3 ms·

It probably is widely known. To give an example of my naïvite, I saw a banner ad for some MMORG featuring a scantily clad woman. I was sure this portented evil

It probably is widely known. To give an example of my naïvite, I saw a banner ad for some MMORG featuring a scantily clad woman. I was sure this portented evil doings, and I was curious as to whether clicking it would lead to Windows Malware, a scam dating site, what... So I googled the name of the game and sure enough Wikipedia had an article full of innuendo about their advertising and blogspam practices. I then read that they had been connected with a large Chinese gold farming operation, which led me to wonder whether their business model was to give the game away for free but make money on farming gold out to new players, thus an emphasis on attracting newcomers rather than retaining experienced gamers.

potatolicious 17y ago
Ah yes, you are probably talking about Evony, the armpit of MMORPGs :P Fine purveyors of questionability. It's not just shady Chinese MMOs though, even Sony is now getting into the game of cheap-or-free subscription with a focus on farming virtual items out for hard cash. This seems to have been the direction that the industry has been moving in, though the phenomenon so far has been limited to MMOs of questionable quality to begin with :) Blizzard/WoW is also in on this, but in a far less shady way - they're selling items that are largely cosmetic, the online game equivalent of vanity plates basically. The impact on gameplay and other players is fairly limited - whereas free purchase of game currency does Bad Things(tm) like drive hyperinflation.