Home » Games News » We like freedom of expression
As humans, we strive to get ahead. We seek reward in all things, even if it is intangible, like happiness. We like freedom of expression. We gather material goods. We create things.
We find satisfaction in accomplishment and ownership. These are simple truths about humanity. Is it any surprise that gamers bring these proclivities to online games? And is not it a good thing that they do? After all, these are the tendencies that make us passionate about our likes and dislikes, and drive where we spend our time and Wizard101 online gold.
I enjoy the many creative and humorous guild and character names. So, who owns them? The players who created them or the game publisher? Who owns the player's in-game reputation, their legend of accomplishments? Who owns an in-game friends list?
RMT may, in fact, be crucial to the long term success of online role playing games. Generally speaking, these games require players to invest significant amounts of time in the game in order to progress. This is good for the companies that sell the games.
They benefit in two ways; it takes the player longer to churn through the existing game content (from the publisher's perspective it is expensive to create new content so slow usage is good), and since they sell you usage based on a monthly subscription model, again, slow is good (you subscribe for a longer period of time).