[WoW] $60 for a 90

In preparation for Warlords of Draenor's release Blizzard has rolled out its new system allowing players to spend $60 US to instantly bump a character to level 90. To put that in perspective, your average triple-A release costs $60 and you spend 1/4 (or so) of that every month just to subscribe. Furthermore, let’s be clear on one other thing, this is no arduous process.  There is no scarcity to this product and Blizzard had near absolute choice in its cost. You are spending $60 to have an automated system change a value in spreadsheet.

"Professionalism" in gaming Part 2, or, "How intensely do you play?"

A week or so ago when I first thought to write this entry and claimed I would I had some ideas in mind about how each player is devoting a different level of time to the game and views their responsibility towards other players differently. Then the other night I was reading a thread on the World of Tanks forum about XVM (a mod that displays player stats in game, letting you see who on your team has a high win rate and a calculated "efficiency rating") and spotted a comment in there about playing to win. It dawned upon me that in a sense everyone (with few exceptions) IS in fact playing to win, but their criteria for winning and the INTENSITY in which they try to win differs and is one of the prime causes of friction between players of differing levels.

Playing for fun v. Playing for competition

The long hiatus is finally over, finals have come to an end and I've a few weeks to enjoy the beak...how wonderfully convenient that it should happen to be right before Diablo 3 releases and I like much of the world will try extremely hard tomorrow to crash Blizzard's servers. However we have a day to kill before it releases! In the meantime I have taken up World of Tanks again after some rumblings in the blogosphere had refreshed my memory of it. However since I last took up the game I've found some new trends within I find unpleasant to deal with; namely the game's insistence on keeping a permanent record of everything done.