WoW Unethical?

Independent game designer Johnathan Blow has an interesting opinion. I heartily agree.

Mr. Blow says:

"It's considered best practice: schedule rewards for your player so that they don't get bored and give up on your game. That's actually exploitation."

He feels that games like World of Warcraft string players along with minor rewards through terrible game play. He feels this exploits the player - who is paying for this after all.

This is true. If I were approached by a GM who told me he wanted me to run around collecting leather and animal body parts to get random minor upgrades to my character - I would politely excuse myself and run for the horizon! Yet, I pay $15 a month to sit in front of my computer and do just that.

Early on in RPGs, this problem was encountered and, in my opinion, conquered. Players complained that games were basically running around a dungeon, killing monsters, taking their stuff and gaining levels. This was handled by making games more complex. Giving players more options. Opening up new game worlds like horror, sci-fi, espionage, etc. also gave depth to player options. Now, a game is as simple or as complex as a GM and players want it to be. It can be simple hack and slash, high fantasy, galaxy spanning space opera or anything else players desire.

Massively Multi-player games need to take a page from RPGs. Current schemes will work for a while, but gamers will get bored. Game designers who add new ways to play to their games will attract players who are bored with other games. This happened in the RPG world. Dungeons and Dragons was called boring more than once. Other games flourished from players looking for something new and different. D&D survived as a property to this day by updating their structure, broadening the game's scope and building a strong community. Today, D&D is a leader in the gaming world.

WoW will need to find new ways for gamers to play if they want to remain on the market. Constantly bumping up the level cap will only work for so long. I am already seeing chinks in the armor - Blizzard is now offering free play time to players who bring other players back to the game.

Blizzard is making in-roads to building new ways to play and form community. They have just released a patch to allow voice chat, thus improving the social aspect of the game. The next major release will add new game features.

However, I don't feel this is enough. Blizzard needs to add depth to the game. Find ways to have more player driven adventure - perhaps allowing individual players hire NPCs to raid local towns. Allowing players to build farms and other buildings. Allow players to set up shops in unused buildings. Allowing players to play more than a handful of races, classes and professions. I feel they need to do this sooner rather than later.

As an example, I have found a flash game that allowed a player to play a Murloc in a very WoW-like environment. After playing that - I wanted to connect to WoW and set up a mighty Murloc warrior!

WoW and the MassMOG world are in their infancy. They will go through the same or similar growing pains as the RPG industry has experienced. My hope is that someday, Massively Multi-player games will be as rich and deep as any current table top RPG. This way, I will be able to stop writing for my friends and just play!