Farming for Imaginary Loot

Archived from groups: alt.games.coh (More info?)

Link is off www.FARK.com

From sweatshops to stateside corporations, some people are profiting off of
MMO gold.
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?page [...] Id=3141815

(Some pharm bot) Interesting Life of a Chinese MMORPG gold farmer (122)
(FARK COMMENTS on the article)
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/co [...] nk=1562438


My personal question is... "Should the game companies themselves cut out
the 'farmers' and sell XP, content, and/or in-game-currency for real world
credit card rates directly?"

Granted, this would deflate the playerbase like a bastard sword to the
entrails, however, this would also destroy the 4th wall of disbelief as
certainly as it would the 'farming' market. The next question is, "Which
BIG PLAYERBASE game company would be ballsy enough to gamble gutting their
playerbase with a conceptual upending of [ time + fun memories = costs
money ] to [ real money instantly paid = no time + instant in-game items ]
?" And once real world money can directly influence the equality of skills
in-game whom would be left playing?

My best bet would be SONY would pull a "Pay to Power" gambit on one of
their titles.

I am aware of a number of "Pay to Power" games already in existence by
the way...
http://www.knight-online.com.my/ad [...] system.asp

And the desire to cash in on the online cash-cow market (a nice listing
of what is in development and already out there).
http://masters-shawn.tripod.com/gamelinks/mmorpg.htm


--- QUOTHING SOME WISDOM ---
======================
2005-07-06 10:06:04 PM bbcrackmonkey

Actually buying money/equipment in these games is economically worth it if
you calculate the man-hours required for you to earn that kind of
money/equipment. If you put in a ton of man-hours per day to earn what you
could just buy for $20, then it seems like an economically viable thing to
do.

Of course, that's completely discounting the fact that this is a game and
that earning the money and fighting the good/evil fight is the entire point
of it. It's all about having fun, and if you are pawning your wedding rings
for virtual money, then it's not fun, it's an addiction.

=======================

2005-07-06 10:37:14 PM pseudo_human

Click for relevant comic strip.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y [...] orldofWoW.
jpg

=======================

2005-07-06 10:42:47 PM YodaTuna

Nuke Laloosh

Despite the detractors in this thread, MMOs have high points, unfortunately
they have low points. Some one already mention your Epic Mount in World of
Warcraft.

The way MMO companies make money is by keeping you playing as long as
possible so the game is designed to be a time sink. These epic mounts cost
1000 gold and that takes quite awhile to accumulate. These sites sell 1000
gold for 100 dollars. If you're intent on getting your epic mount(which you
don't NEED, but it's really nice to have so you can keep up with your
friends) it's going to take you a whole lot of time to get all that gold
together, and thats not taking into account other things you have to buy at
that time. So time-money wise, buying in game currency can be more cost
effective regardless of whether it has real world value. Which incidently it
does, because you could later sell your character.

=======================

2005-07-06 11:15:04 PM Cervator

Dr.Zoidberg - Have you ever rented a movie? That's also a purely digital
form of entertainment (maybe unless you use the DVD to play frisbee with).
This is just a different flavor of the same thing. In the MMORPG, you pay to
skip undesired content. Would you pay an extra quarter for the movie to just
materialize in your living room instead of going a few miles out of your way
to the nearest Blockbuster?

Not everybody would, of course, some enjoy driving, others want to save
every penny they can. But some dislike driving, or don't mind paying a
little to skip undesired content, be it "grinding" in an MMORPG, or driving
to the store.

A potential solution to this is for game developers to get off their
collective asses and make every facet of MMORPGs fun, instead of building
sinks to keep you hooked longer. But who knows when that'll happen..

=======================

2005-07-06 11:55:14 PM Have You Met Miss Jones

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2005/20050216l.jpg

=======================

2005-07-07 01:00:14 AM not_another_one [TotalFark]

Well, I'll admit to paying for WoW gold. For 25 bucks I got 200 gold. For me
it was absolutely worth it. As a perpetual lowbie (my highest level is 33)
200 gold is enough to finance any thing I'll need for months. Yeah I know it
is lame, but time is money. It would have taken me months to save up 200
gold.

=======================

2005-07-07 02:45:17 AM Red Space Dragon

I don't really get the point of buying gold for an Epic Mount.

The epic mount is pretty much the last thing you can get in that game. You
get it, and it's a status symbol - an accomplishment... But if you just
bought the gold, that's like using a cheat code to skip to the end of the
game.

Why even bother to play (or PAY to play) if you're skipping to the end?
Where's the fun in that? And sure - grinding that gold isn't really fun -
but, heck, you got that epic mount, and... now you really have NOTHING to
shoot for. You can't really make any more progress in the game.

You can hang out with friends, but now you're just more or less loitering.

Maybe a few Molten Core runs (you can tell someone played too much WoW if
they think MC means "A large cave filled with two-headed Lava dogs" ) - maybe
some shiny new gear - but, really, why bother playing if you're just going
to buy the stuff left to aim towards at level 60?

You don't need an epic mount - not even to keep up with your friends (very
very few people have epic mounts - there's little chance more than one of
your friends will have it - and even then, the world isn't SO huge that no
one would be willing to wait for you on your normal mount).

I guess I just don't see a point - but then, I never saw the point of using
a cheatcode or an exploit to pass one-player games, either...

========================

2005-07-07 11:49:49 AM Yellowbeard

http://progressquest.com/

Archived from groups: alt.games.coh (More info?)

"Matt Frisch" <matuse73@yahoo.spam.me.not.com> wrote in message
news:u2ltc1d0drd55rcp5stid1aj32ci9gt6tm@4ax.com...
| On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 20:47:37 -0400, "George Johnson" <matrix29@voyager.net>
| scribed into the ether:
|
| > Link is off www.FARK.com
| >
| >From sweatshops to stateside corporations, some people are profiting off
of
| >MMO gold.
| >http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3141815
| >
| >(Some pharm bot) Interesting Life of a Chinese MMORPG gold farmer
(122)
| >(FARK COMMENTS on the article)
| >http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1562438
| >
| >
| > My personal question is... "Should the game companies themselves cut
out
| >the 'farmers' and sell XP, content, and/or in-game-currency for real
world
| >credit card rates directly?"
| >
| > Granted, this would deflate the playerbase like a bastard sword to
the
| >entrails, however, this would also destroy the 4th wall of disbelief as
| >certainly as it would the 'farming' market. The next question is, "Which
| >BIG PLAYERBASE game company would be ballsy enough to gamble gutting
their
| >playerbase with a conceptual upending of [ time + fun memories = costs
| >money ] to [ real money instantly paid = no time + instant in-game
items ]
| >?" And once real world money can directly influence the equality of
skills
| >in-game whom would be left playing?
| >
| > My best bet would be SONY would pull a "Pay to Power" gambit on one
of
| >their titles.
|
| You are a bit behind the times.
|
| http://stationexchange.station.sony.com/
|
| They first announced that like 4 months ago.


Okay. This is a surprise. Thank you for the weblink.

I figured this would happen sometime, but was figuring it would only hit
a game on the downswing in subscription (where paying to jump to the end
would allow players to beat the game being wiped off the servers and see
endgame content instantly).