Muckbeast

I imagine some of you have read a few of the articles from the last year or so where writers try to draw comparisons between raid leading in a game like WoW, and management in the business world. I seem to recall the Wall Street Journal even wrote about it. I must admit, every time I read an article like that it strikes me as a pile of BS. The ONLY place I have ever heard this tripe is in a few scattered articles that could easily have been bought and paid for by Vivendi. I have never read anything of the sort in a respectable business publication (WSJ is respectable, but as a daily it can freely include random garbage articles).

Why Are They Perpetrating This Fraud?

So the question is why? Why further such an absurd claim. I have a theory:

If you can make the repetitive actions in your game feel like they have a real, worthwhile purpose, you can reduce the guilt level people feel about wasting their life in your game. If you can accomplish that goal, people will be less likely to ever decide they are wasting their life in your game and resubscribe. The same thing happens at Wikipedia. Editors think they are contributing to a modern day Library of Alexandria, so you get people who ruin their real lives (don’t go interview for jobs, don’t take care of themselves, etc.) and spend 10-15 hours a day editing articles.

So, what’s my point?

1) As effective as it might be, I think this is an irresponsible way to go for any game developer. Tricking your customers into ruining their lives is unethical.

2) Stop kidding yourselves, people. Leading raids does not actually tranlsate into real business skills, and no employer is ever going to be convinced otherwise.