You all know them: Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, World of Warcraft, these are practically household names for anyone that considers themselves a gamer, from the casual to the hardcore. Millions of people play them, but why? Because they are progress simulators, and people love easily-gotten gains, no matter how insubstantial they are. However, these gains also have to have some challenge behind them. Nothing in life comes for free, not even imaginary demon slaying swords.

So here we have the root of the problem; somewhere along the line some wires got crossed and everybody decided MMO = grind (now with added social interaction!).

It’s time for “Cooking with Kintak”. Today I’ll be teaching you how to make your very own money farm. It’s quite easy, really! Take Diablo, stretch out the content as thinly as possible, host it on your own servers so you have an excuse to charge $15 a month, and watch as the money flows in (or wait to go bankrupt, as the case may be. See: Every WoW knockoff). To make the monthly fees really convincing, release a half-finished game with the promise of additional content maybe being added at some point. To make even more money, charge for any additional content that you plan to add, and call it an expansion pack! (continue reading…)