"PLAYBORERS," the nickname for those who make money from collecting the "gold" used to buy weapons and other implements in online games, usually hail from Asia and number in the hundreds of thousands.
Image: Phil Ashley Getty Images
In Brief
- A new type of service industry has emerged to meet the needs of the millions who play online fantasy games such as World of Warcraft.
- Players called gold farmers amass game “currency” to sell to other players for a fee.
- This controversial practice violates the rules of play but has become a means for hundreds of thousands of developing world players to earn a wage comparable to that of factory workers.
It sounds like a digital alchemist’s question. How do you turn virtual gold into the real item? Hundreds of thousands of “gold farmers” in developing countries have found a lucrative answer. They have become entrepreneurs who make their living by profiting from online games. By assuming fantasy roles in these games, they kill monsters, mine ore or engage in other activities that earn “virtual gold” that they then sell to other players, often in rich nations, for real-world currency. Although it flaunts the rules of the game, buyers and sellers of this make-believe currency use the gold to determine the fate of a character in these fantasy games.
A gold farmer in China who plays games and sells virtual currency can earn the same wage and, sometimes, more than might be paid for assembling toys in a factory for 12 hours a day. As a result, this activity has emerged in the past 10 years as an ingenious, though controversial, way for poorer nations to earn money from information and communications technologies and a way for impoverished workers to build digital skills that might be later transferred to other information technology jobs unrelated to game playing.
This article was originally published with the title Real Money from Virtual Worlds.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
22 Comments
Add CommentIn Mr. Heeks well written article he glossed over the darkside of the gold farming community. As a regular player of World Of Warcraft I have seen many friends lose their beloved character and everything the character owns due to hackers that sell it all for in game gold that is then sold for real cash. It can take weeks to get your avatar restored after you find it naked and robbed. Many gold farming businesses have found this much faster than paying employees to farm the gold for themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeachtart: Hyjal server World of Warcraft
I wonder if there is any actual evidence - as opposed to speculation - linking hacking to gold farmers? Without that, this example is equivalent to saying there's a dark side to cell phone manufacturers because you got mugged in the street for your phone: the two things have nothing much to do with each other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe gold farming businesses I know aren't involved in hacking. So it would be good if we could get away from the sweeping, speculative, negative generalisations about gold farming.
According to Blizzard Entertainment which owns World of Warcraft, the vast majority of hacked accounts are due to gold selling businesses. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/antigold.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirstly, the cited web page does not present any hard evidence; nor does it present any independent evidence. It is an exercise in persuasion and advocacy by a game company that has a clear and pre-determined negative stance on real-money trading. Of course, RMT does cost game companies money (though it also makes them money), and they have a right to take such a stance. But I'm not sure objectively this tells us a great deal more about gold farming than, say, the "Reefer Madness" film told us about drug usage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, I've read through the page twice carefully. I can't find any claim that "the vast majority of hacked accounts are due to gold selling businesses". As so often in discussions about gold farming, that summary statement is a conflation of factors, that leads to unfounded claims.
Anyone else out there able to string together even a basic evidence-based and logical argument about this issue?
I have seen many accounts hacked by scams that entice players to get free online virtual stuff by luring player to fake Blizzard websites where they must use their Blizzard user name and password. This seems to be more common way of getting an accounts hacked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a player of WoW for the last 4 years, I've seen plenty of gold farmers advertising their sites. Most of the time it's a low level character in the main city, but sometimes, it's someone's high level character that has been hacked, stripped of everything valuable, all assets are sold for the virtual gold, which the farmers then turn around to sell for real money. Many guildmates of mine have been hacked, quite a few just recently. It's maddening the havoc they wreak not only on the player's account but also to the rest of the guild. A shared bank among guild members often gets raided by the hacker, adding to the assets being sold. Gold farming may be an acceptable way of life for the people that farm the gold, but for everyone else who does work hard and enjoys the game because of the work, getting hacked by farmers is beyond frustrating.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy you should not be supporting RMT:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=707
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=687
Not to mention that they will infact hack accounts and it is considered bannable by most companies that run online worlds to purchase anything via RMT.
The Editor and Author of this article is uneducated in the industry and knows nothing of the effect it has on the games themselves. Supporting it is to support crime around the world.
I have to say that I'm torn when it comes to Real Money Trading (RMT, the nomenclature commonly used among EVE Online players).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEVE's developer CCP argues that RMT-ers consume a lot more in-game and system resources. Consuming in-game resources deprives regular players of access to those in-game resources. Consuming system resources, e.g., by using bots that tax the system more than a human player could, reduces overall gameplay experience for everyone.
These seem to me to be arguments against the method of gold-farming rather than arguments against gold-farming per se. On the other hand if most gold-farmers employ these methods then practically speaking opposition to gold-farming methods is opposition to gold-farming.
I don't see how a gold-farmer could make much of a business unless they use a lot more in-game and system resources than a regular human player. An honest gold-farmer couldn't compete. Maybe it turns out that this implied race-to-the-bottom is why most MMOs take a hard stand against RMT.
I happen to like EVE's approach to providing players with a legitimate outlet for buying gold. Essentially you can buy an object that can be sold in-game. This object gives the purchaser 30 days of game time. It's more expensive than the gold-farmers but at least it's not hogging system resources and it keeps the money within the system so to speak.
RMT also has another side effect: It makes a very, very clear link between the value of in-game currency and real world currency. There have been politicians who believe that, because the value of in-game assets can be evaluated due to this link, any in-game income can be considered taxable income.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't believe me? Do a Google search for "taxing mmo income" and similar phrases. You'll find quite a bit there.
Of course, in order to tax this income, that means that the government will need to know what games you play and have access to your account information, further stripping you of your privacy. It sounds petty to complain about the IRS knowing how much WoW or Eve you play, but it is yet another bullet in the head of small, limited government and personal privacy.
Others above have already mentioned the disproportionate amount of game resources that these Gold Farmers absorb. When CCP unleashed their Unholy Rage effort, the effects were immediately noticeable for myself and others. The graphs in the aforementioned articles about this project are incredible.
Why should these people be allowed to degrade the performance of a system, for which I pay to use, so that they can help others cheat?
Supporting Gold Farming is amoral. Anyone who does might as well be supporting Mr. Bernie Madoff's actions as well.
Polyeidus, you are at best naive and I suspect not a gamer either. It's well known across several game worlds that so called "gold farmers" use their sales portals as hacking tools, a self defeating practice if ever I've heard one. There is a clear correlation between those purchasing from gold farmers and those who have their accounts hacked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHonestly I wouldn't mind gold farmers so much if they hadn't decided to start using their sites in this manner. In fact if they were trust worthy I might even assist the practice with my patronage from time to time, if only to indirectly support people poorer than myself while still gaining something.
As things stand though one of two things will most likely happen..
a) You'll loose your ill-gotten virtual currency and possibly even your account to the game moderation ban-stick
or
b) You'll get hacked by the very people you're trying to support and loose your account anyway.
Conclusion? I'll stick to regular charities. I am (and probably the intended beneficiaries too) probably still being ripped off anyway, but at least in most cases they aren't going to try to hack my bank account.
On a final note, for a website purporting to be representative of scientific values, this article is remarkably uninformed and even worse actually biased. Science should at least appear to be impartial.
Polyeidus, your comments are at best naive. I suspect you're not even a gamer. Its well known across several game worlds that so called "gold farmers" use their sales portals as hacking tools, a self defeating practice if every I've heard of one. There are clear correlations between those purchasing from such sites and those who have their accounts hacked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHonestly I wouldn't mind gold farmers so much if they hadn't decided to start using their sites in this manner. In fact if they were actually trust worthy I might even assist the practice with my patronage from time to time, if only to indirectly support people poorer than myself while still gaining something.
As things stand though one of two things will most likely occur..
a) You'll loose your ill-gotten virtual currency and possibly even your account to the game moderation ban-stick
or
b) You'll get hacked by the very people you're trying to support and loose your account anyway.
Conclusion? I'll stick to regular charities. I am (and probably the intended beneficiaries too) probably still being ripped off anyway, but at least in most cases they aren't going to try to hack my bank account.
On a final note - for a site purporting to represent the values of science, this article is ill informed. Even worse, its actually biased. Real science for the most part at least has the pretense of being impartial - even if its research is then taken and twisted by those with an agenda.
Apologies for double post
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn interesting couple of snippets, then, from preceding comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, CCP state of real-money trading in their game, Eve Online, that "the overall impact is relatively small": http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q3-2009.pdf
Second, parsing the comments one finds some of those with fixed negative views about gold farming also have seem to have right-wing political views: that good government is small government; that charity is likely a rip-off. It would be interesting to research that linkage more given what the article says about those suspected of gold farming having been subject to racist abuse.
The correct word is "flaut" rather than "flaunt". http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/flaunt.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOops, typo, I meant "flout".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf all you spent just 10% of the time you wasted playing online games on starting and actual business you would not have money problems. Unplug and play in real life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPolydeius does bring up an interesting point- how much of the anti-RMT stance is disproportionally represented by Blizzard and other companies that make and support MMOs with a pre-disposition and montary stake against RMT? Can those espousing the fight against the practice provide direct numbers of accounts hacked and how many are related directly to gold farming? How many "entrepeneurs" have resulted to the faster account hacking method and portal collection on websites as a direct result of increased vigilance and account banning practices? It harkens to "back-door abortions" and other illegitimate practices because the current rule or law forbids a practice, not to mention that these practices have historically grown more distasteful the more they were attacked and pressured.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Its well known across several game worlds that so called "gold farmers" use their sales portals as hacking tools, a self defeating practice if every I've heard of one." -- This bothers me, in the scope of this discussion- according to whose information did this generic group decide that this practice is wide-spread? It was once "well known" that blacks were inferior neanderthals (to make a specific point about how lacking "common sense" or general knowlege can be). More correctly, it would be "widely believed" at best, given the information present.
I certainly do not condone the practice of RMT as it is very much Blizzard and other companies' right to stop profit off of their copyrighted work, and I myself find the constant spam and regular accounts of having been hacked at best frustrating, or at worst frightening. However, there is a certain lack of direct information presented to make a case against it.
Of course Blizzard could put an end to this by selling, for money, in game gold at or below what RMT sells it for. Or they can simply restrict in game gold transfers to say 5 gold at a time as well set logs for accounts that seem to be transferring a lot of gold within a certain amount of time. The attractiveness and addiction to the game is building up the character, by limiting gold transfers between players and/or accounts they enforce the addiction while cutting down on gold farmers. After 3 years building up my character in EverQuest it took me months to walk away from it, there were literal psychologocal withdrawals. The only thing that got me off was going to WoW then eventually quitting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I had dropped 100 bucks to level and gear up my character from the start I would have walked away from both games a long time ago.
I've been on both sides of this issue, as a frustrated EQ guild leader trying to get epics done while the epic dragons were being aggressively farmed, and much later, as someone doing the farming. I really don't think that you can say that gold farming in itself is bad, it is the way that you do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn our case we ended up having to band together as a server and rotate heavily farmed zones between guilds in order to even be able to progress in the game without paying for the privilege. High level gold farmers would cherry pick the named out of lower level zones, leaving the people who were level appropriate with trash mobs and trash loot. And yes, people who paid to be power leveled or equipped with no drop loot (and gave their account to the farmer) were not only crappier players and teammates as a result, but more likely to be hacked. Evil gold farming!
But later on in my gaming life I had a great steady group who had mastered the current content but still enjoyed fully conquering the most challenging zones where few people survived. We'd go in late at night when the zone was empty, and farm our hearts out and have a great time, and sell the loot in game, then sell the cash we got, out of game. It was a fun way to keep the spirit alive while waiting for more content, it equipped some players who might not have been able to marshal the guild resources to get the gear themselves, and it more than covered the costs of playing. No harm done.
In the years I played I met a lot of gold farmers, some of them were jerks, others were actually very nice, and respectful of the regular players. When the Chinese bot teams started appearing, I learned a few phrases of Chinese and got on fine with them. Personally, I have no problem with them making a living, as long as they aren't interfering with my game play. It is the attitude that is negative, not the farming itself.
Polyeidus, a lot of people that you describe as having "right wing views" are simply against people that break the law and do amoral things. We could also generalize and say people that support RMT activities are "left wingers" that support other groups doing illegal things like ACORN, however, I choose not to make this into a political discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am familiar with this topic. Game companies regularly claim hacking and gold mining is connected, but I've seen no evidence posted. With no scientific evidence made public, it can instead be argued that hacking is connected to a lack of QA standards among gaming companies. Or that much of the content in online games is so boring - ie is substandard game design, that players are willing to pay goldfarmers to play that content for them.,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCCP's campaign against RMT'ers/goldfarmers in EVE Online was the major topic in Dr. Eyolfs latest quarterly report.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe concluded that this group of players affected the market values of many in-game items, due to their volume of trading. This in addition to consuming more server resources than the average player.
EVE Online is partly known for it's boring content which lead to the extensive player use of botting and macroing tools (such commercial tools being widely available on the internet), allowing players to relieve boredom and earn in-game cash without actually being in front of their PC. Said activity will get you banned if discovered, so most players have an extra account for this, or they buy the service from the gold-farming industry. What I would like to see from CCP is an analysis showing the percentage of goldfarming traffic originating from their regular customers as opposed to traffic originating from the gold-farming industry.