In this week’s readings there seemed to be two different vein of thoughts the first being cheating and the harmful effects cheaters have on playing games (links found here and here). The second vein of thought dwelt on a practice known as “gold farming” and how it has evolved the economics both in a virtual world but also in the real world (links found here and here). The discussion on gold farming was particularly interesting to me as the articles dealt with particular emphasis on two different thoughts: politics and economics. Politics because the authors strove to show how what was happening in a digital world happened in the real world many years ago; Economics because money is being transferred between real-world nations but also changing the digital world and the value of the gold itself through inflation.
All mummery of politics and economics aside, I feel that gold farming is harmful both in the digital world and, more importantly, the real world. How so you might ask? One of the important parts of economics is how the common person creates value through increasing in skills and then using those skills for the betterment of the community, the nation, and the world as a whole. This idea of being able to create value is vitally important especially to the individual as it is a good indication of the growth of the person. In gold farming, it is literally creating a market of digital workers who earn real world money.
This is harmful to the gold farmer as well as to the economies. To find out why this is first, answer the question “what real world skills are being developed to create economic value?” The answer is gaming skills of course but games in general are very short lived in comparison to the lives we live. Furthermore, the skills developed are shared by 10-12 million other players. I would hypothesize that the gamers who participate in gold farming are actually digging themselves into an economic hole in which eventually they will find themselves unable to retreat from, having developed no marketable skills during that time and created nothing of real-world value. The game goes away, as it surely will in the future, and there goes the market.
The second vein of thought is cheating and how it has impacted gaming. I personally thought that the ideas were amusing and interesting but ultimately an exercise in futility. We are raising our generations to be winners, to accomplish great things whatever the costs. We are also raising our generations of people on the idea of getting ahead using the “quick and easy” way (for a good example of this, see the US economy and the bank industry). Continually we are promised perfect bodies with minimal amount of time (via a diet and exercise) or a beautiful home or expensive car with very little sacrifice of time or money. These all correlate to cheating, as cheaters are interested in quickly and easily getting ahead in a game. Why sacrifice time and put effort into a game when you can just cheat and be the top?
My ultimate answer to this is that nothing of value or worth ever came easy and that the things of greatest value take time and sacrifice. Gaming is for fun and in the grand scheme of things not of the greatest value. This leads me to the conclusion that I really don’t care if others cheat as putting everything into perspective lessens the need for perfecting a game character or the experience of the game itself.
To be completely honest, I’ve cheated on many games but they were only single-player games so no other players were effect except for me. “Why did I cheat” you may ask. The answer is quite simple:
When I play a game, I do so for the unique story. I play games as simple diversions in between all of the many real world activities I’m involved in. I do not have the time to invest in a game to experience the many hours of long drawn out, sometimes frustrating, gameplay. Interestingly enough, I’m not the only one with this particular mindset as there are many gaming developers which are now creating games designed to be enjoyed in bite-sized chunks.
In conclusion, how we play our games is ultimately a reflection of what we have going on in the real-world and not the inverse.
Cheers!
Your point about the gold farmers digging economic holes for themselves is well taken. I thought it was interesting that the gold farming was being outsourced to rural areas as well . . .i.e. places of extreme poverty. On the bright side the workers get exposed to some technology but they are being "used" for sure.
ReplyDeleteIn their defense, I got the impression they were just trying to make ends meet. And in the case of starvation, a lot of rules go right out the window. It would be nice to think that the gold farmer bosses would consider goals of education and real economic development . . .but they seem to have more pirate type motivations.
Personally, I was never interested that much in gold. I also play the game for the story and my own personal involvment in other player lives. I enjoy meeting people and see how they are progressing. As such I am often nowhere close to getting the "mount" of the day.
But I "own" the memories of many other players actions, good and bad and in between. How they act like real life pirates or beggers or idiots or sages without actually role playing in the formal sense is another type of currency that cannot be traded.
Coleen I couldn't agree more with your opinion about outsourcing for gold farming. Do people not realize that by getting people in poverty involved in the semi-unethical act of making video game money is just another form of utilizing sweat shops? You don't have to be of a certain age to necessarily play a video game and almost anyone with a couple digits on each hand can learn the basics. It really is very sad that we just can't enjoy the video game as it was meant to be played; for fun.
ReplyDeleteNathan I also agree to an extent that how we play video games is a reflection of who we are and how we manipulate our own lives. The busier we get the the less time we have for advancing in a game, which I agree that being at the base of the totem pole truly stinks when everyone else around you are blowing things up sky high and you are left pouting with your pea shooter wondering if you will ever get there in this lifetime. But what does it say about the people who have nothing going on in their lives, they spend countless hours in from of a console or computer but still find it necessary to cheat? It really does seem that they are truly slothly but what about the effort they put into figuring out the cheat code/network hack?
I really don't have an opinion about them since I'm not a serious gamer but truly video games are a hobby that should be enjoyed with friends or at times of leisure and topics such as cheating are not brought up unless you are getting your butt kicked by your sister.
Nathan, your point about personal responsibility is well-taken. We need to work hard to succeed, and yet there are so many shortcuts that make it so we don't have to do so.
ReplyDeleteWorse still is when our own laziness impacts other people and sets them up for social disaster, ie those hired to gold farm. It's a short term benefit to them, but then we have things like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm
I like the complexity of your post, ie you are clearly grappling with these issues. As usual, the visuals assist in the formulation of your argument.