For years now, companies have offered to level your Everquest and World of Warcraft characters for a fee. By catering to the whims of players who want that level 60 mount but don't really have the time to obtain it on their own, firms that farm rake it in.
Therefore, 'twas only a matter of time before farmers that specialize in taking the grind out of virtual gruntwork made the leap over to the Xbox 360. A site called "Level My 360" has jumped in (har) and now offers 3,000 XBL gamer points for the low, low price of $300.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this: people hire help to do their dishes, mow their lawns, and perform other mundane tasks. That this service exists at all validates the whole "gamer score" concept, revealing that some players value a high gamer score enough to pay for it. Though the gamer score concept lacks depth right now, it may one day rival the importance of character level in massively multiplayer games like WoW.
Even so, we wonder whether this whole outsourcing-of-fun trend will ever end. When we begin to outsource even activities that are supposed to be pleasurable, we're taking a step towards some sort of dystopian future in which developing nations do all the fun stuff while we toil away ... for what?
[Thanks, Larry]
