I’ve spent the last few days flirting with the Christmas orgy of consumption and along the way introduced a few more people to virtual worlds. All of them express the usual there is no spoon amazement when they find out that people are paying lots of real money for virtual goods. However, it’s less incredible when you consider that even in the real world the goods people are buying aren’t as real as they seem.
Real world products aren’t marketed just as objects, but as objects that enable a lifestyle in which you have more friends, more fun and are more attractive. When it’s the promised lifestyle that people are buying, the goods themselves may as well just be bit patterns encoded on a magnetic disc halfway around the world.
In fact, virtual goods may be more honest than their real world counterparts. The real world pizza promises friends, fun and personal improvement, but just delivers a pile of calories. The virtual sword promises increased power and glory within the world and delivers it. It’s a status symbol that delivers more than just status.
Maybe one reason virtual worlds with scarcity are so compelling is that they provide the aspiration and wish fulfilment of real world consumption without the nagging feeling of disappointment which often follows real world acquisition. The realisation that the glamorous bauble is just a glamorous bauble.
When its time for the player to go to a better place, virtual goods have another advantage: they can be cashed in and converted in to goods in the next world. The real world bauble looks like an even worse buy when you consider that, ultimately, you can’t take it with you.
Had never seen it this way. Very interesting! I'll try this one with some people and see the results.
One snag here: the "All your data are belong to us" policies of VWs.
Posted by: Andres Ferraro | Dec 16, 2004 at 08:30
For one of my classes, a final exam question was "It is the year 2050. What fraction of the global economy occurs inside things we now call video games?"
Usually I get at this by pointing how much of our real-world consumption is itself virtual. The bare necessities take up so little of our economy even now. The great majority is lifestyle purchases and services.
And if you've ever wondered whether a real-world society can become an overlapping mesh of the fantasy worlds of each individual, spend some time in Los Angeles, the City of Dreaming.
Posted by: Edward Castronova | Dec 16, 2004 at 08:42
One snag here: the "All your data are belong to us" policies of VWs.
Take a wide angle view of real world ownership and it looks the same: you can't take it with you and you don't get to choose when you leave.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Dec 16, 2004 at 08:57
Jim,
One upside: You know for certain that god exists.
Posted by: Andres Ferraro | Dec 16, 2004 at 10:07
I like this way of thinking a lot, and yes it's especially relevent to the holiday season.
However, I do think that our virtual worlds themselves tend to be sold to us as being much more than they really are. I don't necessarily mind playing a game that relies on level grind, but somehow I do mind seeing it euphemised as so much more on the back of the box.
Posted by: Mike Darga | Dec 16, 2004 at 10:20
Hrmm that's an unnecessary tangent and we've been down that road before. I immediately wish I hadn't posted it. =)
So, do you think the difference is that virtual items actually make good on what they say they will do, or that we have a tangible way of measuring those effects? Some people would probably say that in real life we make the hype real, and that Armani pants really ARE +5 against Hot Chicks.
Posted by: Mike Darga | Dec 16, 2004 at 10:32
You've presented the case in a very selective way, but I guess Christmas makes everyone a little crazy. You order a pizza, then strip away the marketing, at the very least you're guaranteed a pizza. You buy a virtual swordand you've bought a slightly different set of statistics.
People paying for virtual in game ojects have simply lost all sense of perspective. Take the recent case of the person who bought that plot of virtual land for twenty six thousand dollars? Sheer lunacy.
Posted by: Richard | Dec 16, 2004 at 11:50
Richard wrote:
You've presented the case in a very selective way, but I guess Christmas makes everyone a little crazy. You order a pizza, then strip away the marketing, at the very least you're guaranteed a pizza. You buy a virtual swordand you've bought a slightly different set of statistics.
People paying for virtual in game ojects have simply lost all sense of perspective. Take the recent case of the person who bought that plot of virtual land for twenty six thousand dollars? Sheer lunacy.
This is a naive, if somewhat understandable, point of view. What people are paying for is an experience. That's the same thing people pay for when they go to an amusement park, when they go skiing, when they go to a movie, when they go to an art gallery, etc. Life is a series of experiences, that's all.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 16, 2004 at 12:52
Or perhaps the point is that we value analog objects not for their physical properties but for the way they enable, further, or represent social relationships and that the latter are what we /really/ value.
But /which/ objects get dragged into our relationship-making is arbitrary and changes depending on who you talk to. You use pizza to build solidarity, I use chicken soup. In the contemporary US Armani pants signal wealth and status, in Papua New Guinea 70 years ago it was abalone shell necklaces.
Given this arbitrariness, does it matter whether the 'object' in question is analog or digital? I agree w/Jim on this one.
Posted by: Rex | Dec 16, 2004 at 12:56
True enough.
One interesting side effect of the virtual item trade is that suddenly virtual prestige is not so distant from real world prestige.
Only now are things changing such that having a prestigeous sword or suit of armor online isn't automatically considered some sort of stigma in real life.
Having financial worth is what it took to legitimise gaming, which is a shame, but it's interesting to see the prestige of an item carry over. I suppose virtual item sales allows real world prestige to carry over into virtual worlds as well.
Posted by: Mike Darga | Dec 16, 2004 at 13:17
In fact, virtual goods may be more honest than their real world counterparts. The real world pizza promises friends, fun and personal improvement, but just delivers a pile of calories. The virtual sword promises increased power and glory within the world and delivers it. It’s a status symbol that delivers more than just status.
Are you on crack? Seriously, whatever you're smoking, I want some because it sounds like it'll offer "increased power and glory", and I could use some of that. The way you're describing the sword sounds awfully close to how pushers describe drugs. "It'll make you feel good, forget all your problems, and you'll be on top of the world." That's great, until the chemical wears off and the (drug) user crashes. An über-sword is great until the (software) user logs out of the game and realizes they spent their money on a few measely bits.
I've had this happen, personally. You get excited about something purely online, impulse shop, and then ten minutes later you realize you just blew the equivalent to a whole pizza on some bits you really didn't need.
The difference in spending $20 on an über-sword and spending $20 on a pizza is that with the pizza, you get the calories. You're always guarunteed -- short of a complete, universe-wrenching shift in the laws of physics -- the calories. When you buy a sword, you're guarunteed that sword, and the implied power and status, until the devs screw around with the game and nerf the system.
I remember in Asheron's Call, there was a time when Atlan Weapons were the thing to have. Everyone was after Pyreal bars to make Atlans. However, by the time I got my Atlan -- buying it off someone -- I had friends ask me why I wanted such a gimp sword, when there were other, newer weapons out there.
So, seriously, who's your dealer?
Posted by: Andrew Burton | Dec 16, 2004 at 13:40
Take the recent case of the person who bought that plot of virtual land for twenty six thousand dollars? Sheer lunacy.
I completely agree that spending $26K on a luxury item is madness (until next week, when $26K will only buy you a chocolate bar in Europe).
My point was that when you're spending money on luxury status items it doesn't make much difference whether they're virtual items bought to impress online friends or real items bought to impress real world friends.
If the $26K was spent on a pair of blinging ear rings I would consider it equally insane.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Dec 16, 2004 at 13:55
An über-sword is great until the (software) user logs out of the game and realizes they spent their money on a few measely bits.
But at least while they were in the game, the sword made a difference, whereas in the real world there are lots of desirable objects that make no difference at all.
Virtual worlds can be designed to make sure that there are always better objects to aspire to, which actually make a difference in the game.
In the real world, what do you buy for the parent who has everything? A lot of real world companies try to provide us with answers by marketing objects with little utility using vague promises of lifestyle improvements.
Compared to these lifestyle products, a sword which helps me kill monsters quicker seems more honest, useful and real.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Dec 16, 2004 at 14:06
Andrew Burton wrote:
Are you on crack? Seriously, whatever you're smoking, I want some because it sounds like it'll offer "increased power and glory", and I could use some of that. The way you're describing the sword sounds awfully close to how pushers describe drugs. "It'll make you feel good, forget all your problems, and you'll be on top of the world." That's great, until the chemical wears off and the (drug) user crashes. An über-sword is great until the (software) user logs out of the game and realizes they spent their money on a few measely bits.
What do you get when you buy entrance to an amusement park, Andrew? How about when you buy the service of watching a movie in a theatre? How about good seats at the World Cup final? You come away with nothing but memories. Sounds an awful lot like what you get when you 'buy' a sword in a game and then quit playing it. What have you got? Memories. What did you have? An experience.
There's no difference.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 16, 2004 at 14:58
Jim Purbick wrote:
I completely agree that spending $26K on a luxury item is madness (until next week, when $26K will only buy you a chocolate bar in Europe).
My point was that when you're spending money on luxury status items it doesn't make much difference whether they're virtual items bought to impress online friends or real items bought to impress real world friends.
If the $26K was spent on a pair of blinging ear rings I would consider it equally insane.
What if this fellow can sell his 26k land to someone else for 28k? Sounds like an investment to me.
And outrageous luxury is in the eye of the beholder. To someone in a third world country, spending $5 on a meal at McDonalds is an absolutely unthinkable luxury. It reminds me of the story "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in which Charlie's family is so poor that they consider splitting a candy bar amongst them to be a huge treat.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 16, 2004 at 15:02
There are ideological implications to all this.
Pizzas are not all hunky-dory. I find them rather problematic. If we buy one, we do indeed get the calories, often the ones that we do not need. We also have no idea what is in that pizza apart from the calories and if its interesting ingredients are good for us.
Economists are all excited about the “experience economy”. See The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine, B. J., II Pine, James H. Gilmore. They say we are in the post-service era. When we go for a coffee it is the experience we are paying for. The coffee is cheap to make and the service is simple too. 90% of the expense and the output are indeed in the experience they say.
I feel quite suspicious about all this excitement. People who sell me a pizza or a virtual island are in it for money. It is secondary for them if the product is good or if I get an enjoyable experience (thinking of which the word enjoyable is problematic too; I do not expect all of my experiences to be enjoyable and would feel threatened by anybody who is suggesting to curtail my life like this). If the end goal is financial gain, the product is averaged to suit the majority. Or, better still, the majority is trained to like the product. In both cases, a certain worldview is imposed on all, even on the apparent non-participants. In the process, innovation gets sacrificed to protectionism and the already-comfortable benefit at the expense of the rest.
S.
Posted by: Stanislav Roudavski | Dec 16, 2004 at 16:29
And here is a direct quote (missing the italics, I have no idea how to format text on this blog):
“If you charge for *stuff*, then you are in the *commodity* business.
If you charge for *tangible things*, then you are in the *goods* business.
If you charge for the *activities* you execute, then you are in the *service* business.
If you charge for *the time customers spend with you*, then you are in the *experience* business.
If you charge for the *demonstrable outcome the customer achieves*, then and only then are you in the *transformation business*.”
Posted by: Stanislav Roudavski | Dec 16, 2004 at 16:40
There's no difference.
Bingo. I failed to actually say that, though, which is kind of embarassing.
There is no difference. The pizza may not include friends and family, but it is what you payed for. The sword may kill monsters, but it will still depreciate in value. Jim even says, "Virtual worlds can be designed to make sure that there are always better objects to aspire to," which, like the pizza, means that the item will depreciate as time wears on. The pizza's calories get burned in your body, and it needs refueling; the über-sword gets outclassed by new weapons, and thus you have to buy a new one.
Khamon told me that I got off-track, trying to disprove that virtual items had no value. I was wrong to try and make that statement, because as both you and he point out, virtual items (an über-sword, Lindens, Pyreal, etc.) have as much value as real items (a movie ticket, a pizza, etc.). An item's value -- be is a made from bits or atoms -- has the value that the consumers place upon it.
The first post, where I completely went off track, was trying to say that virtual items don't have any more or less value or expectance placed on them. Seriously, the sword in a game may bring power and status, but a Dodge Viper can bring the same thing. The Viper is just more expensive.
Posted by: Andrew Burton | Dec 16, 2004 at 17:37
Another thing to take into account - something which I have discussed with many people when it comes to buying virtual items - is the purchase of "time". If it takes 6 months on average to get that uber-sword in a game, if you buy one in month 3, you have saved yourself the 3 months it would take to get that sword.
In a game like Everquest, saving that time to get the items you want allows you to use your time to do other things you want.
In a game like Ultima Online, where you might buy a keep, it saves you the time of gathering the resources, experience, etc. to have to put together that keep.
To some extent, I intuit that you would be trading time for time. Assuming you get paid to work and are not using inherited money, you are trading your work time income for play time luxuries. Though we do this everyday with other items we purchase, there is a nearly direct correlation in the time savings.
Posted by: Tom Bloodgood | Dec 16, 2004 at 22:02
"If it takes 6 months on average to get that uber-sword n a game, if you buy one in month 3, you have saved yourself the 3 months it would take to get that sword."
if i buy it in 3, i've cheated myself out of 3 months of experience earning it. when i roleplay, i like to roleplay, not take short cuts. virtual mmorpg items worth very little money to me because the fun and beauty of them lies in the game of finding, building or earning them.
i don't generally purchase things in second life either. i'd rather spend hours building them and screaming at the screen while trying to texture and script them properly. but then, i like to make my own pizza too. so to me, they really are comparable.
i don't understand why someone would pay to have a pizza baked for them any more than i understand why someone would pay for an uber sword.
Posted by: khamon | Dec 17, 2004 at 01:06
khamon: i don't understand why someone would pay to have a pizza baked for them any more than i understand why someone would pay for an uber sword.
And yet there are millions upon millions of people who have their pizza not only baked for them but delivered to them; who have someone else change their car's oil; who have someone else not only clean their clothes, but pick them up and return their laundry pressed and folded.
These people do play games. But they play light and social games with a duration of 15-30 minutes. These people are the mainstream. There are many many more of them than there are in the set of current time-rich hard-core gamers.
They have jobs, kids, a mortgage, and disposable money to spend on entertainment. They want to spend their money on entertainment. What they don't want is to spend tens of hours staring at a screen, clicking their mouse, in order to get to "the good stuff" of an uber sword or whatever. $20 and five minutes instead of $0 and ten hours? You betcha. That way they can play for an hour after they do their bills and help the kids with their homework.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Dec 17, 2004 at 02:17
Khamon wrote:
if i buy it in 3, i've cheated myself out of 3 months of experience earning it. when i roleplay, i like to roleplay, not take short cuts. virtual mmorpg items worth very little money to me because the fun and beauty of them lies in the game of finding, building or earning them.
i don't generally purchase things in second life either. i'd rather spend hours building them and screaming at the screen while trying to texture and script them properly. but then, i like to make my own pizza too. so to me, they really are comparable.
i don't understand why someone would pay to have a pizza baked for them any more than i understand why someone would pay for an uber sword.
You don't understand why people would eat at a restaurant rather than spending the time and effort to learn how to make the meal themselves and then actually make it themselves? Surely you can't be serious. (Granted, I like cooking, so I would do that, but that's personal preference. I do not, as Mike points out, like changing oil, so I pay someone else to do that for me.)
Look, tonight I was in the supermarket trying to buy a bottle of wine, and for whatever reason, all the registers were closed for some nightly accounting thing for 5 minutes. I put down the bottle of wine, left, and drove down the street to the 7-11 where I paid $2 extra for the exact same bottle of wine (God bless San Francisco, where even the 7-11 sells decent wine) to save myself the 5 minutes of waiting. I could have just waited 5 minutes, but my 5 minutes was worth more to me tonight than $2. Maybe other nights it wouldn't be, but tonight it was.
If I'm not having fun getting to the sword, but I want the sword, then I want to just pay for it. Similarly, if I want to eat a really nice meal RIGHT NOW and I don't feel like running through the 'grind' of going to the store for ingredients, preparing the meal, and then cleaning up after, I'm just going to pay someone else to do it for me. Hail the power of universal currency.
And you know, no offence, but this idea that you want to 'earn' something in a game doesn't resonate with a lot of people. I strongly believe that the potential mass market (so far almost entirely untapped) does not place moral worth on mindlessly clicking on icons to kill some virtual monsters. You're not a better person than I am because you sat and bashed a bunch of crap for 3 months. You're just willing to spend more free time than I am. Claiming that's 'earning' it is like saying I 'earned' my car because I was willing to spend the cash to buy it.
This is a tangent, but it's late and I'm drinking said bottle of wine. I have this huge pet peeve with Achaea's playerbase, and, to some extent, with the playerbases of all the virtual worlds out there (since they're pretty much all composed of hardcore players at this point). There's this idea that people should have to 'earn' the right to have fun somehow, by going through some sort of ridiculous hazing process. In the big graphical games, that hazing process is leveling. In our games, said pet peeve results from the guilds (not the same as guilds in the big virtual worlds) controlling access to classes, and insisting that people do things like "prove their worth" by writing essays on subjects like, "The metaphysics of Chaos" in order to advance. Ridiculous. Many people are in these virtual worlds to just have some light-hearted fun, not to compensate for some sort of lack of achievement in the physical world by "proving" they're worthy. (And certainly, the single most ridiculous method of gaining self-worth I've ever heard of has to be leveling. It's mindless and takes virtually no skill. At least you have to sound intelligent to write a decent essay.)
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 17, 2004 at 03:55
There's no difference.
Agreed. Things have value if someone decides they are valuable, whether they are virtual are real. This doesn't go very far towards explaining why people think virtual items are valuable though.
What people are paying for is an experience.
This is probably the easiest way to expain it. Virtual items are tickets to virtual world experiences and virtual world experiences are just as real as any other experiences. If you have fun using a virtual world, you're having fun just like you would at a party.
There are also real items which are really little more than tickets to experiences. We buy a coffee, but are really buying the experience of spending time in the coffee house.
We might be more comfortable with it because we obtain a physical item, a cup of coffee, but the item is so little of what we are paying for, it may as well be virtual.
Interestingly, people may be more comfortable with obtaining virtual items rather than just tickets too. I've been told that in SL people are happier buying virtual items than they are buying virtual experiences.
the sword in a game may bring power and status, but a Dodge Viper can bring the same thing
I think these are the lifestyle purchases. Items which are not tickets to an experience, but are perceived tickets to a lifestyle. The Range Rovers which only ever do the school run are good examples. They are marketed with images of wilderness exploration, but often only experience the urban conjestion they promise an escape from.
These items are bought for the image they portray or a lifestyle the owner wants to identify with either consciously or unconsciously. The owners are using the items in a game of lets pretend, a game that can be played far more satisfyingly using virtual worlds and virtual Range Rovers.
It's clear that there is more to the glamour and glitz of Christmas shopping than deciding whether hammer A is more functional than hammer B. There are elements of lifestyle, aspiration and identity at play which make the purchase of virtual items not so alien after all.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Dec 17, 2004 at 07:13
>> You've presented the case in a very selective
>> way, but I guess Christmas makes everyone a
>> little crazy. You order a pizza, then strip
>> away the marketing, at the very least you're
>> guaranteed a pizza. You buy a virtual swordand
>> you've bought a slightly different set of
>> statistics.
Yes, and imagine how stupid I felt paying for the meal I took my wife out for last night when I realised that I had just paid for a slightly different set of organic molecules than the ones I could have made at home.
An analysis of value that only encompasses tangible goods, and not even services? How wonderfully pre-4th century Greece. You and the great economists of the Minoan culture should get together and go bowling some time.
Posted by: Endie | Dec 17, 2004 at 09:19
This entry just reeks of Marx, Jim. =)
Posted by: Aaron Kurtz | Dec 17, 2004 at 09:26
There's this idea that people should have to 'earn' the right to have fun somehow, by going through some sort of ridiculous hazing process.
I was under the impression the earning was the fun of an MMOG. Seriously, if I wanted to play a game that didn't require work, if I wanted to just zip up to über-status with no work, I'd play a console or PC game with cheat codes... Heck, I do play games with cheat codes when I just want to run amok.
Maybe I'm wrong and don't understand the numbers -- I have no numbers, so I probably *AM* wrong -- but it's disturbing to me, as an MMOG player, that people would want to play a game for the single purpose of getting high level crap and feeling more powerul than those of us who like to casually roleplay and level up.
Of course, maybe I'm still scarred from that time some level sixty newbie in Asheron's Call laughed at me for taking a year to hit forty, when he hit level sixty in two weeks by power leveling, reading templates of websites, and joining an allegience that game him tons of über-stuff.
I guess it's silly of me to think that people who play "role playing games" are actually interested in "role playing" at all. Sorry for the mix up, as a casual gamer I don't really keep up with player trends.
Posted by: Andrew Burton | Dec 17, 2004 at 12:44
Andrew Burton wrote:
I was under the impression the earning was the fun of an MMOG. Seriously, if I wanted to play a game that didn't require work, if I wanted to just zip up to über-status with no work, I'd play a console or PC game with cheat codes... Heck, I do play games with cheat codes when I just want to run amok.
Maybe I'm wrong and don't understand the numbers -- I have no numbers, so I probably *AM* wrong -- but it's disturbing to me, as an MMOG player, that people would want to play a game for the single purpose of getting high level crap and feeling more powerul than those of us who like to casually roleplay and level up.
Of course, maybe I'm still scarred from that time some level sixty newbie in Asheron's Call laughed at me for taking a year to hit forty, when he hit level sixty in two weeks by power leveling, reading templates of websites, and joining an allegience that game him tons of über-stuff.
I guess it's silly of me to think that people who play "role playing games" are actually interested in "role playing" at all. Sorry for the mix up, as a casual gamer I don't really keep up with player trends.
Roleplaying? You mean you and the two guys that roleplay in the big graphical games? (Sorry, we text people feel rather smug about the more or less complete lack of roleplaying in the big games.)
I'm not sure why it should be disturbing to you that some people have fun in ways different from you.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 17, 2004 at 14:01
Incidentally, if you guys are interested in other virtual item sellers in the West that aren't virtual worlds, check out:
funhi.com
hotornot.com (which lets you spend $2-$10 on virtual roses to send to people).
Selling these virtual experiences/items/whatever-you-want-to-call-them is only going to get more popular, 'cause people like them.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 17, 2004 at 21:03
Roleplaying? You mean you and the two guys that roleplay in the big graphical games? (Sorry, we text people feel rather smug about the more or less complete lack of roleplaying in the big games.)
We do? I didn't know we were supposed to do that. Someone must have forgotten to tell me that while I was playing LORD. But, as said, I am but casual gamer.
I'm not sure why it should be disturbing to you that some people have fun in ways different from you.
It disturbs me when the majority of people have fun this way, because I realize that I will soon lose my interest in MMOG's when they become a sordid lovechild between DAL.net and XBox Live. I'll miss MMOG's when they fully run off me and my two friends for the sake of eBay purchaseable cheat codes.
Posted by: Andrew Burton | Dec 17, 2004 at 23:20
Jim,
With eBay and other marketplaces, most goods, virtual and physical, can be sold when you go to the next world, be it heaven or hell. The unfortunate thing is that there is no guarantee that it can be transfered to the next world.
Ring kings of olde bury themselves with the posessions hoping that their possessions will follow them to the next world. This would be the same for moving from one VW to another.
The upside is that there is more certainty :)
Posted by: magicback | Dec 18, 2004 at 03:43
Uh,
that's rich kings of olde not ring kings of olde.
Posted by: magicback | Dec 18, 2004 at 03:44
In the real world, what do you buy for the parent who has everything?
In the end I got something from World Vision.
A virtual item here, but a very real and needed one in the 3rd world.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Dec 18, 2004 at 05:29
unfortunatly, i'm wrong and y'all are right. the l33t attitude is not only common, it's mainstream. it's perfectly valied to claim that the vast mainstream majority of mmog players want nothing more than to walk through levels with cheat codes, bore of the "game" in a few weeks, and move on.
the prospect gives me pause. how are gaming companies going to survive if they have to produce a completely new environment every few weeks to serve their audience? it's certainly not as easy as producing brainless fodder to slap up on mtv every other day.
the deeper issue, though, is what kind of society produces this overwhelmingly prevelant attitude toward challenge and recreational activities?
Posted by: khamon | Dec 19, 2004 at 10:25
Khamon wrote:
the deeper issue, though, is what kind of society produces this overwhelmingly prevelant attitude toward challenge and recreational activities?
What attitude? That we don't want to do things that aren't fun during our recreation time? I don't consider level treadmills to be a challenge, unless it be a challenge of my patience for being bored. I just want to experience cool shit, as do many people.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Dec 19, 2004 at 14:55
that attitude. but it's a rhetorical question. i understand it and how prevelant it is in american society. i just didn't realize it had spread so rampantly through the mmog community.
my first question is the confusing one. i don't see mmog companies bending to the will of the people. they keep producing treadmills and forbidding the web sale of items et cetera. are they just going to cling to these archaic ideas until they put themselves out of business?
Posted by: khamon | Dec 19, 2004 at 16:40