DKP

In the MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) World of Warcraft (WoW) the main goal is the creation, and then development and advancement of a character or avatar.  Players gather experience points in order to gain levels, which in turn advances their character in terms of strength, magic abilities, items that can be used and/or equipped and so on.  The most common way of accomplishing this task is through completing various quests, often from in-game non-player characters, or combat with in-game enemies/raids.  As your character becomes more advanced, the quests become more complicated and eventually require large groups of similarly leveled players and quite a bit of strategy.  In order to complete more complex raids and quests players began to form guilds, player created and governed communities within the larger community of WoW itself.  In her paper, Dragon Kill Points; The Economics of Power Gamers, Dr. Krista-Lee Malone provided a fascinating insight into these guilds, focusing on the economic system known as Dragon Kill Points, or DKP. 

Raids are done in order to gain experience and loot, in-game items like weapons etc.  As the difficulty of the raids increase, the drop rate of loot decreases, but the loot is generally much more rare and valuable.  The maximum size of a raid is usually between 20 and 40 players, so this can be a bit of a problem.  How does one share a few items amongst that many people?  Enter the DKP system. 

Dragon Kill Points are essentially a score keeping system that also functions as an unofficial form of in-game currency specific to each guild.  The dropped loot is collected by the guild and given a price in points.   Points are given to players who participate in a raid, and can then be exchanged for said loot.  There are several different variations of DKP, and differing opinions on whether it’s a useful system or not.  In order to engage some of the end-game dungeons, specific items were needed.  In order to get those items, players would often have to replay the same raid scenario multiple times.  This led to some players getting burnt out, and contentions between veteran and newer players. 

DKP takes into account time and effort put into a raid, thus leveling the playing field a bit in the eyes of the veterans.  Some players felt this was unfair since they simply weren’t able to commit as much time as others.  There are contentions on whether DKP takes the fun out of the game, but fun is in the eye of the beholder.