Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Apocalypse Near: U.S. Outsources Pleasure

Hey, we can have a long discussion on the relevant merits or demerits of outsourcing manufacturing to China. But what caught my eye is this International Herald Tribune article. Seems U.S. gamers are outsourcing pleasure. Call it gamers skipping the foreplay, if you will.

By allowing Chinese gamers to play endless hours at lower game levels, rich, time-challenged players can buy with real cash the accumulated wealth and power of the Chinese-made game avatars.

The obvious outcome in this capitalistic world is simple to deduce: game companies will split their products into multiple skill levels, at dramatically increasing prices. That locks out the Chinese-slave game labor and moves the profits to the IP producers. Want to jump in at level 50? That will be $500 plus the $50 normal game price.

The obvious question is whatever happened to hard work and perseverance?

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