Outsourcing is an interesting subject these days, typically referring to the the practice of American corporations using labor provided in other countries to perform some of their operations; exploiting the differences between the American economy and third-world nations to get services cheap. I don't want to get deep into this issue and whether the trade off of cost versus quality is beneficial to the end consumer and if it is really amounting to the loss of US jobs, because frankly that is not what this blog is about (if you want some commentary on outsourcing from a good non-validated source, I recommend wikipedia). What I thought was interesting was a Washington Post article I spied a couple of weeks ago (I started this entry when the article was fresh, but Mike P constantly cut into my blog writing time to play Halo2 on Live). It deals with the convergence of outsourcing with our entertainment culture.
The article talks about how you can now pay a third party company called IGE in Hong Kong to boost up your character in World of Warcraft. I must admit I'm commenting on this issue without direct experience playing this game. I played my share of the early Final Fantasy games, but there were more definite goals to achieve and this was before the subscription based model for all-human players in a universe came to fruition (in the so-called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game genre).
On one level this seems rather ridiculous: you're buying a game to entertain yourself, then you actually pay someone else to play the game for you because you're not having enough fun. It's sort of like buying a baseball glove and paying someone else to break it in. Although maybe the payoff of the level boosting in WoW is a more than a broken-in glove, you'd think you'd enjoy the game enough to actually play it.
This genre of games essentially creates a virtual life for users to progress through, and just like real life it's more fun being rich, powerful, and having the prestige of a high level as opposed to someone weak, poor, and who gets beat up a lot. In this case you can pay someone to move you up to the next caste fairly quickly, and then you can enjoy your increased status without having to go through the pain to achieve it. Essentially you can skip past high school, and move right into all-night parties in college.
The interesting thing is that the game-maker doesn't want you to use these services, and will actually kick you off if it notices something fishy going on. I guess since they make oodles of money on the subscription services, they don't want anyone short-cutting the process. Why would Blizzard want to you to be able to finish your journey faster, and thus perhaps cancel your subscription. If you could get to the high level 10x faster, then you may also get bored with the game 10x as fast.
6 comments:
Wow Mike..just Wow (see the pun? It's right there <--) That is very deep.. maybe you've been playing a little too much halo?
I suggest we all go out and get Xbox 360's and play the new command and conquer when it comes out. The only way to truely experience this issue from your point of view would be total immersion in a new strategy game
Jeremy's right. We do need XBox 360's. Of course, my motivation would be Halo 3.
I think your both right, a case study on Halo 3 on Xbox 360 would help me better understand this issue...Sarah's birthday is coming up in a couple months and I haven't decided what I'm getting her yet...hmmmm
Ooh, my birthday is coming up, too. As long as you're getting 360's for people, you may as well get me one, too. I'd be okay with that.
On a more relevant note, I can actually comment on the WoW bit, having played it myself (also for the record, I'm biased, but not addicted, I have not actually played since January - a deliberate decision to focus on schoolwork).
Currently I'm only commenting on one aspect of the issue: specifically why I think Blizzard bans people for paid leveling.
I'm pretty sure it's not that they're worried people will finish faster. Blizzard has worked hard to make sure you don't finish the game, ever. Even when you've reached the highest level (which they just raised a few months ago), there's still a lot of other stuff to do. They call it the "end-game" and it's constantly evolving. So, I don't think Blizzard is worried that people who reach the end faster will quit playing sooner. Eh, some yes, but the people paying to level aren't paying to "finish," they're paying to get started on the end-game sooner.
I think Blizzard's real concern is two-fold.
1 - Balance - WoW has an in-game economy that can be mucked up by paid leveling (and here I'm referring not just to money but also reputation, equipment, and abilities. If everyone has "The Sword of A Thousand Truths" it loses its worth. It leads to a sort of digital inflation.
2 - Perception of Fairness - Blizzard may or may feel the need to BE fair (I think they do, but how would I know?) but as a company dependent on the goodwill of its customers, they certainly need to be SEEN as fair. Whatever the company selling it claims, paid-leveling isn't seen by a majority in the gaming community as "paying someone to work on your garden" it's seen as "paying to skip the requirements" or perhaps more relevant "paying to get into the finals without winning your way through the playoffs."
Hmm, maybe I should just write my own column on this... Or maybe not, we'll see.
If Blizzard really wanted people to do this then they could just offer starting characters at level 60 for some amount of money. They could program them that way and not actually have to pay a 14 year old chinese boy 85 cents an hour to play WoW. And they could have offered this service since the beginning. So why don't they?
I aggree with most of Rob's reasons, but I'd also like to add one of my own. Believe it or not, it does require some skill to play WoW and that skill is developed through practice like anything else. In the higher levels you have to fight in teams to succeed in WoW and there is a certain assuption of skill. Imagine if you could pay someone to let you play for the Yankees and skip having to work your way through the farm leagues. Only problem is, you have a spot on the team but you still suck; your teammates are pissed; next thing you know your overrun by dragonkin and everyone is dead.
-Arktolithos (62 Druid, Suramar)
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