The Glade 4.0

Interesting points. One that I have not seen (and may have missed) involves the likely endgame scenario, which Blizzard made public a coupe of months ago with their announcement of plans to integrate Battle.net with Facebook.

Now, the company gave a lot of fluffy reasons for why they thought this whole REAL ID situation would be good, and by by and large, the forum community knew it was a bunch of smoke being blown up their hind quarters.

Now that the smoke has cleared, the issue is that there is money to be made hand over fist for both Blizzard and Facebook, far and above what they are pulling in now. This is perhaps also obvious, but again, I have not seen it mentioned.

$15 a month is *nothing* compared to the business model Facebook employs with their subscribers. You create a page, you add friends, you post pictures and "like" pages and all kinds of stuff, and do it for absolutely nothing. Kinda like the free / cheap food you can get in Vegas gambling establishments. Where they make their money is in the advertising system they offer, and in the games they offer.

You play for free... but if you want to get anywhere, with anything akin to a pleasing speed and pace, they throw all kinds of bait to entice the player to spend actual money. Mafia Wars, FarmVille, all kinds of addictive titles I could list ad nauseum, literally bombard the player to whip out the credit card number to enhance their gameplay.

On the surface, no doubt, people are reading that and saying, "Pfft. That's just stupid, and a fool and their money deserve to be parted." If so, bully for you, but you know what? The number of people who eat that bait and fail to notice the hook so vastly outnumber those of us who do, it allows them to be in business; Facebook has made a virtual environment that is so prevalent, so addictive to the instant gratification culture of this time, that they can offer it for free and rake in money from those who refuse to control themselves.

Now here's Blizzard and their millions of customers, all playing merrily along through nerfs and glitches, clearly willing to have their arms twisted so long as no bones are broken, as in the optional-to-mandatory Battle.net migration. $15.00 per month, per account.

Good money when you have millions of people involved, but what do all companies with shareholders want? More money.

They look over the wall at Facebook, offering their free, pusher-man like first hit of more games covering more interests than one might think possible, only to hook every poor fool with no ability to control their impulses before they've made any significant progress in the game; the Facebook that cajoles their subscribers to add more friends to the list... invite more friends to play this game... suggest people to invite, even - and I mean *each and every time the game is launched, several times per session*, to assimilate more worlds into the collective. The Borg allusion is no accident.

These two entities are now in bed with each other. Officially.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/pr ... tml?100505.

What I described is to be Blizzard's new business model. They had the gall to say their "social network" vision would be an environment people wanted because people are doing it in droves. Maybe not you or I, but enough people for them to take that vague pronoun and wield it in their explanation to their Warcraft subscribers. They are touting the benefits of being able to be in touch with friends that don't play the game (yet). Everyone likes that. No more alt-tabbing to see what the friend in MSN chat said while you were doing your dailies or running a heroic.

But all bait must do one thing perfectly to earn the label of "Good Bait"; It must be so enticing that you pay no attention to the hook.

Anyone who has read the above content and does not see what hook I am referring to will feel it deep in their flesh when they find themselves getting reeled in.

You can believe that both companies each brought the numbers to the table to detail why it was a macth made in heaven. That's how it's done. Blizzard had their numbers, showing the ratio of those who adopted to the Battle.net migration ahead of schedule and who had to be forced, how many subscribers plunked down $25 extra dollars for the privilege of having a shiny pegasus pony, or paid to change genders, or paid to change factions. This would all be matched up with Facebook's averages on how much extra money is paid by each of their subscribers who play their innumerable games. Couple that with all the demographic data they already possess, all the advertising / marketing predators just salivating for that information, and you can hear the cash register bells go off in their heads, the dollar signs in their eyeballs.

Why content themselves with $15 per month when they can butter up to people in that same mewling tone they use in Facebook ads and entice them to pay just a *little* extra for some new trinket, pet, companion, gadget, whatever the flavor of the week happens to be? "Share it the new purchase with your friends, and they'll get "insert bonus here"."

This is all headed there or someplace very very close. Am I an employee of either company? No, and I won't even claim to have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I *do* know how to make a prime computation based on facts and probability.

Ignore the bait. Watch for the hook.