66 replies to this topic

[CrashieJ]

HighlandCoo, on 14 January 2013 - 09:22 PM, said:

It's offical - video games cause recession. You heard it here first!

HURRY, CALL ALL THE NEWS AGENCIES.... IT'S NOT CORRUPT POLITICIANS AND POOR LEGISLATION, LOOPHOLES AND BRIBERY IT'S NOT THE LACK OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY , IT'S VIDEOGAMES...IT'S ALWAYS BEEN VIDEOGAMES... FROM VIOLENCE TO MONETARY PROBLEMS IN A SOCIETY, VIDEOGAMES ARE THE CAUSE!!!!!

yes, and they've said that about television, music, comicbooks, movies... and not the abusive parent, the bullies, the teachers and faculty that look the other way when a child is in trouble...

oh, goody another OP who is using videogames as a scapegoat for problems either they're too lazy to do any research on, or too stupid to see that there are other reasons that fit PERFECTLY.

BerryChunks, please donate your PC(s) to the nearest Goodwill/Salvation Army Reception Center... there are people who are better deserving than you.


Edit: oh good, you liked your own post... you... complete... tool.

Edited by gavilatius, 14 January 2013 - 11:38 PM.

[One Medic Army]

Simple response:
If you don't enjoy playing the game (a.k.a. what you do to earn cbills) then you shouldn't care about the cbills either, and should just stop playing the game.

[Badgerpants]

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time!

[IceCase88]

Helbourne, on 14 January 2013 - 11:18 PM, said:

China had it right?? What a load of dung this thread topic is. The only thing China may have done "right" is enslave their own people. They have a hive mind mentality. Anyone who dares speak out against what they are told, ends up in a dark hole or dead. Normally people play games to escape reality for a while, I know I do. I do not punch a time clock, or record the hours I spend playing. I do not figure out how much per hour that I "make" in dollars. That is just dumb. It's my time, I can spend it the way I want to. I am not poor for spending my time playing games. This recession that the United States has been going through has NOTHING to do with people playing MMOs, or any other game. That notion is completely ridiculous.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Truer words have not been said. Berrychunks defeated his argument when he said, "China had it right..." Most government regulations are the problem and not the solution. Did China have it right when they deflate their currency intentionally? Did China have it right as they build cities and homes that no one uses or lives in to avoid their real estate bubble? Did China have it right when they decided use prison/slave labor to build products to keep labor prices down? Absolutley not. China is the evil empire who regulates every aspect of their subjects' lives and enslaves them.

It is a game... not work... it is a fun way to fill free time... I do not want everyday of my life to occupied by work. I stopped playing Star Wars Online after a brief bit because dancing to build skill and wandering into the mountains to drill for minerals is not fun to me. That sucks.

Edited by IceCase88, 14 January 2013 - 11:48 PM.

[Adrian Steel]

To the OP:

GG sir.

Your post essentially suggests that government should regulate how I spend my free time. I invite you to move to a country like China where you can lap up all the heavy-handed regulation your heart desires.

You obviously need a government nanny regulating your activities on a 24/7 basis if this is the best form of intellectual discussion you can come up with.

[mekabuser]

OP=reasoning fail.

[King Arthur IV]

im just a cheap bum but i see your point. a little bit of productivity can go along way.

others may choose not to see the bigger picture. very few addicts come to self realization that it why we must intervene sometimes.

Edited by King Arthur IV, 15 January 2013 - 12:34 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

BerryChunks, on 14 January 2013 - 08:35 PM, said:

If you grind the hours needed to get something in WoW instead of RMT it;
If you grind the house needed to get the Cbills together to buy "double cost" variants that have superior slotting, or even "hero mechs" that sometimes have the best hardpoint slotting in the game;

You're effectively spending time working at something for pennies on the dollar.

How much do RMT chinese gold farmers make when playing WoW or some other game to sell items to other people? 15 cents an hour? 1 dollar an hour? Economically speaking, for a person in a different country (like the U.S.) to do the same, they're deflating their own labor value.

A person who spends 40 hours to grind something that they could buy with 5 dollars is essentially saying that their effort is worth 80 cents an hour. On the other hand, in F2P models where buying in game items is actually "legal" to the game developers, working for just 1 hour at a job can get you the item you want, give you a few dollars left over, AND GIVE YOU 39 HOURS of your life.

I've heard a multitude of excuses from people over the years for not paying real money. "I want to feel like I earned it". "I enjoy the journey". "Im cooler because I got it myself".

Such flimsy arguments are meant to protect their egos from the reality that they spent much of their life time, which you CANNOT trade back for, ever, in pursuit of goals that have the effect of impoverishing you.

Consider it this way instead. Assume that in a 40 hour span you could make 320 dollars, at least. Now, instead of making 320 dollars, you are "making" 5 dollars by having that item. If we reverse this equation, you're paying 315 dollars to have it, except neither the company that owns the game you're playing, nor you, are making any real money.

I've seen plenty of people do this. This isn't like some tangible benefit that will exist, even after it's over. It's not doing hobby experiments with real world objects that you sink money into, that end up providing some educational benefit which can help you down the road. It's just air. It's like taking 315 dollars and setting it on fire.

The people who do these mental gymnastics to validate their behavior are similar to drug or gambling addicts.

As gaming becomes more mainstream, more and more people will behave like that. What happens when enough people opt to "make" 1 dollar an hour or less, in theoretical terms, compared to actually working and buying their hobby (a game) without investing massive quantities of time in it? Localized impoverishment. What happens when enough places in a nation become locally impoverished? Massive impoverishment.

It's no Coincidence that we're having a "recession" in the U.S. that's on par with the "great depression", at the same time we are seeing a massive upswing in MMO playing.

The Chinese beat us, my friends. They saw what the U.S. was allowing to happen, and that's why they instituted the legal restriction of gameplay time on MMO's. The Chinese aren't stupid. They have market analysts and sociologists just as much as the next country. When people see a country take a technology that's very new, and make LAWS that seem to make no sense, we should ask ourselves what those laws are telling US about what THEY are observing in other countries.

Actually, a chinaman gold farmer, who takes the time to setup his operation, can easily make way more money doing that than he would going to a normal job.

That's why they do it. It brings in the dough.

[Ogresan]

I play MWO to run around in a giant robot and shoot stuff and have a blast doing it. I guess others play MWO to watch a number go up. I won't pretend to understand.
I spend money on this game because its awesome and want to help it succeed. When did everyone get so greedy that it extended into their leisure time?

[xengk]

I need my Ferro-Fibrous Tinfoil hat.

[IceCase88]

King Arthur IV, on 15 January 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

im just a cheap bum but i see your point. a little bit of productivity can go along way.

others may choose not to see the bigger picture. very few addicts come to self realization that it why we must intervene sometimes.

Seems like you are saying we are having a Matrix moment. Please save us from our plugged in existence, Morpheus! Shut up and play the game. I chose not to break my life down into a per hour rate of earnings. My leisure time is priceless. My life is priceless too.. at least my mommy tells me so.

[King Arthur IV]

IceCase88, on 15 January 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:

Seems like you are saying we are having a Matrix moment. Please save us from our plugged in existence, Morpheus! Shut up and play the game. I chose not to break my life down into a per hour rate of earnings. My leisure time is priceless. My life is priceless too.. at least my mommy tells me so.

i am playing the game. i also could be making some money, learning something new, seeing the world, taking care of family, making something etc but im playing in my room. i am playing and having fun but if all of us were playing hours on end, where would the world be? if the devs spent more time playing then developing where would this game be?

addicts will be addicts.

to understand what someone is saying and to preach it are two very different things, there was no need to get nasty about it.

[One Medic Army]

There's a difference between enjoying unproductive activities and being an addict.
For instance, with your logic contraception wouldn't exist, because people would only have *** for the purposes of propagation, and anyone that did else-wise would be an"addict".

[KharnZor]

BerryChunks, on 14 January 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

mimicry is a 10 year old tool. I must be pretty threatening to your ego.

Mimicry is a useful and amusing tool when used to mock someone.

gavilatius, on 14 January 2013 - 11:35 PM, said:

oh, goody another OP who is using videogames as a scapegoat for problems either they're too lazy to do any research on, or too stupid to see that there are other reasons that fit PERFECTLY.

BerryChunks, please donate your PC(s) to the nearest Goodwill/Salvation Army Reception Center... there are people who are better deserving than you.


Edit: oh good, you liked your own post... you... complete... tool.

Read this guys post at least twice, he knows whats going on and why you are so full of fail.

Adrian Steel, on 14 January 2013 - 11:53 PM, said:

To the OP:

GG sir.

Your post essentially suggests that government should regulate how I spend my free time. I invite you to move to a country like China where you can lap up all the heavy-handed regulation your heart desires.

You obviously need a government nanny regulating your activities on a 24/7 basis if this is the best form of intellectual discussion you can come up with.

I also agree with this line of thinking.

mekabuser, on 15 January 2013 - 12:05 AM, said:

OP=reasoning fail.

If only everyone could speak the truth in so few words

And this. From one of the biggest trolls on this board and someone who i generally find annoying-

Vassago Rain, on 15 January 2013 - 12:41 AM, said:

Actually, a chinaman gold farmer, who takes the time to setup his operation, can easily make way more money doing that than he would going to a normal job.

That's why they do it. It brings in the dough.

You fail OP. Your reasoning is invalid to expect any kind of regulation of such a level as China IMPOSES on its people in any free thinking country on this planet. Are you forgetting about the oppressive country of which you speak? The one that is responsible for numerous human rights abuses? Did you even put such things through your half brain to process before you vomited out this abomination of a thread?
Of course you didn't.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

[KharnZor]

DV McKenna, on 15 January 2013 - 02:17 AM, said:

Pizza.

[Egomane]

Moving to off-topic.

Someone else did that already.

Edited by Egomane, 15 January 2013 - 02:32 AM.

[The Basilisk]

I think this guy who created this post completely missed the sense of gameing.......
Why do I do computer games ?
To "earn" something ?
To achive something?
To rescue some virtual princess and get some virtual tresure from the dragon I slew when I did some dungeon with my friends ?

HELL NOOOOOOOO !!!!!

People who take this whole earning something with computer games are simply an anoyance nothing more.

I play a game to ....PLAY its like childs play only more sophisticated.

I read some cool Battletech story and got the urge to blow up some mechs.

I read some cool fantasy story and got the urge to play my Draenai Pristress.

I saw a real cool car I never will be able to afford drawing by me on the road and played some Gran Tourismo.

Thats whats gaming is about.

Dreams

Edit wispers:

Virtual death to all Goldsellers, Chinafarmers and professional Gamers. You are dreameaters feasting of the souls of Fantasy.

Edited by The Basilisk, 15 January 2013 - 03:00 AM.

[Solis Obscuri]

If a game isn't fun to play, I don't play it. I have a job, thanks, and I could always put in more hours there if I wanted to try and scrape out a fatter paycheck,

As for MWO, many MMOs do use progression/"achievement" to keep an audience invested in a game over time. It's a useful mechanic, and in fact there's a pretty significant audience who expects that kind of gameplay, and is disappointed without it. In the F2P world, the notion of having "gold farmers" as a shortcut is nonsensical - the publishing company itself offers deals for rapid advancement - so that comparison to Chinese prisoners isn't really relevant anymore.

In fact, this overall rant is kind of an artifact - you are comparing a nation with an (ostensibly) Communist economy and lots of restrictions on individual freedom and recreation to a global economy free of those rules, and assuming that the edicts of the (LoL)Marxist state are inherently a correct manifestation of treating time spent on recreation as wasted labor. This whole rant is an effort to convince us to accept a spurious assumption that our time playing MWO would be better served manufacturing knock-off T-80s to threaten South Korea with invasion instead of grinding efficiencies on ;'mech chassis.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 15 January 2013 - 03:09 AM.

[HorseWithNoName]

If there's going to be any regulation, it should be on the way companies are allowed to structure MMO's pay schemes and how and what they can monetize, not play time.