Wednesday, February 3, 2010

IRL money for in-game services

Lots of different people play WoW. And all of those people play WoW differently. Some PvP. Some RP. Some sit in Dalaran and troll trade chat all day ("know why they call it an xbox 360?"...grrrr). Some love making money. Some love raiding and anything else is painful for them. Others are totally content doing a little 5 man, a few dailies and getting some new gear every now and then. Which brings me to my point. I'm hearing a lot of people worrying about paying irl cash for in game services. Buying a pet for actual dollars. Buying a faction change. Buying a server change. Clearly Blizzard's intent is to make more money. No problem says I. If people want to pay for a little monk pet or to be human instead of troll...cool. Blizzard seems pretty clear that people who pay for additional items/services with irl money should not and will not have an advantage over players who don't. AH access on your iphone? I don't really play AH, but I can see how this could be seen as an advantage. However the truth is all players have access whenever they want. Whether you go off to work or school and ignore your auctions for 8 hours is entirely up to you. To be able to check AH remotely is certainly convenient, but everyone has the ability to monitor their auctions as frequently as they'd like. So it's not providing something to paying people that isn't available to non-paying people. The truth is it would be fine if people were given the option to purchase gear for irl money. Not everyone wants to level and gear up. That's not the fun part for them. If you buy full t10 do you have an advantage over me? Nope. I can get it. I just have to jump through the appropriate hoops. Now if you sold gear that was superior and only available through irl purchase, that would be different. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with Blizz offering things for irl money. It's really just cosmetic (pets) or convenience (iphone AH access) but not truely an advantage because we all have access. Each of us determines how we'd like to play and the amount of time we're going to put into it. If you can pay 200.00 bucks to have a level 80 geared toon waiting for you, no skin off my teeth. I could do that too. I can buy one or level one but the end result is the same. Thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. Okay I will give you access into my hypocritical and circular brain for a moment.

    1. Pay additional subscription fee for AH purchase/post access via mobile device: NONONOOMG THATS SOOOOO UNFAIR!!!

    2. Pay a few bucks for a new iPhone app that will do the same thing: OOOOOO iPhone app wheeeee

    I can't be saved.

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  2. ZOMG!!!! THE HORROR!!!!! Keep that door closed! What is wrong with you!!!! Thank goodness it was only a moment! ;)

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