Moral Obligations and MMOs

So forcing a serial killer to abstain from murdering people is bad?

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Dependant on culture, victim and so on, it could be considered so.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

"Hi mr Shopkeeper, how much for the doodad in the window?"

"That is one of many Fun Prizes™ you can win in our shop's new Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! Tickets are just $1, every ticket is a winner!"

"So I have to gamble to get the thing I want?"

"Absolutely not, sir. Every ticket in the Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™ gives you one of hundreds of Fun Prizes™ of a $1 value or more. It is most definitely not gambling in any legal definition of the term."

"I just want the one thing. I don't want any of your other items."

"There is no limit on individual participation in the Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! If you don't enjoy your Fun Prize™ you can feel free to try again!"

"So basically I can keep giving you money and wind up with large amounts of junk I don't want, and possibly not even get the one thing I do want, or I can just give up on getting the thing I want?"

"We hope you enjoy our Happy Funtime Fund Raising Game™! We look forward to bringing you many more shopping-enhancing experiences in the future!"

"Damnit, you're just trying to get me to pay more money than I intended, one dollar at a time!"

"Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

"I don't even want the stupid thing anymore. I'm leaving."

"Thank you for visitng us, sir! Have a Lovely Day™!"

Yeah, it's not gambling. It's still annoying.

Only because, in the example you gave, the guy only wanted that one item.
If someone came into the shop wanting any of the items, such a system would be good fun and a nice saving.

So the shop would do well to also sell the items independently, maybe at a higher price, right? Not everyone wants "something cool for $1". Some people just want a certain thing at a known price.

Except that isn't even close to what's happening with the super packs. First, the exclusive items in the packs aren't presented to the players intermixed with other items, and only upon the player asking about it is it then revealed its not for sale directly. That item isn't presented for sale at all. Your example presents the situation as the player being totally surprised by the store's refusal to sell the item just like all others.

Second, Paragon Studios isn't saying the offer is or is not gambling in the colloquial sense. They are not arguing with the customer. You're presented with an opportunity to participate or not. If you choose not to, you choose not to. If you demand to see someone to argue with them about the system, all the store officially tells you is they will explain again how it works.

This sort of thing happens all the time: raffles, for example. And yes, some people flip out at raffles also. And when that happens, the people who run the raffles tend to politely explain that the raffle is there for the people who enjoy raffles, and they are not required to participate.

If you do not want to participate, the option to not participate is there. Its not there accidentally. The entire purpose of the store is to present *optional* features to the players to purchase or not purchase voluntarily. They do not expect people to buy everything, and they do not expect the only reason for players to not buy everything is that they run out of money. They expect some players will not like some of the things offered. When that happens, they *want* you to not buy them.


As to demanding to buy the item when its only offered in the raffle? If you believe your depiction is fair, I would say its equally fair to say your demand is comparable to going into a store and demanding that the store open a box and sell you the one thing in it you want, and leave the rest behind, because you feel you should decide the precise manner in which things are sold. Bundling is, after all, just another way for stores to get you to spend more than you need to.


Its one thing to comment on the details: I think the Black Wolf is too rare a card myself. But to say the superpacks are bad *in principle* because the specific principle being violated is "not letting me buy what I want the way I want, directly, without spending more than the minimum possible amount of money" I wonder sometimes to what degree those principles exist outside of this setting. Taken to their logical conclusion, that would make someone almost non-functional in most of the industrialized world.

No, not necessarily.
Super packs purchasers are not a dichotomy between people who will buy X lots of the packs no matter what and people who won't buy any at all.

There are people who will buy some anyway, but would be encouraged to buy extra if there are exclusives items in the packs as well.

Arcanaville put it better than me in the thread on the beta forums:

If someone learns of the Elemental Order costume set first (say, by seeing one of the pieces on another character's costume), the fact that there isn't a single deterministic way of getting that particular piece, such as exist for every other costume piece in the game, is a surprise.

I just wanted to make it clear that I don't believe the packs are gambling, and my opposition to them has nothing to do with whether or not they are. If you want just one thing, it *feels* like you need to gamble.

Somehow I have been extremely lucky. I've never gone grocery shopping and found one of the items on my shopping list was only available if I bought the "random five products from the entire store" special.

The items in the packs aren't food, they're entertainment.
Food almost never comes exclusively in packs with other items but, as I say, these are not food. There are many examples of entertainment products coming in exclusive bundles, sometimes they're deterministic bundles and other times they're random. The closest example being trading card games.

Now I'd guess that your shopping list, like most people's, consists primarily of food and other necessities. So, no, you're not particularly lucky to have not come across things on your list coming in random packs, but that doesn't change the point that was being made in the slightest.

Are you saying you only grocery shop, or you always find yourself in a situation where you are allowed to buy what you want, and only what you want, in the specific manner you want?

That would make that society evil then.

Either that, or the item I want is simply not available. I have never had to deal with merchants putting elaborate systems between me and the items I want.

See, here's the thing. You go to the midway to play games. You don't go there with the express purpose of getting a stuffed elephant. The stuffed elephant is nice to get, but just a little bonus extra.

Since the midway wants yo to be entratained, they don't put blocks between you and the things you want to be entertained by. You can play the games you want, the ones you're good at, or the ones you enjoy. You don't give them money to be randomly directed to the dart-tossing or the basketball dunking or or the bouncy castle.

CoH makes a big deal out of its costume creation, and I've always assumed that was supposed to be a major draw. I give them money, they let me create heroes, and run around with those heroes and fight crime. I give them more money and they give me additional clothing and powersets to use in creating my heroes.

Now they want me to give them money for... the fun of turning over several mystery cards, apparently. And if I get a costume piece that I'd really like on my hero, then that's a nice bonus, but not really what I'm there for. And if I would like to avoid paying for the amusing little cards, then I will have to forget about getting that new stuff for my hero. Or I can swallow my pride and pour my money into the card-turning-over minigame, and hope the Sunken Cost Fallacy doesn't kick in. Either way, it leaves a sour taste.

I don't like this. There is a new game on top of my old game, it is treated as more important than the old game, and it is causing me to make unpleasant choices that I have never had to make before.

No, I think the point is that when someone is forced to act a certain way, it's not an issue of that person's morals. Morals imply free will.

Show me where I can buy a bag of just grape Jolly Ranchers, and I'll accept your point.

While I won't go into why I'm like that, you have hit upon one of my little mental hangups. That's part of the reason I'm asking such a question.

You got it, and put it better than I did. Thank you.

Now, I wasn't going to talk directly about the packs here, but I've been thinking about it and I find that my views on the packs have actually landed in the area of my origional question.

• I think the packs are bad for the game in the long run.
• I think the packs are bad for the players of the game in the long run.
• I want the costume (and pet, but let's be reasonable) in the packs.
• I will actually use the extra stuff in the packs (ESPECALLY the upgraded Team Inspirations).

Naturally, I'm a bit torn. I want to change what I've said before and go ahead and buy the packs to get what I want, but I can't help but feel it's a Bad Thing to do so. It's an unplesant choice.

No it isn't.
To the developers, this is just an aside for now. Sure, if they sell 10 times better than anything before them, they might give the packs greater focus, but as things stand, they're just another item being added to the store soon, along with many other items. Yeah, the packs are probably getting more developer time than any other upcoming store item, but they're not getting more than the other items together, and certainly not more than the game as a whole or the upcoming Issue 22.

All the importance of these packs has been given by the players, not the developers. They're the ones making them into a big deal.

Good for you. Others haven't been so lucky.
I, for one, haven't ever had the inclination to farm iTrials to get enough iMerits to unlock more than a handful of the incarnate locked costume pieces.
So I'm left with a choice, give up on the pieces, or spend significant time doing something I don't want to. Either way, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
But it's something I just have to accept, and accept that those costumes are ones that weren't put in the game for my sake.

If you haven't come across any pieces that were put in the game in a way you didn't like before now, then you're the lucky one.

If you want the things in the packs, then you'd probably be better off if you just stop worrying about them and buy them. Whatever happens with the packs is going to happen regardless of if you personally buy them. I do understand the concerns people have about the packs, but whether or not those concerns come to pass won't be affected by one person. If you abstain from buying the packs, even though you want to, you'll only be hurting yourself.

Here you go, enjoy!

That's a subjective characterization. I rarely have to deal with merchants putting elaborate systems between me and the items I want. I have to deal with things being in sets of other things all the time and having to choose whether I want the thing badly enough or not to purchase the entire set. Like in the case of DVDs (sometimes I want a specific one out of the set and they don't sell it separately), food (sometimes X comes with Y and the restaurant won't substitute Z, nor sell their food ala carte), service plans (sometimes I want a specific set of services, but no such limited package exists) - I see it every day, and every day I make my choice and move on without thinking that the people presenting that choice are in some way cheating me by doing so.

Not a great example - unfortunately, a lot of real-world examples are lousy with this.

For instance, suppose I want the second Indiana Jones movie. My local merchant only has the Indiana Jones Three-and-lets-not-talk-about-it pack. With them, I have the *option* of going to ebay, or going to amazon.com or any number of other merchants *to* get what I want (plus price shop and the like.) The only result is that merchant doesn't get my business for that item.

For COH and these costume packs... show me where else I can go to get the costumes without the silliness of the packs. The only alternative is "You don't get my business."

Of course, there's this attitude:
If it's not something of interest to you, why are you complaining about people complaining? Some people want as many costume options as they can get. For them, it IS an important part of the game, and this is a frustrating, irritating way to get to those parts (just like having gun skins drop from *one* trial, and be fairly rare last I looked for them on the market.)

"Required" is a strawman. You can play the game in nothing but basic Tights. However, costumes bring some people (quite a few, I'd guess, given how the costume creator is praised) a great deal of enjoyment. The choice is "enjoy the game, but be anything from disappointed to annoyed at the way these parts are going to be supplied because there's no guarantee of anything but spending money" or "enjoy the game more because there's an alternate way of getting them."

I'm not saying all DVD sets in existence do not have ways to purchase the individual discs separately, so a counter-example isn't probative.

I bought this for a friend that is a big fan of the show NCIS, because it has the spin off episodes they never saw. Let me know if you find a way to legally purchase just that disc.

Do you visit conventions?

Mattel and Hasbro have comic-con exclusives. People who want to buy a comic-con exclusive have to have comic-con tickets, get in line, have the money, and hope that there's enough stock.

When I was a teenager, I got the "Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi" in the mail with something like 6 dollars for shipping and 4 cereal box-tops.

Hasbro has a whole market of Star Wars figures, but that version of Obi-wan was exclusive to people who sent in the box tops.

Yes, in both of those examples, there is the resale market, but that's separate.

What merchant do you go to when you want a Blue Ray version of the original Star Wars: Episodes 4-6 and you don't want to buy any of the movies with the new cgi? Where can you buy just the originals?