Exploiting, who does it hurt? Or.. "Pay to pay"

Recently a couple of Guilds from opposite factions got raked over the coals by the fans on the official boards for exploiting Alterac Valley. They were accused of having a non-aggression pact so they could both gain honor and faction at an increased rate. Man were the players pissed. Not least of the complaints was the fact that since those stats are scored on a curve, it made it that much harder for everyone else to achieve rank from that point on. There are constant complaints about farmers, AH abuse, BG abuse, bot use, you name it. Blizzard claims to be 'dealing' with the situations, but the complaints persist. The farming persists. The exploiting persists. People are making a killing selling gold, items, and even full-blow characters for real world money. Some sites tout how they'll power level your character for you.

Personally, I couldn't tell a 'professional' farmer from a kid with no life just out to kill some time and kobolds. But I'm just a 'casual' player. I haven't even tried a Battleground yet. I know I'll be playing for a while and I'll get to it when I get to it. So to be frank, the concept of exploiting, cheating, or otherwise circumventing the system has never occured to me. But that could also be due to the fact that I'm an honest, and logical person. Let me give you a hypothetical situation:

You go out and spend lots of your hard earned money to buy a house. Not a great house, a good house. Houses appreciate over time and you really want to make this house worth it so you hire somebody to live in it. They live there, maintain the gardens and the lawn, do any repairs etc. You buy them all the furniture and fixings they need to make the house a home. You pay the mortgage month after month. After about 10 years you have this great home all ready for you to move into.

Now if that doesn't sound like the dumbest idea known to man, then go enjoy your game because you're never moving out of your mother's basement. I mean, who in their right mind would buy something... pay a monthly fee to have it, buy more things to make it better and yet not use it till it's almost 'done'? In my world that's called "throwing good money after bad." Or "having more money than brains". Think about it. In that scenario, who loses? The mortgage company? Heck no, they're raking in the bucks. The people maintaining the house? Again no. They're getting paid to live rent free! The other people in the neighborhood? Only if the people in the house are morons (which people getting paid to live rent free rarely are). The real loser here is the mook that did this all in the first place.

Now think of WoW. You buy the game. It still sells for $50 around here. You pay a monthly fee: anywhere from $13-$15 a month depending on the package you buy. Now instead of playing this game you're spending all this money on, you're going to pay someone else for gold, and then someone else to level you up? It hurts my penny pinching brain to write it: PAYING SOMEONE ELSE TO PLAY WHAT YOU PAID FOR! Hullo! Anybody catching on here? I don't seem to recall this happening with Mario Bros! Let's imagine:

• "Psst... Psst Billy!"
• "Wut?"
• "I just got the new Mario Bros for Nintendo!"
• "Nice!"
• "Tell you what... I'll pay you 100 bucks if you play it for me!"
• "Huh?"
• "What? You don't want the money? If you don't wanna do it I'll go find Timmy!"
• "No problem, I'll do it! I'll do it!"
• *walks away with game in one hand $100 in the other, snickering his arse off*

I'm pretty sure that never happened. But now we have an entire industry worth billions of dollars because these people are willing to pay money to have someone else play their game. You say you don't have time to do all the leveling.. I hate to break it to you son but the game isn't all about end-game. There's actually a TON of things to do before you get there. You say it costs too much so you don't want to pay the monthly fee any longer than you have to... otay, that one's just lame. You say all you care about is PvP and end-game raids... OMFG you're going to spend hundreds of dollars to get there and not know WTF to do because you've had no game experience? I don't GET IT!

What I get even less is the players that bitch and moan at the 'Billys' of the world. If someone is crazy enough to pay you money for playing a game for them... wouldn't you take it? Where I'm from that's called capitalism pure and simple. You can sit there and say it's illegal all you want but even the gaming companies haven't been able to prove that. Then there's the players that bitch and moan at the game companies to stop all this. Well, like it or not, they're also raking in the bucks since these farmers need accounts too. The ones they SHOULD be bitching and moaning at are the folks trying to cheat the system. Because it DOES give them some advantages against those that play fair. If they know at all how to use that advantage.

But ultimately, they're the big losers. Games are for playing. Instead of pay to play they're doing pay to pay. They don't get to see the entire world Blizzard has created for us. They don't get to see what it's like to go back to a zone when you've levelled and kill that mob that always ganked you when you were there (Sons of Arugal, you know who you are!). They don't get to enjoy the in-jokes and other humor that's been added to so many of the quests. They don't get to defend the Crossroads against humongous odds at a level you've no right to be defending jack squat at. Basically, they don't get the full benefit the game has to offer. And they pay more for that. Aye, more money than brains for sure.