I came across this video on Youtube about Chinese Gold Farmers that was posted on March 8, 2006. Here check it out.
I always knew that you could farm for gold and items and sell it for some real dollars. There are even some who are like bounty hunters, for example a player wants to get a particular item but doesn't know where to get it, so he just goes to the "Item Hunter", as I would call it to get it for him for a particular amount of either in-game cash or real dollar. What I didn't know though, is that there are actually gaming workshops in China that hire people to play the game. They call these people, Gaming Workers, but the American gamers call them Chinese Gold Farmers. They play at least 12 hours a day to produce in-game currency, equipment and items and whole characters that are sold to American gamers for real dollar.
"I don't know if this is a service industry. It does not even have a name yet, but it should count as a service industry. In some sense, Chinese players are spending time providing a service to American players. . . I suddenly realized that exporting virtual items through the internet is the same as transmitting Chinese labor to America." said Tietou, an owner of a gaming workshop in China.Some of the gaming workers say that they are playing at the highest level not just for money but also for fun. Well, If you think about it, if you are earning money while playing games, then that sure as hell sounds fun. But not all of the gaming workers are the same though, some may be successful, some may be not.
I found this article from July 5, 2005 by James Lee, entitled Wage Slaves. It talked about this one gaming worker who was payed 56 cents an hour to work in a videogame "sweatshop." The author called him "Sack", I don't know why. He says. He works long, boring hours for low pay and gets no holidays. Carefully constructed macros do most of the work; He is just there to fend off the occasional player itching for a fight or game master who's hunting for these automated farming programs. "Everyone knows where the good places are, and GMs know that your account has been online for a whole month," he says. "[A GM will] message me asking, .Hello, what level are you, please?' I know he isn't asking my level; he just wants to know if [there's actually a person at the computer]."
So, how does it work? The macros for World of WarCraft, for example, control a high-level hunter and cleric. The hunter kills while the cleric automatically heals. Once they are fully loaded with gold and items, the "farmer" who's monitoring their progress manually controls them out of the dungeon to go sell their goods. These automated agents are then returned to the dungeons to do their thing again. The articles stated that Sack's typical 12-hour sessions can earn his employers as much as $60,000 per month while he walks away with a measly $150. See, now that just seems unfair, doesn't it?
If you actually think about it, the real money is made by the people with the resources and the right programs. That is the first step, I guess. It isn't too difficult from there to make the leap into creating your own sweatshop. All you need is the ability to write game macros or the money to purchase them. That's right, if you know where to look, they are on the open market. A macro that uses a teleportation exploit in WOW is currently going for $3,000. Then just hire cheap labor to monitor the bots. So basically, this is what the employers for videogame "sweatshops" are doing.
In the article, I also read about this man in his 30s who goes by the name Smooth Criminal; a partner in one of the largest sellers of MMORPG gold, and he isn't apologetic. His rap sheet: banned from Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online again. He says once someone even traded him a wedding ring worth $2,000 for WOW gold.
Smooth Criminal's game cartel made $1.5 million from Star Wars Galaxies alone last year, and individually, he's made as much as $700,000 in a single year. Smooth Criminal is in charge of writing programs, finding exploits, and locating in-game "dupes" (bugs for duplicating gold or items). "I have a real job, but when there's a dupe, I call in sick," he says. It costs him more money to actually go to his "real job." "When I dupe," Smooth Criminal adds, "I farm billions on every game server and spread out my activities." He then uses three accounts to launder the gold: a duper account, a filter account, and a delivery account?each created using different IPs, credit cards, and computers. This way, it's hard to trace the source, and the gold comes back clean.
From sweatshops to stateside corporations, some people are profiting off of MMO gold. A lot of these gaming workers don't really mind their jobs, and they aren't exactly working in sweatshop conditions. There's a world of difference between making sneakers and watching bots fight all day. However, they are still underpaid, or as Smooth Criminal puts it, "They get paid dirt. But dirt is good where they live."
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