Monday, October 23, 2006

America blames China for capitalism

One of the best articles I've read since a while on real-money trade (RMT) and gold farming is unfortunately in German. Very balanced description of the issue, and all the related problems, from exploitation of Chinese young people to in-game inflation.

But the really remarkable part of that article is where the author notes how funny it is when American World of Warcraft players blame Chinese World of Warcraft players for ruining the game with capitalism. True, it has a certain irony to it. American capitalism conquered the world, and is still fighting hard against anything from communism to the welware state world wide. And now the ex-communists come and show us how to extend capitalism to the areas of our lives where we didn't have it yet. Makes you wonder if it wasn't better to have some areas where the common good beats pure capitalism.

As the author also remarks, RMT exists because of first world demand, not solely because of third world supply. I always liked the Penny Arcade take on RMT, where the Chinese guys wins with his argument of "$50 dollar u get epic mount". As long as people are rich enough and willing to spend $50 on an epic mount, but unwilling to farm the many hours it would take to do so in-game, the goldfarmers will continue to exist, Chinese or otherwise.

The damage that RMT does to the online worlds is that it destroys the illusion, the suspension of disbelief. Like a reverse Mastercard advertisement, riding through the Barrens with an epic mount might be priceless; but if you just count it as $15 for a month of WoW and $50 for the gold for the epic mount, the experience appears to be a lot more mundane. Even the player who farmed the gold for his epic mount himself starts thinking of it as a $50 vehicle, instead of a great achievement and status symbol. Even if deep inside we are aware that virtual goods aren't a great achievement in life, we would still prefer to think so and keep the illusion up.

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