For many years, some World of Warcraft guilds have participated in a controversial practice called raid boosting–selling their mastery of difficult endgame content to solo players in exchange for in-game currency. Mike Ybarra, newly-appointed Blizzard co-lead, recently tweeted an advertisement that he would be streaming his guild carrying a player they were boosting through Heroic Sanctum of Domination, an endgame raid, reigniting a new storm of debate within the community.
The chatter kicked off when recently-instated Blizzard co-lead and former Xbox VP Mike Ybarra tweeted a few days ago that he would be streaming his WoW guild's "heroic SoD sales run." For those who don't play WoW, this is Ybarra advertising that he would be streaming his guild playing through the game's most recently released raid, Sanctum of Domination, on heroic difficulty.
Raid boosting, to be clear, is not against World of Warcraft rules, and in fact is a relatively common practice. The concept is simple: I, a new (or just bad) WoW player, want the swanky loot but have no realistic hope of ever getting it myself, and so I throw a pile of in-game gold at you, the veteran (and good) WoW player, to guide me through the game's toughest raids. Even if I die along the way, and I almost certainly will, I'll still get my share of the reward when it's over.
Players can pay real money, in-game gold or WoW tokens (which can be bought with real money) in return for guilds such as Ybarra’s running them through raids.
This is a controversial topic in World Of Warcraft, as it allows players to effectively purchase progress instead of earn it legitimately.
For those who can manage to clear them, the rewards for high-level content are substantial: stronger equipment, other cosmetic rewards like mounts, prestige in-game achievements, and sometimes even bonus story content, dialogue, or extra boss encounters you might not see on easier modes. So it's natural that players covet them.
It is not hard to see how people have taken poorly to this raid boosting revelation. After all, since Ybarra’s guild, Denial of Service, sells Heroic Sanctum of Domination runs for just under 400,000 gold, a player could purchase this service by handing Blizzard $40 only to then hand the gold right back to one of its highest-ranking World of Warcraft developers. Worse yet, by participating in raid boosting, Mike Ybarra has essentially endorsed the practice itself, which could encourage more people to participate on both ends of the controversial transaction.
Ybarra declined to comment on the uproar over his tweet, but he did seem to obliquely reference it in a subsequent tweet. "Gaming is a unifying force... bringing us all together across the hobby we enjoy and love," he wrote. "While everyone has differing views and opinions, let's be kind and make epic memories in games we enjoy."
|
