Two controversial comments I wrote over at Raph’s blog about RMT, money vs. investment of time and the problem of the accessibility and processes of inclusion.

Disclaimer: To those quoted, I used those quotes as an excuse for context, not because I want to paint those who wrote them in a certain position.

The title is obviously a provocation.

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Allen Sligar: As far as MMO players go, the demographic is a broad one. Some players have more money than time, some more time than money. Arguments premised on what is “fair” from either side are from the POV of investment of money vs. investment of time.

Like if the main reason why someone plays is to “invest”. On what? Two, three years later he will probably abandon the game anyway or the game and character not being there anymore.

One is supposed to play a game because it’s an interesting and fun experience to be had. Like if you read a book because you are interested on it.

Of course this requires time. Everything requires time. If you have no time, then you cannot play a game and enjoy it. The “time” isn’t a currency, the time is just what is absolutely necessary for you to enjoy something. If you don’t have two hours you cannot go in a movie theater to enjoy the movie.

So the point isn’t about *time*. Because if you play a game then it’s absolutely sure that you have time for it. The point is just about if you can have fun for the time you can dedicate to the game.

RMT is an exploit to leech money, not a scheme that leads to better games.

RMT devalues games. I don’t say that the model cannot or shouldn’t be used, I’m saying that those games will suck.

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Michael Chui: RMT is delusory when it confers status normally gained through experience. It is reinforced by game designs where player skill matters very little, and thus the ownership of accounts or their contents typically means equally little, whereas their transfer has great value.

And I also disagree with this because I don’t think that mmorpgs should require “skill”.

The content is there to be enjoyed. The basic requirement is that you want your game to TEACH skill, not to discriminate players on it. If a game fails to teach, then it’s a game’s failure, not player’s failure. A game isn’t a good one if people with “no skill” cannot play and cannot advance in any way. There should be no skill required to enjoy a good story and participate in it.

A virtual world should strive for that ideal. People have different skill sets. A virtual world should give home and deliver fun to everyone, not to the most skilled. Everyone will then contribute with what he can. But there shouldn’t be processes of selection, distinctions of merit and so on. There shouldn’t be “premium” players who can enjoy the game more because they are more skilled.

Of course there should be “challenge” in a game for it to be fun. But the challenge shouldn’t be a way to tell skilled players from not skilled ones, it should be instead something that *everyone* can overcome. Because that’s the DUTY of a game: make everyone succeed.

The best game isn’t the one where a x% of the total players fails while another x% succeeds, because, again, the purpose is to present challenge and then offer all the conditions for that challenge to be overcome by everyone. So a game where the TOTALITY of the players are included, instead of discriminated or selected.

The objection is that in current games the challenge is just about perseveration and time invested. This is obviously not a good model because that’s not real challenge and that’s not what I’m wishing. That’s a devaluation of “skill” and it leads to empty games.

It is possible to preserve challenge and skill in a game, but again not with the purpose to discriminate the players and exclude some of them. Guides, tutorials, HowTos… There are plenty of ways on the internet to overcome the difficulty of a game. Asking other players, creating bonds and have more experienced players helping you and answering your questions are very good ways not TO REMOVE the challenge in a game, but to make it accessible. Instead of a exclusive selection, it’s an acquisition of competence.

There’s one absolute principle about games and virtual worlds: they should be accessible to the largest group of people possible.

I do not want any discrimination about skill, nor discrimination about the wealth of a player in RL.

Of course a 100% success rate is not realistically achievable. But that’s what an ideal is about. The ideal just means that I design games with that goal, having that goal always present. To strive for it even if it’s not possible to fulfill it completely. With the difference that who is still left out, wasn’t left out BY PURPOSE.