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Special Sections: Shadowbane Related
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Lawsuits Abound - Kalfear (09-22-00)
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Note: This Article originally appeared on our Shadowbane Affiliate Site, Aerynth Atheneaum
Well well well, seems the gaming industry is once again involved in a legal battle. This time its none other then the volunter staff themselves! Yes the guides, moderators, and one would have to guess the GMs, are sueing Origin. Why? Well I guess we could quote the official line of practices against the US labor laws. But my guess is its nothing so honorale or clean cut, my guess is its the loss of free accounts and maybe (hopefully) more accountability!
Dont get me wrong here, personally seeing Origin (or Verrant for that matter) take a serious hit to their arrogant way of doing bussiness would be a welcome breath of fresh air. For so long these companies have failed out right with anything even remotely related to customer service. These volunters did nothing to help the matter. Lossing the modern day version of guides and online staff for employed replacements accountable to the company and monitored by the company would be a welcome change in my eyes. Gone would be the self rightious attitudes of these "players" and replaced with a new feeling of "see! you DO have to support your game after its made".
Basically I think its a win win situation for long time players.
However, it is not a winning situation for newer players. If anyone thinks (assuming the suit wins) the companies will just roll over and accept the loss, they have another thing coming. If this suit wins, expect monthly charges to increase (I'm guessing 20.00 to 30.00/month) for what we use to pay 10.00/month for. Oh the companies can afford these changes with out the raise to be sure. Origin boosts of 100k subscriptions, EQ boosts of around 200k subscriptions, thats 1 million to 2 million in monthly subscriptions and doesnt even address the original profit for the box itself. Not having any idea about the costs involved to run the games I feel pretty safe in assuming these companies make a very very nice profit margin on the game.
Older players remember paying massive amounts per month for the right to play. While I dont think you will find one person who would ever go back to that style of payments, I do think a $10.00/month increase would be tolerated (not liked or welcomed). Also with this comes the memory of when America Online switched from hourly billing to a flat monthly fee. That day was pretty much the demise of on line communities in my opinion. Before then the community was set, everyone knew everyone (or there abouts), when the gates opened to flat monthly billing in rushed new players intent on making their mark anyway they could. This weakened the community, watered it down so to speak. Other games that followed all seem to have the same problem. While you have a 30% maybe 40% base of players who interact (be it through rp, pvp, events, etc) the remainder are just there. They dont add anything really, they are just there.
Alot of these "just there" people would disappear with a monthly increase in billing. Is it a loss? Does it matter? Well I guess its all the way you look at it. For me I wouldnt really miss them and it would open up space in any given world. (case in point) I once travelled with a person who didnt speak a word for 2 straight hours, all he did was kill things (thank god for EQ guild chat that day). Sure its his right to play like that, just as its his guilds right to all go anon and refuse to aknowledge anyone under level 40. But to me (and this is personal opinion here) Id rather not run into those people. There is a difference between online and multiplayer games.
But back to main point. I think that most interesting thing that will come out of these law suits against AOL and Origin will not be how they react to them but how upcoming games like Shadowbane react to the information. Its my hope that "all" new games look at this and avoid the problem from the get go, hire actual support staff for in and out of game, and let players be exactly that, players! Let players develop their worlds attitudes and reputations. And above all else, allow each player EQUAL (and that word says it all as to why im against player guides and gms) oppertunities to build their community and reputations.
PS: Anyone who thinks this jumping the gun need only look toward EQ who is now already asking their customers if they would pay $49.95/month for less populated servers with better customer support! That question by them just didnt happen to appear by chance!
Kalfear
COR Elder
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