Is Blizzard exploiting WoW players?
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 4th 2007 at 11:08AM
Is Blizzard doing something unethical by producing and selling World of Warcraft? Rather than just the ol' "MMO games are too addictive" angle, an article in Australia's The Age (seriously, it's always the Aussies) has a new twist: game companies like Blizzard are actually "exploiting" their own players by implementing a reward system that keeps people playing.In a sense, um... yeah. Game companies have gotten the art of rewarding down to a science-- every great videogame out there lately is really terrific at balancing the challenge of playing with a suitable reward, whether that be an amazing headshot (along with sound and graphics, usually), epic loot, or just a shiny bit of treasure. That's why we play these things.
So are you being exploited for your money when you hear about Zul'Aman and decide to keep paying monthly to stick around and pay it? No more than when the grocery stores exploit you for profit when you buy food, or when Starbucks exploits you for a tall when you want it. You decide when and where to spend your time and money, and if you'd rather not be "exploited" by Blizzard, you have the right to quit.
Obviously, I don't think what Blizzard's doing is unethical. They're doing their best to make an involving and addictive game. And the reason they're doing that is because that's exactly what we want. Fortunately, as Terra Nova points out, The Age has included a hot nelf pic, so their piece isn't a complete waste of time.
[ via Terra Nova ]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Camaris Oct 4th 2007 11:16AM
And soap opera producers do not? These pieces are usually written by clueless people who fail to recognize anything to do with computers as 'normal business'. Blizzard is no different from big movie studios or magazine publishers. They create content, we pay for it.
It's just a piece opinionated nonsense to please the conservative geriatrics reading this paper.
Matt Oct 4th 2007 7:11PM
Is it exploiting to have a government sanctioned lottery that takes money from the poorest of its people with no realistic chance of winning? To me this much worse than anything they think blizzard is doing
Quoi Oct 4th 2007 11:24AM
You know what would be a much better game?
You create a character, level 1. There are no more levels. You have every spell imaginable, and there is a vendor right next to the spawn point that hands out any gear you could want. There is one zone of mobs with 1 hp each, and you go around farming them. But they don't drop anything, because that would be a reward system.
Seriously, are these guys freaking retarded? Since the dawn of video gaming, there has been a reward system. You don't rescue the princess from Bowser on level 1-1, do you?
Let's sue the movie studios for making us sit through a movie so we can see the ending! Let's sue authors for making us read through a book to get to where the main character bites it!
FireStar Oct 4th 2007 11:27AM
If you want to play it that way, I'm being exploited every second of every day be stimuli.
McDonalds or any fast food company.
THE Very newspeople that made this article exploited me by titling it it interesting enough for Mike here to look at.
My gym by seeing all the pictures on the wall or just seing the other people there.
I could go on and on about every aspect of life.
nirikun Oct 4th 2007 11:28AM
In all my years I doubt I will *ever* see adults from the previous generation come to a very simple, obvious conclusion about video games:
Video games are fun.
Another conclusion they'll never come to:
People play them because they are fun.
*gasp*
Angry Joe Oct 4th 2007 11:36AM
Yeah, when you loot something, its sound being the same as a slot machine must be just a coincidence, right?
hjungle Oct 4th 2007 11:36AM
You don't find the public test realms a little bit exploitative? Sure, we get a sneak preview of upcoming content, but we are essentially paying Blizzard to bug test.
It works out in the end but it's still a little bit on the creepy side.
Doffencrag Oct 4th 2007 11:42AM
LOL. The statement was made by Jonathan Blow, who has an *upcoming* game. By inferring that his game is unlike other exploitative games (like, say, one that has 9 million players), he positions his game to be superior in that it won't "exploit" its players.
Plus, earning the ire of 9 million players may be bad publicity, but it's publicity nonetheless.
Just ignore him, and move on.
Will Oct 4th 2007 11:42AM
Reminds me of the most recent Tavern Cast: After Hours where one of them (I think it was Eloy) made a plan to play WoW for 16 hours a day for 30 days. He talked about how it's a system that's set up for success and the more you succeed, the more you want to play.
Still though, I think ultimate responsibility falls with the end user. Blizzard simply set up a system that makes for compelling gameplay. They're not standing over you with a gun and forcing you to to use that system.
Ryan Oct 4th 2007 11:45AM
@2 Nowhere in the article are lawsuits mentioned.
Zev Oct 4th 2007 11:56AM
Blizzard IS exploiting the Wow players when decides to delay patches which are most expected for bringing major improvements to gameplay, but then when they come live, players find out that they are just a bunch of fixes like " X - This ability can now trigger while the [class name] is sitting.
Blizzard could spend their time on more important issues that conceirn players, like: balancing classes in PvP (something Blizzard failed in the past 2 years; however EQ has managed to do so), performing a revamp on some off-specs, adding new content, but no... to Blizzard it is more important that my nether protection procs while I sit. Non-sense.
Kahja Oct 4th 2007 11:56AM
@6
I bet you'd pay 15 bucks a month to beta on WotLK. It's no different since you're still bug testing.
Kahja Oct 4th 2007 12:02PM
@10
lol EQ...
Doffencrag Oct 4th 2007 12:04PM
@11: Amazing how any article here becomes QQ-bait. The article in question talks about how gameplay exploits players, not how a game keeps you hooked with promises of improvements to it.
As far as patches go, people know ahead of time what major changes are coming, thanks to sites like WOWinsider and PTR notes. So for example, people already knew ahead of time that for 2.2, it's mostly the new (admittedly problematic) sound engine, voice chat and so forth. Changes like the "while sitting" stuff are very minor and are "thrown in" with the rest of the major changes. As early as now, people are already being told what to expect in 2.3, so I can't see how it could be misleading anyone.
Orestes Oct 4th 2007 12:06PM
@6 If by bug testing you mean mostly playing around in a sandbox with free epix while really doing very little in the way of useful testing, then yeah you've described a fairish portion of the people on the PTRs.
Kahja Oct 4th 2007 12:07PM
@12 learn to type 11 jerk
Erica Olson Oct 4th 2007 12:08PM
Not exploiting, but not treating all equally.
I so love taking my rogue around and finding nothing for her as quest rewards. Tons of druid stuff though. Many quests have no rewards decent for any of my toons, no matter what their class.
Randomly changing and increasing the difficulty of quest mobs. 70 elites that we can down easily, yet then get toasted by a 68 elite - hmmm, not quite right.
Constant "miss", "resists" and all that when I fight a mob a few levels lower than me yet I could never resist or regularly dodge when I was lower level.
And love being charmed or minioned by a mob that's 10 levels lower than me. Yet I could never mc a mob that many levels higher than me.
Tabularasa Oct 4th 2007 3:14PM
Like it or not, the article has some good points: “players will naturally avoid boring tasks but developers "override that by plugging into their pleasure centres and giving them scheduled rewards and we convince them to pay us money and waste their lives in front of our game in this exploitative fashion".
I think Blizzard in general has mistaken boring for hard.
The grinding for materials/reputation/loot is endless and let's face it, it is not that interesting/amusing to continuously farm the same instance/mobs in the hope of getting that one drop that has been eluding you for so long.
Some parts of the game are so boring that people are willing to pay real hard cash to avoid them altogether. After all, that’s what Chinese farmers do for you.
Moreover, I would really like to know why should I be restricted in the content I have access to? Why should I have to go through yet another never-ending attunement quest to get to the instance I really want? I’ve paid for this game after all and think I should be entitled to enjoy it in its entirety
I am not saying that WOW is a bad game. Some sections are probably one of the best video game ever invented. I also understand why Blizzard does not want everyone circulating around in full T5 regalia.
But instead of making for example T5 "hard to get" (by which I mean requiring perfect gameplay, quick thinking, good reflexes) Blizzard has gotten the balance wrong. You need to farm your T3 first, so you can farm your T4 and then have a chance to have a go at your T5 which by the way you will invariably end-up getting as your raid gets kitted up on trash mobs and the likes and increases its DPS. What is the fun.
And let’s face it : the daily quest are just legalized farming. Blizz might just have saved us time by selling us gold for cash directly because other than being repetitive quests to make you some cash so that you may one day in 6-month time buy your epic mount, I don’t really know what is their purpose (the flasks maybe).
Bottom line, WOW is becoming more and more of a time sink and less and less of an enjoyable experience for me. The game is being dumbed down with each patch, with the introduction of things like a powerful macro language (press 1 to cast all your DOT in order), focus (no need to even switch target) and very soon the threatmeter (agro is not a problem anymore).
Unethical might be too strong a word but I think this article has a point : Blizz is feeding us loot instead of feeding us an enjoyable gaming experience. Most certainly because providing the latter consumes so much more man-hours.
Signed:
A very much Bored of Warcraft Tabularasa
Frank Webber Oct 4th 2007 12:17PM
The only time that I ever feel exploited is when I consider paying $25 for the character server transfers.
It's a deal to pay $25 to save you all that time and energy for leveling but the it feels as though the company could lower the price or scale the price like with in-game respecs.
TequilaJInx Oct 4th 2007 12:20PM
I think you're missing the point of this article.
When you break it down, most of WoW is really just grinding. Kill X-number of these mobs, Bring Y-number of these (which you get from killing mobs). No matter what level you are, unless you're raiding, you're pretty much just doing the same repetitive thing for most of the game.
There are very few times that WoW really gets you as excited or challenges you as much as Halo or God of War does.
His point is that WoW has dull game play that is suffered by players in order to achieve rewards. By extrapolation, he is stating that he believes that the gameplay itself should be the reward.
I don't really disagree with him. I love playing WoW, but I'd switch to a new game in a heartbeat that combined the progression and social aspect with GoW-like gameplay.