How about we get a gamer to write an article about games?

We have all heard how many millions of “subscribers” the Facebook application (by Zynga) called “Farmville” has – it’s hard to miss it these days.  Every time I hear numbers like these I hear the voice of Rob Pardo in the back of my head (No, I am not really hearing voices, it’s just an expression) at a past Austin Game Developer’s Conference (long before the latest “free to play” craze started catching on with US developers and publishers) that all the subscribers of a free to play are not paying subscribers. Whether its developers trying to make themselves look good or publishers trying to make the developers look good we have all heard numbers like these…such as Funcom’s famous “one million games shipped”. Still a big “grats” is in order for Zynga, and founder Mark Pincus, for getting an article in Time Magazine (November 30, 2009).

One the subjects that will be discussed on our upcoming anniversary show is “main stream media” covering a game versus what is called “New Media” and the subject article is a good example. Often, it is usually patently obvious that the reviewer/author of the article hasn’t played said game beyond the first three levels or on some occasions, hasn’t touched a game that didn’t include 52 cards or a set of ball and jacks.

And thus it caused me to be taken aback a bit when the author of the article mentioned above seemed to be shocked, yes shocked, that anyone would pay real money for virtual goods. Here is an excerpt from said article (in bolded header font no less).

“These virtual goods are the products that social games are actually trying to hawk. People hand over real money for make-believe merchandise” – Belinda Luscombe, “Zynga Harvests the Cyberfarmer”

WHAT! PEOPLE ARE PAYING REAL MONEY FOR VIRTUAL GOODS!!! OH MY GOSH….STOP THE PRESSES, ALERT THE MEDIA!!!

Wait…

This is the media.

My first suggestion would be to that the editor of Time Magazine have someone write their game reviews that has actually played games before. After all, it’s not like there is a shortage of us on the internet.   Here is the opening paragraph from the “shocking” article:

“Cheryl Blitman got a horrible shock when she opened her cell-phone bill. It was $170 higher than usual. Her phone company told her that her daughter had subscribed to 17 premium texting services. But Michelle, 15, was adamant; she had not. Eventually they figured out the source of the charges: FarmVille” – Time Magazine, November 30, 2009

So let me see if I understand this (and I may indeed be wrong).  A teenager somewhere in America subscribes to texting services, and (truthfully or not) tells her mother she didn’t really do it and this is somehow main stream, Time Magazine, late breaking news? What? Was it a slow news day?

I mean Holy Moses friends, a teenage somewhere in America may or may not have lied to her mom and it somehow merits nation-wide attention? (I’m eathing my lunch now…news about what I had to eat in an hour).

The practice in question (for those who may have not played one of Zynga’s games) are the way that some players can earn points to buy virtual goods, and that is by subscribing to various services. Here is another excerpt:

“These offers are like ads, except that when you click on them, you’re agreeing to try and then buy a company’s service in exchange for game points….Other deals, like those that snagged Michelle, are shady. Michelle took a quiz that required her to enter her cell-phone number and a code. At some point during the exchange, there was supposed to be a notification that she was signing up for an SMS subscription at $9.99 a month. Michelle says she never saw it.” – Ibid

But honest mom…I never saw any notice….HONEST.

Now to be fair, this may indeed have been a shady little scam that some company had going.  After all, the internet is full of them. To their credit, Facebook, and My Space tightened their guidelines and Zynga removed the ads (apparently to review them all first).

The saving grace here, of course, is that there is no such thing as bad publicity, only publicity (at least most of the time). So kudos to Zynga and Mark Pincus for the write up in Time Magazine. Still, in the end, once again it points up to the staff here at No Prisoners, No Mercy what we have said before and will say again: we dearly wish that editors across the country would take the time to get an actual GAMER to write game journalism.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

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