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> Getting paid to party: what is the difference between work and play? |
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| Getting paid to party: what is the difference between work and play? |
Getting paid to party: what is the difference between work and play?
 07-18-2010 03:02 AM
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Source: Micro Task
tl;dr: Work and play: as concepts, they couldn’t be further from each other – right? Today, these two conceptual opposites are increasingly getting mixed up. Korean professional gamers make a living by competing in multiplayer games like StarCraft in front of television audiences of millions. Hundreds of thousands of virtual gold farmers in China, Vietnam and elsewhere are paid an hourly wage to harvest treasures in online games like EverQuest 2. And most recently, companies like CrowdFlower have started to hire gamers and online community members to carry out real chores like categorizing search engine results and verifying links. The catch: these workers are paid in virtual currency... My comments: I agree that work and play is tough to define and really comes down to subjective definitions. From a MMORPG perspective, you are actually playing from the time you start the game until the time the game ends by the traditional play definition. However there are many times in that game that are considered work. When I've killed a monster 100 times and finally get that rare item I want that is fun, but those 90+ times it took for me to kill that monster is work. Of course this is subjective but for the majority who play MMORPGs, I really doubt anyone is having fun after killing the same monster the 5th time without some kind of reward. Really this is no different than athletes and movie stars. I guess these aren't your typical jobs. Maybe that's it. |
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| Tags: | EverQuest games gold farmers Karl Marx StarCraft virtual currency work | ||||||
| DISCUSSION: (Jump To This Thread On The Boards) | |||
| Author | Comment | Date | |
| rpgreseller | My brain just made a sound like a dying whale with a giant gal stone, er boulder.. then it violently exploded akin to the holy trinity of mentos, coke, and epicac at a pie eating contest. WTH?! They got PAID in virtual currency? Paid in virtual currency... Wow. That's.. who would do such a thing? *paces back and forth* Paid... in virtual currency. Well normally I have an opinion about things like this, but this is too far left field. This has orphaned my brain with disbelief and painfully shattered reality. I am dumbfounded. I am now going to go put on my special hat and twirl the propeller on top of it until I come back to my senses. |
07-22-2010 | |
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| TheGameSupply | Haha, don't act like you've not paid anyone in virtual currency Klancy. I know I have, accounts, gold, w/e. That's the plus side of hiring gamers. Although, you hang out with the asians:P so maybe not so much? I think its pretty cool though that a company is doing things that way. Interesting at least no doubt. |
07-22-2010 | |
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| black taru | I've paid people to smn burn my lvls in FFXI. I hate lvling... Its the foremost worst part of any game. |
07-22-2010 | |
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| rpgreseller | I paid back an old room mate with some wow accounts once. But I've never had anything resembling an employee that worked for virtual goods petty cash. That just strikes me as highway robbery. It's an interesting idea. Like if Blizzard came out with a 400% speed flying mount and said, "Sure, you can earn it by being an in game guide to new players, making 30 helpful forum posts per week, and handling 15 guide support tickets per week." - There'd be some people lining up. Same if they offered 500 gold per day for doing the same. That would be worth chump change. But people would go for it. It still hurts my brain to think of someone getting such a low value payout for benefiting a publisher with their time. |
07-22-2010 | |
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| TheGameSupply | If Blizzard did that there would be people stacked to the moon in line to do that. Crazy though that people would work for so cheap. Making me rethink my business plan..... | 07-23-2010 | |
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| brtev | That's similar to Gamestop. GameStop Pays Its Employees In Hidden Fee "Cash Cards" - The Consumerist Oh looks like Gamestop gives you the choice between direct deposit or ATM card. If you pick ATM card, it has all the fees. If you want cash, you have to pay transaction fees. So in a way it's like buying everything with virtual currency. |
07-23-2010 | |
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| rpgreseller | Quote:
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07-23-2010 | |
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| brtev | I'm only interested in social browser games that have a 3rd party market like Facebook Mafia Wars and Poker. | 07-23-2010 | |
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| rpgreseller | Now it's time for a sentence that sounds like an oxymoron: Games that can't be 'farmed' for profit can be quite profitable. e.g. Farmville. Saying anything that sounds like "Only if I can farm it", will make any developer choke on their coffee. |
07-24-2010 | |
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