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Jul 7 2005, 08:13 PM

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Interesting article on gold/gil "farmers"

excerpt

QUOTE

"Sack" is the only name I'm given for the person I'm supposed to contact. He lives in the Fujian province of China, but his place of business is online—he plays Lineage II. He's paid about 56 cents an hour to work in a videogame "sweatshop."

"I work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the U.S. Lineage II server," he says. He works long, boring hours for low pay and gets no holidays. Carefully constructed macros do most of the work; Sack 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]."

user posted image

The people in these pics taken at one virtual sweatshop make as little as 56 cents an hour
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. 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.

This phenomenon is so prevalent now that everyone shrugs it off as just another occurance in any given game. If you think about it, it's really something you would read in a cyberpunk story. What's next?

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Crushinator View Member Profile	Jul 8 2005, 02:17 PM Post #2
Holding these random memories Group: Magister Posts: 3466 Joined: 14-December 02 From: Utah Member No.: 8	Very good read, good to see an actual investigative piece in gaming journalism I think everyone has at least half-suspected that the gil farming/reselling was a much shadier operation than it appears from your third-person view, either as a gamer gettin screwed by some "goddamn macroing chinaman" or as somone purchasing the ill-gotten goods for your own characters. It's amazing how exploitable this market is, with gamers the world over with liquid cash ready to fork it over at a moment's notice to further their MMO career. I'm sure the devs/pubs could rake in a fortune if they tried this system on their own, legitimizing it in some way. However, the outcry of gamers claiming "all you need to win at XXX game is daddy's CC!" would probably hurt the game's success in the long run. Not that the claim isn't too far from the truth with 2nd party gold resellers, but that is largely out of the hands of the pubs. As far as the pay that the "slaves" are getting, I'm sure that there are a hundred worse jobs they could be doing besides sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. Hell, I bet some of us here do it for free with an intense gaming session . China's economy is actually booming now, and part of the reason is situations just like this, outsourcing labor and production to China is a boon to foreign firms, and China is growing rapidly because of it. It's not like they are roping Harvard graduates into these shit-pay jobs, these are people who probably have a poor education, and would just as likely end up working at a box factory or McDonalds. -------------------- Steam: MrCrushin PSN : MrCrushin XBL: Mr Crushin I'm not a playa I just crush a lot.

Posts in this topic

Dive Wage Slave article from 1up Jul 7 2005, 08:13 PM

DarkEpyon Yeah, it does have that cyberpunk feel to it. Make... Jul 7 2005, 10:03 PM

HC82 It all just seems pretty fucked up. It also goes t... Jul 8 2005, 09:33 AM

DarkEpyon Origin realized this was a fight they couldn't... Jul 8 2005, 09:50 AM

Crushinator Very good read, good to see an actual investigativ... Jul 8 2005, 02:17 PM

HC82 QUOTE (Crushinator @ Jul 8 2005, 02:17 PM)It... Jul 8 2005, 04:08 PM

Crushinator I agree with you, that the time spent earning real... Jul 8 2005, 04:53 PM

Zorya I would never buy gil/gold/credits from any of the... Jul 11 2005, 11:08 AM

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