People are meeting online to explore new worlds together
At the end of another tough day of fighting and questing in World of Warcraft, some players have wearied of looting by “gold farmers” in the online computer game's virtual world.
“I hate those damn farmers, they harass the hell outta anyone near them,” says Thundersnow on an online message board. “I was going for a chest in a Dragonkin camp yesterday took out two elite Dragonkin (and nearly got killed) only to see one of those bastards take my chest..”
Gold farmers reap the game's rewards through endless hours of skulking and pillaging online. They then trade the game's virtual gold before auctioning this on eBay, the auction website, for real American dollars. US players are the buyers the gold allows them to acquire new weapons and armour without having to do the hard work of hours of online competition.
In a country where software piracy is rife, the ruse is the latest manifestation of Chinese gamers' ability to cheat the manufacturers out of the fruits of their success
This convergence of virtual and real-world economies is proving so profitable for Chinese players that Blizzard was forced to close more than 1,000 gold farmers' accounts in March to try to stamp out a practice it views as undermining the gameplay and its product.
WoW, launched last November by developer Blizzard Entertainment, has become a phenomenal worldwide success. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) one of a genre that allows players to take on the roles of mythical characters as they explore virtual worlds sold a record 280,000 copies within 24 hours of its release in Europe and has signed up more than 1.5m online subscribers around the world.
In a bid to become the first company to profit from the success of its game in China, and even the score with the cheats, the Blizzard empire struck back again last month with the launch of a Chinese version of World of Warcraft with users having to pre-pay or subscribe to play an ever-changing online game. “There haven't been any western games that have been successful in China,” says Mike Morhaime, Blizzard president and co-founder, “This would be the first.”
“With World of Warcraft you have to connect to our servers and, all of a sudden, you are back to being able to charge people and eliminating piracy.”
Early reports suggest nearly 2m people signed up at launch to play the game for free before the Chinese subscription wall goes up in a couple of months.
In the US, software for the game costs about $50 and subscriptions to play online are $15 a month. This revenue boost from unit sales and the healthy recurring income contributed to Blizzard's troubled parent, Vivendi Universal, returning to profitability last month.
But it was bad news for the rest of the games warlords. Issuing a profit warning in March, Larry Probst, chief executive of the biggest games publisher, Electronic Arts, said everybody in the industry had been surprised by the number of subscribers acquired and how much time people were spending online to the extent that they were not buying as many console games.
“There are some people [in my office] that haven't played games in a number of years that are spending 20 hours a week on Warcraft.” Analysts wonder whether a game, whose savage Orc fighters and mythical land of Azeroth appeal to Lord of the Rings fans, can sustain success over a long period.
“The proof. . . will be if you check back in a year's time and if it's still got more than 500,000 subscribers, then it will be one of the most successful games ever,” says Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Mr Morhaime says players range from four-year-olds to pensioners and their interest is held by constant online updates from developers, with the additions of new adventures, lands to explore and monsters to slay.
“It's very immersive,” says one player,known as Eghed the Elf, who has tamed a pet bear he calls Fatarse.
“All the most addictive games have a ‘just-5-more-minutes' quality there is always another reward lurking round the corner and this creates a constant sense of achievement.”
The community that has been created, with more than half a million people roaming these virtual worlds at peak periods, is also a key to Warcraft's success.
“With broadband, and the game running in real time, there's a whole new social aspect that didn't really exist before,” says Mike Morhaime. “People are meeting up online, making friends and exploring new worlds together.”
在魔兽世界中游戏
在“魔兽世界”（World of Warcraft）中又经历了一天艰苦战斗和探险后，一些游戏玩家已对网络游戏虚拟世界中淘宝手(“gold farmer”)的掠夺行为感到厌烦了。
“我痛恨这些该死的淘宝手，他们的魔爪不会放过身边的任何一个人，”一个名叫“雷雪”(Thundersnow)的人在留言板上说，“昨天，我去Dragonkin营地去找一个宝盒。我出动了两个主力Dragonkin，中间几乎丧命，不料竟看到一个淘宝手将我的宝盒据为己有。”
这些淘宝手长时间在网上潜伏，掠夺游戏的奖励，然后把游戏的虚拟金币拿到拍卖网站eBay上拍卖，换取真正的美元。买主是美国的游戏玩家，金币能让他们获得新的武器和装甲，绕开数小时艰辛的网上竞争。
这种诡计表明，在软件盗版猖獗的国家，比如中国，玩家有“能力”把软件生产商的成功果实骗走。
对中国玩家来说，虚拟经济和现实经济的交汇非常有利可图。今年3月，暴雪公司(Blizzard)被迫封停1000多个涉嫌现金交易的玩家帐户，试图消灭这种被它视为破坏游戏和产品的行为。
去年11月，由开发商暴雪娱乐推出的“魔兽世界”(WoW)在全球范围内取得了非凡的成功。这种“大型多人网络角色扮演游戏”(MMORPG)是网络游戏的一种，能让玩家在虚拟世界探险中扮演各种神话角色。这一游戏在欧洲发行后的24小时内即售出28万张拷贝，创下历史纪录，而且全球注册用户突破150万名。
为率先在中国游戏业赢得成功，获取利润，同时终结欺骗行为，暴雪王国上月再度重拳出击――推出“魔兽世界”的中文版。中文版用户必须预先付费或注册，才能参加不断变化的网络游戏。”“还从来没有一个西方国家的游戏在中国如此成功，”暴雪公司的总裁和共同创始人迈克?莫海姆(Mike Morhaime)说，“我们这是首开先河。”
“要进入‘魔兽世界’，你必须连接到我们的服务器上。突然之间，我们不但能向用户收费，还能消除盗版现象。”
早期报告称，该游戏一经推出，几乎有200万人注册免费游戏。两三个月后，这些中国用户需正式注册才能继续玩。
在美国，游戏软件的价格约为50美元，网上游戏的注册费为每月15美元。由于这些软件销售收入和健康的经常性收入，暴雪的母公司维旺迪环球（Vivendi Universal）上月恢复了盈利，而此前维旺迪还在苦苦挣扎
但是，这对于其它游戏大亨来说则是一个坏消息。今年3月，最大的游戏发行商艺电(Electronic Arts)的首席执行官拉里?普罗斯特(Larry Probst)发布了利润警告，并称行业中的每个人对于已有注册用户的数量之众，和人们花在网上的时间之多表示惊讶。网游的兴盛，导致用户不再去买控制器操作的电玩游戏了。
”(在我们办公室里)有些人许多年没玩游戏了，现在却每周花20小时在‘魔兽世界’上。”游戏上凶猛的半兽人战士和艾泽拉斯(Azeroth)神话大陆，吸引着《指环王》迷们。分析师想知道，这些游戏的成功能否长期维持下去。
“要证明这一点，得等上一年时间。到了那时，如果它仍有50多万注册用户，那么这将是有史以来最成功的游戏，”来自Wedbush摩根证券(Wedbush Morgan Securities)的迈克尔?帕特(Michael Pachter)说。
莫海姆先生说，玩家的分布从四岁的小孩到退休人员不等。开发商不断进行网上更新，新增冒险内容、探索地带和让人屠杀的怪物，这些手段维持着玩家的兴趣。
“这很让人沉醉，”一位名叫Eghed the Elf的玩家说。他驯服了一只宠物熊，并给它取名Fatarse。
“所有最使人上瘾的游戏都具备‘再玩5分钟就成了’的特质，总有什么别的奖赏就在不远处，这创造了一种持续的成就感。”
在这个游戏社区中，高峰期内有50多万人徜徉在虚拟的世界中，这也是“魔兽世界”成功的秘诀。
“由于宽带的使用和网络游戏的实时性，一种前所未有的社交新方式出现了，”迈克尔?莫海姆说，“人们在网上相遇，结交朋友，并一起探索新的世界。”
