Money Quote

In an article today on Allakhazam‘s Kiara vents a bit about having to face non-stop jokes about being paid in plat because IGE and Allakahazam’s were previously owned by the same parent company.  I appreciate her difficult spot and I am sure that her duties never involved the farming or selling of in-game currency. 

But then she goes a bit too far and credibility becomes strained.

The thing is, Zam was never affiliated with IGE or ran plat ads or anything else.

Now somebody help me out here.  I seem to recall that around 18 months back Allakhazam’s featured quite large ads from IGE. 

I can picture it in my mind.  It was the point in time when Allakhazam’s was also so full of pop-up ads that the site was nearly unusable.

Of course, I have no proof that I can bring up.  It isn’t like I take screen shots of sites running gold ads.  And there are a lot of sites that run those ads, so things blur together.

I just want to make sure that we have, in fact, always been at war with Eastasia, so if you have some little shred of evidence, let me know.

Meanwhile, the party says that I can happily float around like a soap bubble while they specifically rework the definition of “affiliated” to exclude companies that  are owned by the same parent.  Maybe that will let SOE make games for the XBox 360 or the Wii, since they will no longer be affiliated with SCEA under this new definition of the word.

1 thought on “Money Quote”

  1. kendricke

    Interesting counter-points to Kiara’s post:

    Last Year:

    CorpNews: http://www.corpnews.com/node/133
    Lum the Mad: http://www.brokentoys.org/2006/05/03/allakhazamcom-purchased-by-ige-holding-company/

    This Month:
    Gamasutra Interview with John Maffei: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14235

    Last Month:
    Gamasutra coverage of John Maffei:
    http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13912

    “John Maffei of Affinity Media (which owns Allakhazam and other sites aimed at MMO players), noted that users of his site spend an average of 22 hours a week playing online games. “I think a subscription model is fine,” he said, but noted that “diversification is a key thing.” Maffei believes that players might spend time in disparate worlds, but wouldn’t devote their time to two nearly identical games. “Can I see someone signing up for a hack-n-slash game and a sci-fi game? Yes.”

    …

    “When the secondary market was introduced, a lively exchange began. Maffei stated that “all successful games have a secondary market,” noting that “a lot of the controversy arose because [gold farmers] detracted from gameplay.” It’s a challenge facing the industry, he says, but developers must decide “how to allow a secondary market.”

    …

    “Maffei reiterated: “If you have a compelling game, a secondary market will exist. Apparently it’s not going away. A large percentage of users will consider these items their own, regardless of what a EULA says.” He predicts that when publishers begin to ban not just gold farmers, but the players who participate in the market, the companies will gain reputation of being anti-consumer.”

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