http://stationexchange.station.sony.com/

It was bound to happen, sooner or later, but it is still shocking to see it materialized. I have never been interested in buying online properties, since I assume that acquiring them in the game is one of the main reasons for playing in the first place. Playing a MMO has to be fun in itself, but as we know already, fun is a dish with many ingredients.

So, rather than find my own stance among all the moral, ethical, emotional, rational debates about the meaning of this, I’ll be realistic about my assumptions, and simply sit back and see what happens. It’s possible that future MMO’s will lean in this direction, in which case I’ll likely stop playing them. Or it may be that it remains a relatively minor side within these virtual worlds.

As a quick aside, it’s fun to see Scott Miller’s blog be updated a lot less frequently since he started “checking” World Of Warcraft. I find it hard to refrain from bragging about how slowly my chars are leveling up in WoW, an odd reversal of the classic “uber e-peen contests” so typical among MMO players.