Yet another “personal” message from Fataal, the only Carbonite Dev to post anything about the possibilities that the add-on has in store. This is a direct quote from his forum post;
A personal message from me (not CBC):
Carbonite will most likely be around in some form surviving on donations. As the incentive to develop addons decreases, the quality and amount will go down. Many hardcore addon developers have already said they will probably be spending less or no time on their addons. Serious software developers will gravitate toward the best platforms for their software and wow just took a nosedive on that list.
Hobbies are fun when you spend a few hours a week on something, but as many people like my wife will tell you, when you take a hobby and do it 30-50 hours a week, it becomes a job. Jobs are jobs and they have lots of parts that are not fun. My wife had fun taking and editing pictures of our kids, but when she started doing it for friends and then strangers many times a week, it developed all those not fun parts that made it a job. If she did not make money from it, she would not be doing it.
I have several game projects I have been wanting to spend time on. They look very attractive now.
As the saying goes “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. That is why monopolies are almost always evil self serving entities.
As the Bible says “A workman is worthy of his wages”. Addon authors are certainly worthy of theirs.
Shawn
Now, I could be totally wrong here, but I don’t think that this was an off-the-cuff response. It has been nearly a week since the policy update, and this is his second post regarding it. I’m not saying the guy isn’t upset, but this is no emtional rant. I like the “evil enitity” bit, and the Bible quote added just the right amount of drama. He even intimated that Blizzard was a monopoly. Hmm, let’s look at that…
According to the Random House Dictionary;
mo⋅nop⋅o⋅ly
noun, plural -lies.
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices.
2. an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
3. the exclusive possession or control of something.
4. something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.
5. a company or group that has such control.
6. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller.
Since Blizzard doesn’t make the only MMORPG on the market, they do not qualify as a monopoly, if that is what he was going for. If he was referring to their absolute, (and at times draconian,) control of what can take place in their game, thereby controlling the” market condition” that is World of Warcraft, all I can say is “um, ya think?!“
Blizzard has time and again made it VERY clear that they do not want real-money transactions finding their way into the game. You can be banned for buying or selling gold. Account sharing is also a bannable offense. How does account sharing figure in? Easy. Power leveling services. Okay, maybe that is a stretch, but it makes sense if you look at it hard enough. So a subscription based add-on is definitely not in their realm of thought. And, since we are playing in their backyard, they do get to make the rules.
Anyways, I know that this is an emotionally charged topic for a great many people. Heck, on the Carbonite forums, there is even a call for a petition to send to Blizzard about canceling accounts over this. But even though Fataal’s post was not an official statement, I can’t help but admire the guy’s ability as a wordsmith. Nothing like a little fire and brimstone to get the villagers riled up.
Well, I have rambled enough for one post, methinks. Time to get back to the grind. Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Gaming!
Oz
