To the defenders of the $60 monocle

If you’ve been following the news this last week, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a bit of an uproar stirring in the EVE community. Like all great uproars, it’s spilled out into the greater MMO world of pundits and players, with most falling solidly on the side of the consumer: $60 monocles are bad, mmkay? Despite the overwhelming supports anti-monoclites have received, there have been a handful of staunch defenders.

Go ahead and complain, they say, because the company is still going to make money hand over fist. Besides, it doesn’t effect YOU anyways.

Let me address these folks directly:

Oh glorious defender, your wisdom shines down on me like the ethereal lights of Elune. You’re right, Joe TooMuchMoney buying a vanity piece really doesn’t impact me. How silly I am for believing that someday a monocle might be forever glued onto my too-small dome and my wallet made $60 lighter. Before you, I believed in nothing more than the overt rightness that all MMO studios are in truth specialists in highway banditry, evilly tenting their fingers after every submission to their PR dept.

Let me answer the Defender’s implied question, why?, with one of my own: Why should I care if the neighborhood two streets down has succumbed to crime and the police are woefully ignorant? Surely it doesn’t affect me. I can drive around that neighborhood, no one’s making me drive through it.

The answer is painfully obvious. I should care because even if it’s a different neighborhood, it’s still the same city.

Or how about this, why should I care if Blizzard starts offering “advanced” subscriptions (they’re not), when my own “standard” ticket will get me a basic set of gear and the ability to see “all the game has to offer.”

Perhaps because what was once standard is now second rate?

No, I take it back. Obviously, the trip from counter-cultureism to anti-consumerism is one we all need to take. I bow to your wisdom.