Ok first I would like to point out that two of the articles this week are repeats, just incase no one noticed. Game Theories we read two weeks ago. It was the article from the Walrus. Also, Boring Game? Hire a Player and Ogre to Slay? Outsource it to Chinese are exactly the same as well. So I suppose Merin and I are going to be posting about the same thing. I also think these aticles would have been more beneficial if they had been in the same week or the week right after the first week we started talking about video games. Just a thought
"Boring Game? Hire a Player" by David Barboza
Pretty much this article talks about "farming" sweat shops in China. These are places that hire people, for rediculous pay, to run around in games and get the most gold, the best weapons and such, and to level the characters. In turn the company turns around and sells these things for actual money. This is what all of the articles talked about this week.
The first thought that comes to my mind is how wrong this is. That could just be me. I'm sure some of you in the class think this is perfectly fine. But let me go into why I think this is so wrong.
Let's start with the selling of virtual goods for real money, shall we? The gaming companies are very against this. In Clive Thompson's article he quotes Richard Bartle (who pioneered the first virtual world in the 1980s) as saying, "It's a game and what we are doing is inviting you in to play with the toys. But you don't own the toys. We do." That is it exactly. This is supposed to be a game... that you play... for fun. Wow, what a shocker!! For people to buy their way into a better part of the game defeats the purpose entirely and ruins the fun of getting there.
The next thing I had a problem with was how little these people get paid in China for doing this job. I can't imagine they could live off of that. The highest someone made in this article was $250 a month and the lowest was $75 a month. I would be out on the street with the bums drinking booze if that was me. I guess they chose to do that job and all they have to do is play video games all day, but it still seems rediculous. It makes it so much worse when you find out how much the company makes off what these people are doing. In the James Lee article, for example, one of these companies was making $1.5 million a year. And they can't afford to give their employees more? As said by Edward Castronova, mentioned in a couple of the articles this week, "They're exploiting the wage difference between the US and China for unskilled labor."
Apparently not much is being done to shut down these companies. I think something should be done. This isn't what playing games should be about.
Jessica
1 comment:
I agree that the wages are unfair and unethical, but unfortunately, we as Americans are continuing to enjoy and exploit the comforts and low costs obtained by cheap extra-nation labor. It's not only games. To an extent, if there is anyone to blame, it isn't the Chinese. It's "us." We're the ones who keep buying the stuff and supporting these sweatshops.
I also think its a slippery slope when talking about the fun of making your way through a game from beginning to end, or whatnot. Being utterly incapable of playing video games myself, I've found it necessary to rely on cheats and guides, for which I've paid money. The concept of selling extras and shortcuts is not new. The only difference is, it was a more organized, and a visible, industry until MMPORG.
I found these parts interesting: "Before long, many casual gamers started asking other people to baby-sit their accounts or play while they were away." Babysit? Maybe its only a slip of the authors tongue (pen) that makes this such a weighty word, but it does imply (perhaps rightly so) that these characters are being thought of a treated like real people.
"The Chinese government is cracking down on internet addiction..." Internet addiction, once again reminded me of TekWar, and yes it's sort of lame to compare all this stuff to a William Chatner sci-fi novel, but maybe he had a moment of prescience. Computers are becoming the new escape. And that is the heart of drug addiction: euphoria-inducing escapism.
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