Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game - Nakamura

This article was interesting to read, for sure. As I'm sure I've said before, I don't play video games like World of Warcraft, nor do I particularly find it interesting, so much of this article went over my head. One of the things I liked, however, was the abstract at the beginning of the article. It helped to give me a deeper idea of what I should do with my abstract, once I weave my paper together. It was very clear and concise as to the main points, and I hope I'll be able to do that with my own abstract.

I knew people cheated in video games (as my brothers have always been video gamers) and sought out cheat codes. What I didn't know was that people were making money from selling aspects of the game. I found this really interesting. Nakamura called it real-money trading. First off, I fail to see how anyone could be so addicted to a virtual game that they would be willing to spend money to level themselves up or further themselves in the game. To me, that just seems like a waste of money and like it would take some of the fun away from actually playing the game. I wouldn't want to be seen as a "good" or "high" player without having earned it.

This article largely talked about race, however. It talked a lot about gold-farmers and Chinese. One quote I liked particularly well was "calling someone 'Chinese' is a general insult that seems aimed more at one's style of play than one's real-world ethnicity". This sounded like (excuse me for the reference) Tech students driving behind someone and saying, 'they're a bad driver, they must be Asian'. Similar to the video game world, you have no way of knowing who is in the car unless you physically pass them. In the video game world, you can't ever actually see the person. It seems as though people are putting race into a situation that can't really be categorized by race.

The article also mentioned people that other players assumed to be gold farmers and noted that the other players try to kill or harm that person, for no cause other than they MIGHT be a gold farmer. This is really interesting to me because (and maybe I would know more of the patterns if I were a player) how would anyone be able to make that judgement and assume that a player is Chinese? The International Gaming Exchange is mentioned as being American in this article and as being "one of the largest re-sellers of gold, avatar level-ups, and other virtual property", yet the Chinese are still taking all the blame. It's mind boggling to me.

The article also mentioned that the avatar of a female dwarf has been associated with Chinese gold farmers, and now is "unplayable" as a character because of the way other players view them.This is interesting to me for several reasons. If I were to join WOW and decide I like the female dwarf the best, how would I know that puts a target on my back as being a Chinese gold farmer? I wouldn't. I would then be playing and other players may be extra wary or violent to me for that reason. Also, the fact that enough gold farmers assumed this avatar to make it "unplayable" is incredible to me. I'm not sure how many avatars there are, but I would think there would be enough for the gold farmers to spread out and choose other avatars as well.