Start your hate machine!

Part of the offerings of my blog are Anti-Gold Blogging commentaries.   I believe these are the lowest form of the low, since they are 99% (/wink at Stede) purely to feed someone's ego (like mine!), proclaim their brilliance for copy pasting from others, and to bring in money from ad revenue and guides.  As a result they tend to be people that aren't interested in being part of a community, but dominating and leading their own community of worshipers and "friends" while promoting other people's ideas as their own.

I'm positive this will earn me LOTS of hate mail/comments so make my dreams come true, internets!  I run purely on tears and the gas tank is empty.  I'll give a brief run-down of why I dislike them, and some positive suggestions.  Hell, it's even some free advertising for their site and all in good fun!

Picking the first one to review wasn't hard, the majority of us in the elite side of the gold making community voted this one up for review immediately.  Let's all give a big hand to the first in what I hope will be an endless supply of material...



Power Word: Gold  (Part 1 of 10)

Site Location: http://www.powerwordgold.net/
Site Author:  Jim

Site offerings: 

* Streams that I would use to put my 6 month old to sleep with, if I had a 6 month old.
* Live gold making action! Ok, the only action is Jim sipping from his drink
* Droning on about flipping pre-Cata greens and setting up TSM
* A gold making guide - with a Power Word: Price Tag that you select
* Niche marketing - something I only do when I'm not making 100k a day in common markets
* Exploiting various game mechanics for profit before they get removed/nerfed.
* A Just My Two Copper experience - complete with monetization on every spare piece of real estate on the site
* In depth discussion of flipping - buying something from someone that's underpriced to repost at a better price

Power Word: Gold is a site dedicated to live streaming, money donations, ad revenue, ware hocking, setting up TSM for people that can't find their way to The Consortium to read the dozens of threads dedicated to the issue (and answered by the addon's authors), overpricing transmogs and flipping gear for those leveling (to insure the price stays further out of reach).

I was going to stream this while I typed it up and have lots of shots of my dog (who I would interview and ask advice of), and then litter my blog with ads everywhere because I'm fairly certain that people watching the streams on that site would probably enjoy watching it, but then they would ask me how to set up TSM and I would have an aneurism.  Or I would get flamed for copying that site's theme.


Why I Loathe it and You Should Too!

The site is 100% offering nothing new but streams of one person playing and farming.  It offers a gold guide, which is updated and whatnot, but as everyone knows buying a gold guide is about as smart as lighting your wallet on fire.  Having ads all over the site and asking for more money is double dipping, something Blizzard already does.

There are people actually watching the streams that aren't laughing at it.  As boring and dry as they are, I would say a "best of" stream would be the way to go here.  Brevity is the soul of wit; 3 hour streams, or watching them, is the soul of someone who needs something else to do.


Let me refer you to a post that made me cringe.  January 12, 2013 - Jim's Fabulous Sparkle Pony!  (Probably purchased with fabulous guide purchases or live consulting dollars).  The Cynical Brit referred to this as "That Retarded Horse (TRH)" when it was first released and it's perfect for those people who enjoy shoveling extra money to Blizzard only to be laughed at in game, BGs, instances, and raids.  I was going to sit through that stream to find out why it was so fabulous, but I'm not sitting through 3 hours of streaming to find out.  I have gold to make.

I caught one comment made in a stream where Jim mentioned his intentions of streaming his leveling experience on alts.  I just have to question, are people out there this lonely?  Pathetic?  Narcissistic?

I know lots of you like this place, but when a person comes out and promotes the exploits in the game, and spreads them around, doesn't that make you the least bit upset?  The difference between this guy and the person that runs Ownedcore is....?  Waiting for your response here.  Answer:  Ownedcore makes more in ad revenue and donations.

Some people I come across like the guy, and say he's a nice person.  But he's also exploiting the hell out of the least common denominator (like a boss).  The man's a phony.  He proclaims the ideals of capitalism and exploits the shortcoming of others but is ashamed to be decent at making gold and brags about being richer than others.  In that post he ridicules others who are not as fortunate.  I guess just like real life (which this is), it's good to bullshit your target audience to get what you want.  As long as everyone perceives you to be on the side of good, it's ok, right?

You can't have it both ways.  Either stick to your ideology and give that gold to others wanting something off the BMAH or quit making gold in the game since being in the "wealthy" class makes you sick.  I was repulsed when I read that entry, only to be met with an ad at the end.  And at least I profess I'm out to make as much gold off people as possible, and I don't feel badly for the people who won't help themselves.

Let me clue you in people, there's absolutely nothing innovative going on at this site and it's one-size-fits-all approach.  It's merely copy pasted content from other sites, served up with a revenue stream for the author.

What needs changed

I'd immediately remove the live streams or put some editing in there.  Podcasts are more interesting because they keep the attention of someone for 1-2 minutes, then you're done.  More of these.  This streaming works for internet gods like Athene who proclaims to be better than everyone, but it's at least an act.

The monetizing makes me think Markco wasn't so bad.  Just the first page pukes up ad upon ad, including gifts and souvenirs.  I don't think Mr. Younkin's left anything to chance here.  Overpriced hourly consulting is even here.

Post material worth watching, not just watching you farm and use the auction house.  I'm fairly certain if I put a live stream together of me brushing my teeth in the morning I would probably attract the same audience.

Remove the guide.  This makes you look cheap and like a beggar.  Actually, everything you do on the site is begging.  Make that guide a feature of the site.

Introduce material that you've come up with.  Most everything here is explained in other blogs with nothing being original.

Talk about yourself in the first person.  I know your cat is probably your financial advisor but there's no reason to channel Mr. Rogers and call yourself "we".  This is absolutely creepy.

This is an example of a site that demonstrates what happens when you replace your life with a game and a camera.

Good points

I guess he serves a market of people who are incapable of spending 20-30 minutes reading in-depth guides on a site like The Consortium, or hell even at MMO-Champion.  The problem with following these blogs like these is that they are all doing the exact same things and take content from major sites and make it their own.  There's no creativity, ingenuity, or inside information.  In the end this merely fills one person's pockets, and fuels the myth that all gold grinders are merely in it for the cash or to sell gold.

I'm sure he's raised some bads in the streams that I've destroyed when they entered the AH.

Do you like this?

I encourage you to tell me I'm full of shit and why.

Thanks for stopping in!


This week's tip: Dailies aren't required, but damn do they pay off for alts!

Been a relatively interesting month: