My topic this week? Cash money. The stuff you camp spawns, plan raids, and farm low level zones for. It's a pain in the ass to get, and unless you're mad devoted, a duper, or simply smarter than the average bear, chances are you're hard up for it. It's no secret that most of you would rather be playing the game than funding your further excursions into it, and some people have actually built sustainable businesses around this fact. You know, those companies that all the righteous forum-dwellers love to hate on: the virtual money sellers. Whether you need plat, gil, credits, or influence, you can acquire not-so-modest sums of it for real-life cash. The philosophical and ethical questions surrounding these kinds of absurd exchanges are legion. Many scoff at the notion because they've devoted long, hard hours to amassing their in-game wealth, and begrudge those who, as they see it, have taken "the easy way out." Others, posing a little more high-mindedly, cite the detrimental effects that this can have on an in-game economy. Few are the ones who engage in real-to-fake money transfers, and publicly cop to it. Their arguments usually sound something like this: "I have a life, and thus, I don't have time to be spending farming for 10 jillion hours. Having l33t gear allows me to have fun in the game, and I'm going to acquire however I want."
The key to success in any venture, virtual or otherwise.
Where's my stance? Well, I stand somewhere in between. By nature, I kind of resent the "rich kid who can buy his way into anything he wants" attitude. But at the same time, being someone with a demanding day job (despite it involving games), I can sympathize with people who don't have five hours a day to farm rare drops. I'm also not convinced that the economies in these games are too drastically affected by the buying and selling of virtual cash. Unlike duping, all the money that's being transferred was there to begin with; someone generated it somehow, and in these cases, it's simply changing hands. So that argument doesn't hold too much water for me. While the snootier players are bitching and moaning about this kind of behavior, the player with the store-bought fake money is getting into good parties because of her hot gear. And unless she chooses to tell you, chances are you're going to jump at the chance to have her.