Davey Winder
Sunday, 24 August 2008 16:05
Business IT -
Networking
Page 1 of 2
It sounds like something right out of a Roald Dahl story, but this is much stranger than any fiction: gold farming has become a $500 million global virtual outsourcing business.
As the Beijing Olympic Games draw to a close, sitting atop the
league
tables
if you use the only sensible metric of who has won the most gold medals,
is China on 51. Which is kind of appropriate to this story, as it is
China which also dominates the world of gold farming.
Gold farming is not as daft as it sounds. In
fact, it has been a growing business for many years now. As many years
as there have been Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.
Think MMORPG, think World of Warcraft, think EverQuest, think Guild
Wars, think the need for virtual currency in order to buy your way
through the rankings instead of earning your level ups.
Virtual gold is, however, relatively hard to come by in
most games. It requires combat skills, questing ability and a good measure of hard
work. In other words it requires the player to immerse themselves in
the game, and get good at it.
Unless, that is, you cheat.
Which is where the Chinese gold farmers come in.
Researchers at Manchester
University in England suggest
that upwards of 400,000 people are now employed in developing economies
to play games and earn gold.
According to Professor Richard Heeks, head of the development
informatics group and author of the research report, some 320,000 or 80
percent are based in China.
The actual methodology of gold farming varies from operator to
operator, but essentially involves employing people in sweat-shop
conditions to play the games for hours and hours on end. These
intensive players will progress through the game completing quests.
The goods and gold collected along the way is then pooled and sold via
online gold exchanges, in-game interaction and online shops.
What can a Chinese gold farmer earn, and are any laws being broken? Find out on page 2...
CONTINUES
LATEST HEADLINES FROM YOUR IT
