Comments on: Major Chinese Gold Farming Operations Exposed in Tomorrow’s NY Times

By: urizenus sklar

urizenus sklar — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:03:41 +0000

There is a HUGE discussion of this Chinese gold farming issue on the Professional Ethics blog.

By: TSOHoliday

TSOHoliday — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 21:42:49 +0000

Oh Neva, when will you stop referring to my propaganda of choice as that leftist blog?

I thought the NYT article was interesting, more balanced than I expected. What amazes me is that online games have reached that point. Geeks have imagined MMORPG’s for years, but whose fantasy ever involved Ebay auctions and goldfarms in China?

By: RB

RB — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 00:36:23 +0000

Now you know how IGE became so massive and why it’s so successful. They tell a bad lie if they deny it.

- RB.

By: Kiss

Kiss — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 17:12:36 +0000

You mean this internetweb thingy is available even in low cost labor areas and casual gamers in the west might figure out that their time is more valuable than some unemployed kid in China’s is? That said western gamer might find a way to have said Chinese kid work through the boring grind and timesink portions so that he can enjoy the parts of the game that interest him. What a shocker, who could have predicted this!

Here’s a few others for you:

1) All virtual goods have value. They represent time.
2) Everybody’s time has value.
3) The value of a persons time varies but is generally dependent upon income level in the area in which they live.
4) The game company’s go through the motions of combating gold farmers/account sellers but realize it’s a pointless battle. Unless there is absolutely no way for accounts to transfer their virtual assets back and forth people will do so for money on the side.
5) Gold farming with real life people is not the same as using bots. If there is a person behind the keyboard the account has done nothing wrong even by the game company standards until it trys to sell it’s virtual goods for cash.
6) $75 a month with room and board is a damn fine wage in mainland China for a kid.

Welcome to the global village bitches.

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:26:37 +0000

Yeah, nothing gets the eggheads more excited than the gold-farming chesnut story, which the leftist blog at http://www.nytimes.com has now picked up after it was churned in game blogs. It plays into their cracked worldview that capitalism, i.e. game companies, is evil, and forces poor third-world innocents to be exploited to mine gold for spoiled Western kids in games. All these journos have been played like violins.

By: urizenus

urizenus — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:16:01 +0000

discussion has opened up on Terra Nova, which should be interesting,