exactly how to best run an economy/country in terms of the details. (And that discussion is most certainly best left to some other site, or preferably, over a good bottle of Italian red wine:-)
I of course recognize that capitalism is all we have. It still pains me that politics in the USA are corrupted by corporations and that a billion people live in absolute poverty. Still, the average standard of living is higher now than it's ever been.
I just can't get past this feeling that there's something horribly wrong with our society... from pharmaceutical companies keeping AIDS medication locked away to an invasion of the Middle East to take their energy. This can all be explained through rational self-interest but it's pretty horrific to contemplate. Is there a better way? Will we ever achieve real Globalization?
Can and will global poverty be solved before humanity achieves a post-scarcity economy?
I just can't get past this feeling that there's something horribly wrong with our society... from pharmaceutical companies keeping AIDS medication locked away to an invasion of the Middle East to take their energy. This can all be explained through rational self-interest but it's pretty horrific to contemplate. Is there a better way? Will we ever achieve real Globalization?
Can and will global poverty be solved before humanity achieves a post-scarcity economy?
"a billion people live in absolute poverty"
They live in poverty because of a lack of capitalism, not because of capitalism. You might find this hard to believe but every poor country has a lack of capitalism. Check here: http://www.heritage.org/index/countries.cfm there's not a single contradiction.
If you really care about the poor I challenge you to take a few hours to read this PDF just to hear the other side of the argument: http://www.mises.org/books/conquest.pdf
Feel free to email me at lockster 4T gmail d0t com if you feel like a friendly debate ;)
They live in poverty because of a lack of capitalism, not because of capitalism. You might find this hard to believe but every poor country has a lack of capitalism. Check here: http://www.heritage.org/index/countries.cfm there's not a single contradiction.
If you really care about the poor I challenge you to take a few hours to read this PDF just to hear the other side of the argument: http://www.mises.org/books/conquest.pdf
Feel free to email me at lockster 4T gmail d0t com if you feel like a friendly debate ;)
Off-topic: is there any CSS that can be added to stop long words like URLs from causing a horizontal scrollbar to appear, i.e. to force the word to be broken in two?
You can have it chop off the end of the URL with "overflow-x: hidden" and an explicit width, but the only way to have it insert a linebreak is to count characters on the server and insert a break manually.
You can use a 'zero width space' (​)in some browsers to hint a breakable point, but it might affect C&P-ability.
Some other discussion of options here:
http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2005/03/cross-browser-invisible-word-break-in.html
Some other discussion of options here:
http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2005/03/cross-browser-invisible-word-break-in.html
Thanks, 200b is was I found too after reading the CSS 2 spec.
How is that different than millions of other McJobs out there.
They're getting paid to play video games.
They're getting paid to play video games.
They're getting paid to FARM in video games. That's very different from "play", which involves significantly more freedom, novelty, joy, and discovery.
Not to mention the sheer irony of spending their lives to increment a number in a remote computer representing virtual gold pieces. Not exactly efficient.
Not to mention the sheer irony of spending their lives to increment a number in a remote computer representing virtual gold pieces. Not exactly efficient.
Your comment on wasting their lives implies that there's something better they could be doing. If there was why would they waste their time Gold Farming? Clearly for the people who work at the Gold Farms it's the best paying thing they can find, else they would switch jobs.
I think there are worse things in the world. After all, they don't really harm anybody, or do they? In WoW you can't really harm other players, I think.
You can harm someone indirectly through the in-game economy.
Out-of-game virtual goods trading can kill meaning of progress in a game- whether there was much meaning to begin with is another debate.
This economic link between worlds breaks the "magic circle" that separates game from real life. This can hurt or kill the experience of a game, depending on how much it relies on suspension of disbelief. Then again, this also opens opportunities to explore, both in game/experience design and in business.
Out-of-game virtual goods trading can kill meaning of progress in a game- whether there was much meaning to begin with is another debate.
This economic link between worlds breaks the "magic circle" that separates game from real life. This can hurt or kill the experience of a game, depending on how much it relies on suspension of disbelief. Then again, this also opens opportunities to explore, both in game/experience design and in business.
The problem isn't that Chinese gold farmers are "cheating." Rather, their behavior undermines the efforts of Blizzard to exploit those so needy for social status that they'll spend eight hours a day clicking on pictures of digital rats in order to feel like a hero.
You only see this type of neuroticism where people are competing for zero-sum social status that is arbitrarily handed down from on high.
You would never see people paying Chinese to, say, write their blogs for them or do anything else where social status is derived from bottom-up respect for the intrinsic quality of one's work.
/Sold his UO account eight years ago for $620 and hasn't touched that stuff since
You only see this type of neuroticism where people are competing for zero-sum social status that is arbitrarily handed down from on high.
You would never see people paying Chinese to, say, write their blogs for them or do anything else where social status is derived from bottom-up respect for the intrinsic quality of one's work.
/Sold his UO account eight years ago for $620 and hasn't touched that stuff since
Warcraft is actually fun to play even when you discount the in-game rewards system. It stays that way for much longer than most of its predecessors. Everyone I know that bought gold online for Warcraft did it for the fun of it, not in order to increase social status. This is in marked contrast to Everquest, where the items you had were a huge part of social status within the game.
Warcraft is not an especially social game as far as MMOs go. You are relatively free to play it in your own little bubble of friends. Competition is largely via PvP, which is almost entirely avoidable. This is unlike UO, which forced PVP, and unlke Everquest which forced intense competition for in-game resources.
Warcraft is not an especially social game as far as MMOs go. You are relatively free to play it in your own little bubble of friends. Competition is largely via PvP, which is almost entirely avoidable. This is unlike UO, which forced PVP, and unlke Everquest which forced intense competition for in-game resources.
I like this post because it shows what it's like in a different part of the world. Reminds of Bill Gates's recent talks on global inequity.
I liked this quote: 'I have this idea in mind that regular players should understand that people do different things in the game, he said. They are playing. And we are making a living.'
I liked this quote: 'I have this idea in mind that regular players should understand that people do different things in the game, he said. They are playing. And we are making a living.'
Well irrespective of which way you see these businesses, it's inevitable that as more people sign up to virtual worlds the amount of money spent on trading virtual items is going to grow from the current "$1.8 Billion" market. www.sparter.com don't seem that worried!
Thanks for the link, that was a great article.
Instead of making a game that is interesting, they made a glorified Skinner box, because that's the proven formula to rake in the bucks via addiction. Like rats pressing a lever to get a pellet, the game substitutes repetitive, mindless activites for actual plot or compelling narrative.
Then they cracked down on bots. They install spyware on your machine called "Warden" and snoop what you're up to. They even nailed people using macros, programmable keyboards, and the commercial version of Wine (to play on Linux).
It's relatively easy to automate various game activities, but it's hard to make a bot that can convincingly fake being a human, especially if an admin starts asking questions or if they CAPTCHA you in some way.
Thus they try to make sure an actual human is sitting there doing the mindless activities all day long. This creates pressure to use the cheapest human labor possible to get these repetitive, mind-numbing tasks out of the way.
The sweatshop element could be eliminated by simply allowing scripting. Of course that wouldn't fix the game's inherent design flaws -- UO, EQ, and WoW all suffer(ed) from the same ones.