Rearticulating Rewards in WoW - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 126

reiterating the importance of scarcity as a key line of argument with regard
to changes within the structure of online games, and indicating how the
player base of a game can drive game design.
Many players were quick to comment about how the addition to the
reward structure excited them and gave them new goals within WoW . The
introduction of more opportunities for character advancement ef ectively
normalized a larger portion of the WoW playing population into an ongo-
ing ef ort to push the boulder up the mountain or chase the carrot they will
never reach. More epics available to be earned applied the treadmill model
of dungeon raiding to PvP rewards. Instead of a system in which players had
an extraordinarily poor chance of getting to the top, then no incentive to
remain there, changing to a currency based honor system allowed Blizzard
to continue to release new gear and let players chase after it. Modifi cations
to the reward structure later instituted a personal rating to restrict the most
sought after items, the weapons, and the most visible item on character
models, the shoulders, to the players with the most success in arena-based
PvP, increasing the allure and perceived legitimacy of these epics. One sum-
mary of these changes noted that the personal ratings were an indication
that Blizzard is “trying to limit the Arena gear to players that have truly
earned it.” 52 Whether or not this forced scarcity proves them valid, non-
welfare epics, it further integrates PvP rewards into the established WoW
hierarchy of rewards and forced scarcity.
By integrating PvP players into a system that encourages continued play,
currency-based PvP rewards function much like welfare restrictions func-
tion outside of the game world, as providing rewards throughout the player
base ensures continued acceptance of the social structures at large. Yvonne
Hartman argues that welfare regulations
in deliberate combination with the discourse of anti-welfarism, operate
to legitimize an increased level of control over income support recipients'
lives while simultaneously ensuring that expectations regarding citizen
entitlements will be dampened. This confi guration of discourse and
practices can be regarded as producing docile subjects who discipline
themselves in the name of individual initiative and responsibility. 53
In the world outside of WoW , Hartman argues that welfare policies func-
tion to perpetuate the spread of neoliberalism while producing docile bod-
ies. Within the game world Tigole may have been precisely correct when he
referred to these items as welfare epics. Through the reaction of the player
base it is clear that these items were viewed as desirable, attainable, and a
reason to celebrate new projects to undertake in the game world. Discourse
surrounding welfare epics rarely critiqued the notion that rewards should
be earned or that players should work hard to acquire epics. This response
is one way in which it can be seen how Blizzard is ef ectively disciplining
players in WoW , of ering them certain incentives to keep people playing and