Monday Funny (Even has a Blizzard Reference!)

In light of the Sony hacking and the current down state of North Korea's internet, leave it to The Oatmeal to provide a succinct analysis of the differences between the Koreas:

F2P or P2W?

Blizzard gave bloggers and WoW players an early Christmas gift by providing a big developer post a few days ago.

There were a lot of goodies for people to read up on, but the one that seems to be causing a bit of a stir is the section that was titled "New Ways to Play":

"New Ways to Play

We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system. A few other online games offer a similar option, and players have suggested that they’d be interested in seeing something along those lines in WoW. We agree it could be a good fit for the game, and we look forward to any feedback you have as we continue to look into this feature."*

I'd posted my thoughts on a few other bloggers' commentaries, but I figured I'd summarize them here:

• This sounds like movement in the F2P direction, but let's be realistic: WoW won't truly go F2P without replacing that lost income from somewhere. 10 million subs translates roughly into $150 million --depending on a lot of factors, of course-- and that's a LOT of money for Blizzard to replace. Even if you figure that the true number of regular WoW players who will stick with the game no matter what is much lower, say 2 million, that's still a variable amount between $30 million and $150 million.
• Blizzard may say that they make games that they themselves would want to play --and their development staff may truly believe that, since I've seen no evidence otherwise-- but Activision/Blizzard is no longer part of a big conglomerate. They have investors to answer to every quarter, and until Warlords dropped they were starting to wonder whether Blizzard had lost its mojo. Now that Warlords is a success**, investors are now going to ask "What have you got for next quarter?" Suggesting a limited F2P option such as this one is going to bring up the inevitable "How much will Blizzard profit from this move?" To investors, this might simply be seen as a lose/lose scenario.
• How will gold farming mutate to take advantage of this situation? Blizzard's devs will be the ones inevitably setting the exchange rate, so they'll be able to determine how much effort it would take to reap a return on investment. The seedy WoW Underworld of sweatshops won't go away, but Blizzard could make their ability to make a profit more difficult by exchange rate manipulation. If instead of a tradeable token, Blizzard decides to make any tokens Account Bound, the question then becomes whether a gold farming operation can offer enough gold for a monthly subscription at a rate less than the current WoW monthly sub rate.
• While gold farming operations may be forced to adapt, the rewards for account hacking might just go up. There are a bunch of people who play the economic game in WoW, and going after their accounts would be a top priority for any WoW hacker. You don't even need to raid their account of gold, either, you just need to hack their account and mine data on their methods. Mimic their methods and reap a profit.  I can see the ads now: "Play WoW for free! Let us show you how!"
• Will this system lead to a true pay-to-win environment? It just might, given that Blizzard would need to generate money from lost subs somewhere, and allowing people to buy LFR quality gear with their WoW Account would work. I'm not so sure that wrecking the raiding game is worth it, however.

***

The one thing that everybody seems to have overlooked in the great F2P/P2W discussion is this section of the post:

"eSports’in

The new War Games skirmishes feature allows anyone to run an online tournament, and we’re excited to see even more community-run tournaments in 2015. We’ll of course be running tournaments with our eSports partners as well, and will release details as those plans are finalized. As you saw at the Arena World Championship, we’ve come up with an improved UI to help viewers better follow the action, but we’ve been working on a complete overhaul for next year—with the goal of making it widely available for use in player-run tournaments, partner tournaments, and online casting. We hope to be able to share more soon."*

I expect this to be the next big direction of professional online gaming that Blizzard will move.

When news programs such as CBS Sunday Morning cover online pro gaming***, you know that it is getting pretty huge. Blizzard already has made some inroads with Starcraft 2, but I expect this to open up Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin  (among others) to eSports.

If you thought that Blizz was responding too much to the needs of the PvP community, you ain't seen nothing yet.

*From http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13113971367, OP by Takralus. Edited by Xarishflar on 18/12/2014 19:13 GMT

**For the moment; MMO players are notoriously fickle, and have been even more these days than in prior years.

***They did kind of imply that the people who attended Blizzcon did so for the online tourneys, which isn't really the case. Aside from that, they did a pretty decent job of covering the basics. They could have gone on more about the money some of the top LoL players make --and their lifestyle-- but that they covered both LoL and Blizzcon in one breath has to make Activision/Blizzard VERY happy.

Bloggy X-Mas Day 15: The Reluctant Community

(Sorry this is an hour late; I was being social and working on Christmas cards.)

If you're my age, your first exposure to video games was a social one.

Typically, you were over at a friend's house or attending some family party or whatnot, and your hosts brought out the Pong game --or the Atari 2600, Intellivision, or Odyssey-- and everyone gathered around for a turn at playing Asteroids or Combat.*

MMOs tap into those halcyon days by utilizing the wonders of the internet to play with people from around the world. None of this is exactly new to anyone, of course, but it is important to remember that video games were, at their heart, a social endeavor.

We often forget about the positive social aspects to video games when buried deep in the latest Skyrim or Dragon Age game, or when we're being yelled at to "L2P NOOOOB!!!!1!!" in Arathi Basin. It is quite easy to forget about things beyond the bare bones social contract when you're trying to make your guild's raid team.*** Or when you slew the elite boss guarding the maguffin you need for a quest, and another player ninja steals the maguffin while you were otherwise occupied.

But we MMO players are a community.

There aren't that many of us out there. Sure, WoW has 10 million subscribers, and that sounds like a lot, but not when you consider there are over a billion people hooked up to the net in some form or another. Compared to the rest of the internet, we're a niche within the niche of video gaming.

It's that realization that we consciously seek out social gaming in some form or another that makes MMO gaming special. There are MOBAs and console networks, but those don't have the social interaction on the same level as an MMO has.

What do the following have in common:

• Random Gen Chat discussions.
• Guild goofing off nights.
• PUGs with people who you get into great conversations with.
• Dance-offs at random moments.
• You're attempting to beat an elite boss, you're losing, and suddenly a random passerby jumps into the fray to assist.

The answer is something that all of us who play MMOs know:  they're all possible in MMO space. I've been there, and I've seen it happen.

MMOs offer the chance to be awesome, both in the story and between other players. For example, I'll never forget the following exchange (paraphrased) in Tatooine about two years ago:

Player X: Need an assist with [can't remember quest name]
Player Y: I can help. Invite me.
Player Z: Man, you're L50. What are you doing here?
Player Y: I PvP in about an hour or so, but before then I like to hang around low level areas and help out those who need it.

That. Is. Awesomeness.

***

Make no mistake, MMOs are just a game. We slay internet dragons with our friends. And, more importantly, they are a tool, really, that can foster relationships with others.

It's all about how we use that tool that determines the community we reside in.

Just remember the immortal words of Bill and Ted:  Be excellent to each other!




*In a way, it was a bit similar to how I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons; that was a social format too, with a friend introducing the game to me after school while playing over at his house.

**Given that a lot of people had only one television at the time, this meant that you had to work around evening TV shows.

***Office politics remind me a lot of some of the backstabbing that goes on in some of the more high drama guilds. When companies grade everyone on a curve, employees will be tempted to sabotage other employees' work just to make themselves look better.

****No, I can't remember the name of the blog, but I saw their stats.


EtA: Added the graphic.
EtA2: Corrected grammar on story.  Sheesh, how'd I miss that?