Paying people to play video games

Cornfed · Post by **Cornfed** » September 10th, 2014, 4:58 pm

Someone on another forum came up with this idea as a solution to the unemployment problem. The obvious solution is to just hand people money, but it is thought that most people also need something to keep them busy and make them feel useful. Hence people could be paid to play World of Warcraft or similar at some rate commensurate with the hours played and proficiency achieved. It would be claimed that this activity somehow benefited society, by developing relevant skills leading to advancement in modern control systems or whatever. Prizes would be awarded to the fastest improving gamers. Within a couple of months people would consider themselves gainfully employed on this scheme, just like corporate bullshit artists, corporate whores, blacks doing apefirmative action jobs etc. consider themselves to be gainfully employed right now. Since it could be done from home at nominal cost, this scheme would conserve resources, reduce unnecessary traffic and help streamline the workforce, since laid off workers would have an alternative. On the face of it, it seems like a brilliant idea.

KokujinKrusader · September 10th, 2014, 8:15 pm

There are those that "do jobs" in games like WoW where you have to grind a lot and they get paid for it. It used to be a big thing in Chinese net cafes. There are also those that test games, but there is more to testing games than just playing them.

Someone could probably develop a cloud computing solution using part of a gamer's processor power while they play certain games in exchange for payment of some sort. Couple that with ads for basic users and you might just be on to a money-making scheme.

Cornfed · Post by **Cornfed** » September 10th, 2014, 9:10 pm

KokujinKrusader wrote:There are those that "do jobs" in games like WoW where you have to grind a lot and they get paid for it. It used to be a big thing in Chinese net cafes. There are also those that test games, but there is more to testing games than just playing them.

Someone could probably develop a cloud computing solution using part of a gamer's processor power while they play certain games in exchange for payment of some sort. Couple that with ads for basic users and you might just be on to a money-making scheme.

Clearly I am not talking about that. I am talking about the government paying people to play games as a form of welfare.