PORN

Welcome to Business as Usual, the weekly segment on all that glitters.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM PORN
No, this isn’t about making your partner’s toes curl up. You’re in the right place, this is still an article about making gold. But the question remains, what can we learn from the porn industry? This question came to me when reading an article on Cracked.com 5 Ways Porn Created the Modern World, the most intriguing part (from a Goblinish perspective) is #1. Smut May Help Clean Up the Internet. In particular the following paragraph:

The reason why porn is always on the cutting edge of technology is easy to see: Just like a sheltered Midwest girl starting her first year at college, the porn industry is both willing and eager to experiment. Most “normal” companies have a carefully calculated budget strategy laid out for their next decade of business. They simply cannot afford to deviate from that plan, so there’s no room to just screw around and find new market positions. All porn does is screw around and find new positions! It also helps that a lot of the porn executives are relatively young people always willing to try new things (provided lots of lube and a safety word). There’s a lot of talk in the porn industry about new technology, like 3D porn, and porn-streaming apps for the iPad, the latter being announced on the very same day the device was announced by Apple. Not twenty four hours from the very concept of a device being revealed, and already we could confidently say: There will be tits on that.

So if we can learn anything from the adult film industry, it’s the importance of adaptability. One of the great mistakes that people make when they get started working on their own little gold empire: they focus too narrowly and never experiment.

THE HARDEST (WORKING) MAN IN SHOWBIZ
In some ways I guess being the Mr. Money Bags on your server is similar to being a porn star. There are those who will dislike you (sometimes intensely), they think what you do is sleazy. And still there’s that undercurrent of unspoken admiration, whether one is willing to admit it or not. I once had the occasion to meet Ron Jeremy, we talked a bit about his adventures in the business. I found him to be an immediately likable personality: intelligent and funny to a fault. An impression that was only strengthened by later reading his biography. Ron’s career began innocently enough, his girlfriend submitted some racy photos to a women’s magazine, several years and hundreds of women and films later – he’s a household name.

Of course, we’re not talking about celebrity for celebrity sake here. We’re talking about a man who built a career doing something he enjoys. My own start in the the gold game was similarly innocuous, dailies on multiple characters resulted in a reasonable amount of gold each week. Certainly enough to keep my main raiding character happily stocked with consumables and materials. Then, I decided I wanted a Mechano-Hog. I put a little effort into the professions I had on my alts, in a short time I had easily gathered the necessary gold for the mount with a little left over. I looked at several gold making blogs and thought, “I could do that”. So, here I am. I’ve made literally millions of gold since then.

It all began with that simple decision to take the plunge. As time has gone on, I’ve found myself at times growing complacent and relying on passive gold making methods that required little thought or expenditure of effort. But that gets boring, eventually you have do something to keep things interesting. Shake things up. And hell, maybe make a load of cash in the process. So, my message to you this week, do as the porn stars do: try something new…

THE MONEY SHOT
Spending is back down to negligible levels, still this week’s earnings was largely making up for last weeks spending spree. As you might’ve guessed from all of the exposition above, I’ve been trying some new things, and so far it’s working better than I could’ve hoped. For starters, I decided to do a more detailed report of my earnings. I’ve relegated specific alts to the sales of specific items, for example: my Hunter sells pets, my Shaman sells Cataclysm Scrolls, the Druid sells Gems. This makes juggling stock as well as breaking down the profits much easier. Also, I’m using my profits on these characters for all of my materials purchases which means the numbers are now more in keeping with my actual net profits, which helps me keep an eye on the margins. It does however make for less impressive numbers at times, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.

The big surprise this week was the Legacy Scrolls, enchants from Vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King. So far, I’ve been selling off scrolls that were used in leveling my new Horde enchanter to 525, but seeing the success of these scrolls this week I’m inclined to focus a bit more attention to the forgotten scrolls of yore. The pet shop shows promise as well, especially considering it’s only been open for a few hours as of this writing. I suspect by this time next week it will be a solid earner, standing shoulder to shoulder with my scroll business.

THIS WEEKS TOTALS
■ 2,375g – Pets
■ 7,974g – Legacy Scrolls
■ 9,286g – Catacylsm Scrolls
■ 8,855g – Metas
■ 17,188g – Gems
■ 567g – Tailored Goods

46,278g – TOTAL

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading…

TANKING IN THEORY
With me today is a kindred spirit, fellow Death Knight Tank, he is the Proprietor of the Pwnwear blog and forums, additionally he has maintained the Elitist Jerks Blood thread. He is a respected figure in the WOW Community. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the legendary: Gravity.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Before we get started, let’s get to know you. If you would, tell the readers a bit about yourself. Discretion sometimes being the better part of valor, I understand if you wish to be vague.

Q. Where are you from?

 

Q. What do you do for a living, married, kids, etc?

 

Q. What (if any) MMOs have you played?

 

Q. Pwnwear isn’t your first and only blog, is it?

 

Q. How long have you been running it?

 

Q. What (if anything) did you hope to accomplish with the blog?

 

GENERAL WOW STUFF
Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, I’d like to talk more specifically about World of Warcraft.

Q. When did you start playing the game?

 

Q. What classes besides the Death Knight have you played?

 

Q. What drew you to the Death Knight?

 

Q. How do you feel about the class since Cataclysms launch?

 

Q. What about Cataclysm in general, your thoughts?

 

EXIT INTERVIEW
At this point, I think it’s clear that you’ve moved on from World of Warcraft. Or at the very least taken a break from the game. So, I’d like to ask you a bit about the aftermath of that decision.

Q. What is the current status of your guild, and how did it go when you left? Were they supportive of your decision?

 

Q. What made you decide to leave the game?

 

Q. I know from talking to you before that you’ve been quite busy with real world concerns in recent months, how has leaving wow effected you personally?

 

Q. Do you miss it?

 

Q. As far as I could tell your decision to leave was met with a lot of support from the community at Pwnwear, what intentions do you have for the site itself now?

 

Q. What’s next for you? Rift? The new star wars MMO? What have you been playing since you quit and what are you looking forward to playing?

 

Q. Thanks for your time Gravity, any parting words for the readers?

 

RETIREMENT
More and more lately we see prominent figures in the wow community leaving the game. Kauzmo of GTFOOTF, Kungen of Ensidia, Larissa of Pink Pigtail Inn, and as I was working on this interview I learned that even Totalbiscuit was hanging up his spurs. It’s interesting to note that among these people only their prominence and dissatisfaction bind them. The only real common thread among these people is that I know who they are, and that they no longer play the game. It’s sad, and certainly an end to a chapter in the life of the game. My hope is that Gravity and all of the individuals who’ve lost their interest in the game will find what they’re looking for. And that maybe someday I’ll find them again, in another game on another day.

That’s all for this now, thanks for reading…