[MUD-Dev] [News] Virtual goods--Oh, the controversy!

[John Buehler]

Amanda Walker writes:
> On Apr 10, 2004, at 9:25 AM, John Buehler wrote:

>> I don't have time to train for a marathon.  So on race day, I
>> just pay for the ability to ride a bike through the race.  Then
>> my time goes up on the same scoreboard, without footnote, as the
>> people who actually trained and ran the grueling race.

> What scoreboard?  No MMO game I have played yet (and that's a lot
> of them) has had a victory condition at all.  If anything,
> everyone who treats it as a race ends up sitting around griping
> about the "lack of high level content."

The analogue is that being high on the scoreboard is a goal just as
achieving high levels and having the coolest equipment is a goal.
'Goal' meaning 'desirable result'.  The victory is in the mind of
the player.  This whole thing got started over the quandary of why
some players will gripe about others buying things that they 'worked
for'.  If the gripers are freely working for something, then they
are going to place value on the the end result, condition, status,
whatever you want to call it.  In my analogy, I used a scoreboard as
a simplistic 'desirable result'.

>> Because in their mind, the game is ABOUT investing time to work
>> through the level grind.

> I've never quite understood this, I'll admit.  It sounds too much
> like "job", and not enough like "game".

They likely see it as a job as well.  But that's a non sequitor
because they are, in fact, playing the game the way it was designed,
and they are, in fact, achieving some in-game goal through that
'work'.  It creates an ethic.  That may sound silly, but it's even
worse when somebody else comes along and buys what they worked for.

> it's one of the things I like about FPS and console games,
> actually: no levels, no grind, just skill.  It's probably one of
> the things I'm enjoying about Second Life, too: having real life
> CAD and programming skills gives me a distinct advantage when it
> comes to creating in-world content.  No level grinding necessary.

I'm no more of a fan of level grinds and treadmills than you are (I
loved the post about card games and puzzle games).  I'm presenting
an explanation of why players don't like it when other people buy
the things that they have accomplished.

JB
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