4 ms·

Except this has been happening for well over a decade. There are player characters doing (usually very inefficient) moneymaking strategies in most popular MMOs,

by tmpz22 4y ago

Except this has been happening for well over a decade. There are player characters doing (usually very inefficient) moneymaking strategies in most popular MMOs, literally harvesting resources like ore, fish, etc. They then sell this gold online for real money - usually with large overheads like being intermittently banned from the service or having to maintain a subscription for the service. This is prevalent in South America and Asia as a means to supplement or even make a living, for games like World of Warcraft and Runescape.

helen___keller 4y ago
The concept proposed is "pay people in the developing world to be a lifelike NPC", which makes no sense - from the game developers' POV you want to automate the NPC because it's not worth even paying 10 cents an hour for what could be free. Players farming gold or items are fulfilling scarcity for other players, essentially trading on the value differential of labor in the developed versus the developing world. That's something completely different.
- tmpz22 4y ago
  Im all for declaring this a terrible dystopian idea but I do think there is sufficient market demand. My points are: * There is a demand for point and click jobs at extremely low pay rates, whether in developing countries or for aging populations that want employment but are barred from many physical jobs. This provides the supply of workers. * Games print money, so much so that studios and publishers have become investment vehicles and popular acquisition targets. There's a lot of available capital and interest from adjacent industries. * Building successful social games is really hard. Companies are chucking billions between mobile, VR, MMO, and other gaming markets. And IMO for the most part they are completely failing outside of standouts like Rockstar and a handful of others. Seriously I've seen nothing out of the Metaverse for all the investment and backing Facebook has put into it - they could really use SOMETHING to standout with. * Also the activity itself reminds me of renaissance fairs or other re-enactor activities, including Disneyland. So I think its really possible for a startup to kick this idea around, and its possible its implemented in a game where it is successful and sustainable. I think the world becomes a worse place if this is normalized, but that really describes most startups these days.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > The concept proposed is "pay people in the developing world to be a lifelike NPC", which makes no sense Worse: the solution they probably have in mind is to pay those people with cryptocurrency tokens (i.e. worthless company scrip).

by tmpz22 4y ago

helen___keller 4y ago

The concept proposed is "pay people in the developing world to be a lifelike NPC", which makes no sense - from the game developers' POV you want to automate the NPC because it's not worth even paying 10 cents an hour for what could be free. Players farming gold or items are fulfilling scarcity for other players, essentially trading on the value differential of labor in the developed versus the developing world. That's something completely different.

tmpz22 4y ago
Im all for declaring this a terrible dystopian idea but I do think there is sufficient market demand. My points are: * There is a demand for point and click jobs at extremely low pay rates, whether in developing countries or for aging populations that want employment but are barred from many physical jobs. This provides the supply of workers. * Games print money, so much so that studios and publishers have become investment vehicles and popular acquisition targets. There's a lot of available capital and interest from adjacent industries. * Building successful social games is really hard. Companies are chucking billions between mobile, VR, MMO, and other gaming markets. And IMO for the most part they are completely failing outside of standouts like Rockstar and a handful of others. Seriously I've seen nothing out of the Metaverse for all the investment and backing Facebook has put into it - they could really use SOMETHING to standout with. * Also the activity itself reminds me of renaissance fairs or other re-enactor activities, including Disneyland. So I think its really possible for a startup to kick this idea around, and its possible its implemented in a game where it is successful and sustainable. I think the world becomes a worse place if this is normalized, but that really describes most startups these days.
duskwuff 4y ago
> The concept proposed is "pay people in the developing world to be a lifelike NPC", which makes no sense Worse: the solution they probably have in mind is to pay those people with cryptocurrency tokens (i.e. worthless company scrip).