Workification
There has been some interesting discussion between a blogger and Blizzard on the effect of the auction house on Diablo 3. The blogger's point of view was that Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2 because instead of having positive reward spikes from finding a drop, you have negative spikes of "oh, my gear is getting weak, better head to the AH now". Blizzard on the other hand speaks about how the better your gear is, the longer it takes for you to find an interesting drop:
In a way it is exactly the reverse of the "gamification" concept. You could call it "workification". The people who invented gamification realized that you can make a boring activity like work more interesting by making it function more like a game, for example with rewards being handed out. Blizzard's Diablo 3 AH basically removes these game reward elements from Diablo 3, or at least makes them much rarer. They are replaced with an activity that functions more like work: A constant and steady farming and collecting gold activity in the game, with minor highlights of selling items on the auction house.
Replacing a "spikey" reward flow with a constant stream of income is something trade does very well. It is the reason why trade is so important for human civilization, because there are huge advantages in having a constant stream of e.g. food, as opposed of having lots to each if you're lucky while hunting, and go hungry if not. Most people would rather like to work for a fixed income than to work in a job where your pay is determined by a random lottery at the end of the month.
But games have different purpose than real world activities. Workification of games just makes them less fun, less entertaining. A steady stream of income and constant improvement of my gear without any spikes is great in the real world, but rather boring in a game. While it could be argued that a game that gets boring quickly doesn't matter for Blizzard's sales figures, because by the time players get bored they have already paid, there is always the next game to consider: If everybody thinks of Diablo 3 as "that game that got boring quickly", the sales of Diablo 4 will be low. And there could even be a backlash against other Blizzard games, due to them having lost their halo.
Trade leads to workification, and workification makes games boring. Blizzard should have known that before they released Diablo 3. I certainly did.
"So then let’s say you visit the Auction House and get infusion of power that hurls you forward on that power curve. So whereas at one point your gear may be at a point that you are statistically speaking probably going to get an upgrade every 2 hours. After visiting the Auction House you hurl yourself forward on the power curve so far that now you are statistically going to get a drop every 8 hours."What I find pretty remarkable is how much these two opinions agree with each other. Even in the official Blizzard version the effect of the auction house is to reduce your chance of finding upgrades in the game. And for most players finding upgrades equals fun.
In a way it is exactly the reverse of the "gamification" concept. You could call it "workification". The people who invented gamification realized that you can make a boring activity like work more interesting by making it function more like a game, for example with rewards being handed out. Blizzard's Diablo 3 AH basically removes these game reward elements from Diablo 3, or at least makes them much rarer. They are replaced with an activity that functions more like work: A constant and steady farming and collecting gold activity in the game, with minor highlights of selling items on the auction house.
Replacing a "spikey" reward flow with a constant stream of income is something trade does very well. It is the reason why trade is so important for human civilization, because there are huge advantages in having a constant stream of e.g. food, as opposed of having lots to each if you're lucky while hunting, and go hungry if not. Most people would rather like to work for a fixed income than to work in a job where your pay is determined by a random lottery at the end of the month.
But games have different purpose than real world activities. Workification of games just makes them less fun, less entertaining. A steady stream of income and constant improvement of my gear without any spikes is great in the real world, but rather boring in a game. While it could be argued that a game that gets boring quickly doesn't matter for Blizzard's sales figures, because by the time players get bored they have already paid, there is always the next game to consider: If everybody thinks of Diablo 3 as "that game that got boring quickly", the sales of Diablo 4 will be low. And there could even be a backlash against other Blizzard games, due to them having lost their halo.
Trade leads to workification, and workification makes games boring. Blizzard should have known that before they released Diablo 3. I certainly did.
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