IGE On Why Power-Leveling Is Like Day Care

simoniker writes "In a rare interview with the COO of MMO item-selling giant IGE at Gamasutra, topics discussed include the ownership of in-game items, why gold selling can be a "great business opportunity" for Chinese suppliers, and why power-leveling (paying other players to increase your character stats) is something IGE will be moving into." From the article: "Clarke also noted that, in pure economic terms, paying people to level your character is 'a market which tends toward commoditization.' Of course, those handing over their character have 'a high degree of sensitivity' to what's happening to their virtual avatar — the COO quipped: 'It's almost like day care... you'd be amazed how much they check in.'"

Comments

Just enjoy the ride

[black6host]

I don't understand why folks don't just enjoy leveling up. It's part of the fun. Power leveling is like wishing your life away. It's not like the developers put all the good stuff in at the higher levels and just offer garbage in the beginning...

Re:Just enjoy the ride

[C0rinthian]

I'd agree with you if it's your first character in a game. However if it's a re-roll then the levelling process can be VERY tedious. I've gone through the barrens on 3 characters in WoW, and I'd be happy to NEVER do that again. I don't agree with power-levelling, but I can understand the desire to let someone else do the grunt work for you...

Re:Just enjoy the ride

[linuxkrn]

It depends on the game.

I do droks runs in guild wars for a few reasons. I've not only been the runner, but been ran by others myself. In guild wars the lvl cap is 20. You are free to change your secondary class as much as you want. But you cannot change your primary class. This means there are several other builds you could try out. However, before Factions, it took a very long time to get where the good stuff was. Droks armor is highest in stats (not best skin/but AC rating), plus the skills trader has more advanced skills.

If you've already played the game through say 4-5 times then doing it again and again for each new character type is boring and painful.

And before factions, we were limited to 4 characters per account. Which meant you had to delete your old ones before trying out different classes. Guild wars isn't a level grinder like most other RPG games. After you hit 20, that's it. You just focus on better skill combos and different areas. Why make the players go through the entire noob areas again?

If you look at factions, this is what the game devs did. They made it so you can level up to 20 in two days with 3000+ XP quests. In GW1 it took week(s) at 250-500XP per quest.

And finally, running is a quick, not always easy, way to make some money. They have nerfed all the good farming areas and made it so money is much harder to aquire. Granted green/gold drops help, it's a pain trying to do player-player trades. In one droks run I make 10-15k in 35 minutes. When a full suite of nice looking (15k) armor cost me 150k it's still hard work.

And if you're wondering, playing with skills and builds is what it's all about. I just got my ele to do 2,672 damage in one spell hit. (4x-668 damage to lvl 5 guys). =)
http://www.linuxlogin.com/public/2672damage.jpg
BTW, that's wine 0.9.19 running a test this morning. Why health bars overlap.

Re:Just enjoy the ride

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood this mentality. If the game isn't any fun, don't play it and do something that is fun instead. Basically, if one thinks a game is the most dull, repetitive time sink ever (which a lot of them are) maybe paying a monthly fee to pay someone else to do the "work" is a horrible waste of money. By paying someone to powerlevel a character, the power-levelee is just admitting they've fallen victim to an enormous bait and switch: the odd concept of "end-game." The really mind-numbing thing is that the end-game is almost always just more and more grinding! People are paying a monthly fee to pay someone else to level a character only to do the same thing all over in the end-game. Stupid consumerism, yay!

I play an MMO that is notorious for it's lack of end-game (City of Heroes). I play it because I enjoy it (a concept apparently foreign to many-a-player), not to prove anything to anyone, gloat about my uber-high level characters, or make money in some zany e-bay scheme. The entire concept of games being fun is lost on a large portion of the MMO community because they're too competitive to realise they aren't having any fun (or even playing the game, I guess).

Re:Just enjoy the ride

[brkello]

Usually it is enjoyable the first time up. After that it becomes very tedious. Not that I would ever pay for this service, but I can understand why people would do it.

"Day care" attitude not surprising

[Parallax Blue]

People who use power-leveling services are in somewhat of a quandry: on one hand, they want to be the best (even if it means hiring someone to do all the work for them) but on the other hand they're worried about being ripped off (understandably) and losing their character/avatar/items/gold etc. Basically, their desire to be the best is at war with their obsession over the game and how horrible it would be to lose stuff due to a scam.

Then there's the amount of money invested in the service, which is usually a couple hundred dollars. Combine those two and it's not surprising to hear that they check in often.

-Parallax

I'm just going to say it.

[GundamFan]

Gold farming, loot farming and power leveling suck the fun out of all MMOs. I don't care if someone is making a living off of it, I don't care if it is so commonplace that most players accept it and even use these services and I don't care if you think I am being snooty. Don't sit there and whine about a broken economy... DEMAND that it be fixed!

Re:I'm just going to say it.

[SatanicPuppy]

That's got nothing to do with the game economy, that has to do with the real economy.

How do you plan on fixing that?

Right observation, wrong motivation

[Dachannien]

It's almost like day care... you'd be amazed how much they check in.

He makes it sound like people are checking in because they love their characters like they love their kids. I think a more accurate assessment is that they're checking in to make sure they aren't getting ripped off.

look, I'm not that old...

[acvh]

but I have no idea what you just said.

Clarification

[Soul-Burn666]

Powerleveling isn't necessarily paying someone else to buff your stats, but rather using "unlimited resources" to gain exp and thus levels faster.
For example, to buy a load of mana potions to be able to spam your strongest spells early on and repeatedly, at prohibitive costs for a standard character of that level.
Some people make calculations as to the exact best way to level, "normally" and by powerleveling. Knowing which mob has a good respawn rate compared to how much time it takes to kill it compared to how much exp you gain from it.

Surely sometimes the fastest way to level includes different players who party with you so you get some of their earned exp.

The point still stands that games that force you to grind are probably not that fun, but rather just addictive.

Re:Want to stop gold farming and powerleveling?

[brkello]

Congratulations, you have just created a game that no one would want to play! There are games that exist that require skill to play...they are called FPS. We are talking MMORPG...and WoW actually does do a very good job of making it so that farmers aren't really a big deal. The best drops are things that you can only get when you are in a group with other people running instances. You can not sell these things so they are meaningless to the economy. These items are much better than things you can purchase. People still buy gold because they like a shortcut. And even in FPS, people use cheats to get ahead. In your game they would just get a program that recorded mouse movements so that they could create the runes with a single click thus removing all skill from the game other that the small amount of strategy left (which will already be figured out what is the best thing to do and probably be scripted).

There is only one way to curtail (and that is the best you can do) gold farming/selling greatly. And that is to ban the people who BUY the gold. The gold sellers will always come back with new characters to sell gold. But if their market is too afraid to buy because they will be banned, then they can't make a profit and go find something else to do.