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Doesn't really sound like that one, but I assume that they are somewhat similar.

SotC deals with various "online jobs that anyone could do", from taking thousands of photos hoping some of them will be bought for photo stocks (and paid in pennies), through Amazon's mTurk (and their policy to only pay Americans and Indians in cash, while others get gift certificates) all the way to Chinese who build custom characters and farm gold (I only assume that they do gold farming part as well, though the film only shows what seems to be like character leveling).

Actual work is being done by kids coming in to the cities from provincial towns and villages for about 95 Euros a month (~135$).
Their daily lunch costs about 0.35 Euros, so in average they end up with about 60 Euros (~85$) earned each month.
Their employers try very hard to show in front of the camera how they only hire kids older than 18, but they don't really succeed in that as they hire the minors (right in front of the camera) for "a trial period".
Workload of such establishments where kids work their nearly entire waking day (in front of the camera we are shown that they work 12 hours a day) is bought off by a company situated in Shanghai.

Which is actually an outpost of ige (Internet Gaming Entertainment Ltd.) - an L.A. based MMORPG gold-selling company founded and run at the time by Brock Pierce - of Mighty Ducks and First Kid fame.
He has since sold the company - but kept the shares.
BTW, they have been failing to pay their employees in their gold-digging sweatshops for months.
And while "Find excuses first, attack and insult later" tactic works on some, others take a more aggressive approach when asking to be paid.

Namely - they come to their Shanghai HQ with guns.

The best part is, that while the local SWAT team arrives to handle the guy holding a gun to the secretary's face - journalists get a confirmation from another female employee that things like that happen all the time.
Oh, and once confronted with tale of their disgruntled subcontractor coming to their Shanghai offices with a gun, Brock Pierce and John Maffei used the same "Excuses, attacks and insults" combo.

One would think that someone in the MMORPG business would understand a practice of having secondary attack skills.

A few years ago, they vehemently fought against EQ Plat sellers and now they're joining them in the name of the almighty dollar. Funny how priorities and principles change at the drop of a (wizard robe and) hat.

Why, you could click on their web page and note the tagline "IGE, Buy WOW Gold, World of Warcraft Gold, FFXI Gil, Final Fantasy XI Gil, Lineage 2 Adena". These guys are assholes and proud of it. They don't deserve apologists.

Maybe I should also dig up the evidence that in the past they were involved in authoring trojans...

Wow.

You feel the need to be _anonymous_ to defend a '3D platform' on a web site and make ad hominen attacks. If you are going to be a raging fanboi, at least use your real name, you sniveling little coward.

Second Life is a product of marketing hype, not new net dynamics. The marketplace for virtual items and cash in online games is longstanding and far greater than anything Second Life has come within 1% of achieving. Go check out http://ige.com/ if you want to see what serious cash flow in virtual 3D spaces looks like.

Grow up Anonymous Fucktard.

Yes, tons of people do this. Take a look at the following sites for some examples:

Ultima Online - http://www.uoemporium.com/

Anarchy Online, DaoC, EVE Online, EQ, FFXI, SWG, WoW etc - http://www.ige.com/

http://www.ezgaming.com/
http://search.ebay.com/wow-gold

etc. etc. etc.

It's a huge economy actually, and I'm pretty surprised you haven't heard about that before. There was quite a lot of news coverage about Chinese "gold farmers" in WoW not too long ago.

I don't know who would think that boycotting these farmers would work out. People buy gold, saying "DON'T BUY THE GOLD OMG !" is not exactly a good reason to make them stop.

Stopping people like ige is extremely simple. Blizzard should stick one guy on staff full time who's sole purpose in life is to ban ige and similar establishments as well as the players who buy. Publish stats on their website as to how many are banned per day. How do you find them you ask? Entrapment. Just buy the gold from the farmer, trace where they got their gold up to the guy who's just sitting on a ton of cash. ban em all.

This isn't a matter of "OMGZ GETTING RID OF THE FARMERS IS TEH COMPLUCATED! WAT DO WE DO !?". It's a matter of blizzard not wanting to ban paying customers (gold farmers and buyers) and at the same time not wanting to upset the rest of the community by saying selling gold is ok (not to mention grey legal area). This is a matter of corporate asshattedness.

This exact service is for sale. That's a statement for how much dedicated effort is required--the highest level the game affords can be acquired in 18-21 days of (presumably) 24/7 play, for a mere $300.

If I were to offer such a service, I just couldn't compete; I can't afford to earn only $300 in three weeks, let alone hiring someone to work the second shift. Yet, there are folks that can offer this at retail; presumably, the folks doing the actual work make substantially less than that.

Can I say that this offer is attractive? I would say that there are dull parts of the game, and fun parts of the game. It is tempting to hire someone to play the dull parts so I can maximize my time playing only the fun parts; it's too bad that the only model Blizz has found is to balance dull/fun to just come in enough on the fun scale that it holds interest, and that it's needed at all to keep accounts subscribed for periods of time.

What is amazing to me is that this could be stopped, but it seems like Blizz only gives it token awareness. Allowing for no more than 14 hrs of play in a 24 hr period would at least slow it down; limiting the ability for characters to transfer gold to each other would be another. And that's not even imposing technological monitoring, like imposing limits on IP ranges for time online/transfer amount. And while you couldn't probably stop it, you could make it less efficient--meaning costs go up, and subsequently fewer players would have access to it or be tempted by it. As it is, on the servers I play on 10gp=$1, or even less than that; that's just insane. 10gp at the levels I play at is a fortune, and it takes me hours to acquire (that I would rather be doing other things in the game).

You "sell them" or rather exchange them at for instance http://www.ige.com/

just like any ingame currency. Only this is allowed by the company in this case.

The chinese have already done that for Final Fantasy Online and World of Warcraft. :p http://www.ige.com/

Can you trade items or money in Battlegrounds? If so, that would be a huge reason not to allow cross-server BG (as it would make gold farmer's job easier (they wouldn't have to make sure to farm gold on every single little server, and it would definitely help the money-laundering phase of gold farming), and it would increase the impact of dup bugs, if any). Though obviously they could disable trading in BG's to make it easier to span universes.

I have played Lineage II since its open beta period in North America and the issue is not as cut and dry as one would think.

It is against the EULA to use bots in the game, alhtough bots are a huge problem. It is also against the EULA to buy and sell in-game goods for real life money. Yet if you do a search for Lineage II on ebay you will see an extensive amount of listings. Also, large corporations have gotten into the act creating "sweatshops" in China that farm the virtual goods in this and other games for sale for real life cash. Visit http://www.ige.com/ and you will get the picture.

How is NCSOFT liable in my opinion? If they left a known bug within the game that led to the loss of this in-game item that has precarious if unsanctioned real life value, then shouldn't they be considered liable?

Of course, they have the ultimate settlement for this type of thing, they can replace the items with a quick insert to the player equipment database and he has little recourse. Doubt if he could claim pain and suffering for this type of action.

But keep in mind that the game does not ordinarily allow players to steal directly from players. Players do have a probability of dropping items upon death to Non-Player Characters "monsters" or "mobs". They also have the probability of dropping items when dying to players when they are in a "chaotic" state, after killing another Player character. Under these circumstances a player can drop items, although a recent patch allows players with less then 5 player kills to not suffer this fate.

The economy of this game is facinating where it might take months to gather enough virtual money to equip your character with a higher end piece of equipment.

Does Blizzard ever plan on adding some sort of on site Item Database like Thottbot/Allakhazam/WarCry

Thottbot would be one of the largest WoW third party sites out there, but being owned by a disreputable company like IGE can't be good for the community. Even endorsing one of the third party sites that isn't run by pedophiles might be a step forward. :)

OMG news flash you can buy in game money online for real money! Ah....yeah this has been availabe for other MMORPG long before WoW. EQ, Eve Online, etc... I have included some examples http://www.mysupersale.com/ http://www.ige.com/

$200 will net you somewhere around 2200 gold. The market is at about 10g per dollar at the moment.

That's great unless they start sticking advertisements all over the place with it...

The Game Is Virtual. The Profit Is Real.

By MARK WALLACE Published: May 29, 2005

JASON AINSWORTH plays the online game Second Life at least four hours a day. In the game, he runs a virtual real estate development business. But his after-tax profit - about $1,800 a month - is real, and it's enough to pay the mortgage on his home in Las Vegas.

For many people, what are known as massively multiplayer online games have become significant sources of income.

Web sites have sprung up that allow players to use real currency to buy items - like weapons or real estate - that they may want or need for the games

Games like Second Life, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and dozens of others offer the opportunity to interact with thousands of players worldwide in virtual environments that continue to exist whether or not any particular person is playing at the moment. The virtual broadsword you found in the dragon's cave (or that dream house you built) before logging off on Tuesday will be right there on Wednesday.

Acquiring those items, however, requires work. In Ultima Online, it can take weeks to amass enough virtual gold to buy a superior weapon. It can take just as long to earn enough "simoleans," the virtual currency of The Sims Online - the online version of Electronic Arts' best-selling role-playing games - to buy and furnish a house.

But not everyone cares to spend time toiling in pursuit of game money. This provides an opportunity for people like Mr. Ainsworth. A thriving market has sprung up in which players spend real-world cash to buy game currency or desirable items from other players. Transactions take place on eBay or on sites like gamingopenmarket.com or www.ige.com. Payments are made through PayPal and other online services. Players then log into the game and transfer the virtual goods or currency.

Mr. Ainsworth, 36, was not a fan of online games until his 10-year-old daughter became interested in The Sims Online. He then noticed that a large number of simoleans were for sale on eBay. "I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets," he said, "so I figured, buy low, sell high."

But Mr. Ainsworth found his moneymaking options in The Sims "very limited"; he switched to Second Life, a virtual world that is less a game than a three-dimensional environment in which players can do whatever they choose. There, he has leveraged his real-life experience - he is a developer and contractor - into an online business. In 14 locations in Second Life's virtual world, he owns enough "land" to rent space to nearly 50 retailers, who in turn earn virtual money selling everything from jewelry to clothing to art (all nonexistent, of course). Mr. Ainsworth converts his game profits into real money on sites like eBay, Ige and gamingopenmarket, which charge a small fee, and he includes that income on his tax returns.

"A lot of your success or failure depends on your ability to keep the fire lit," he said. "I have good months and bad months, but the work is fun."

Earnings can be considerable. Ailin Graef, who goes by the screen name Anshe Chung in Second Life, said she was on track to earn about $100,000 in real money in her first year in the game's real estate business.

Hundreds of people who play Second Life make a profit on it, said Philip Rosedale, chief executive and founder of Linden Lab, the game's developer. The value of the average player's transactions, if converted to real money, is more than $1,000 a year and has been growing nearly 25 percent a month, Mr. Rosedale said.

Who buys this stuff? One Second Life resident, who asked to be identified only by her screen name, Diamond Hope, said she spent $10 to $15 a month on clothing and other accessories in Secon

I jumped out of my chair when I saw this. My inital thoughts:

- This is going to legitimize the activities of companies like IGE.
- I hope it's a unprecendented failure, even though I fear it won't be.
- What's next? SOE selling in-game currency?

At least they have the good sense to do this on new, seperate servers. This is going to have far-reaching consequences, they've essentially broken the "fourth wall" of MMORPGs. First-sign-of-the-apocalypse dept, indeed!

Smog inspections are biennial.

linkage

And in other news, Final Fantasy XI announced an expansion in their service. Apparently, in the coming months, they intend to actually enforce their user agreement instead of just ignoring people selling items and in-game currency for money.

This comes as a surprise, considering the game is over a year old in the United States and is coming up on the third anniversary of its original Japanese launch in a few months.

Evidently, in Japan, only companies losing customers listen to complaints.

And why the hell cheat in a gane you have to pay to play for!.

Because with companies like IGE that buy and sell accounts and virtual currency/items, effectively creating real-world exchange rates for virtual money, people can make real profits off of cheats, exploits or techniques that improve their efficiency relative to the rest of the players.

No, Progress Quest is missing one thing that the major MMORPGs lack:

The ability to sell items to other losers for cash.

I suppose you could sell your character at IGE and then use that money to buy money in WoW to start yourself off with. I'm seriously considering selling my FF character - at current rates, I could clear a few hundred dollars US, which is more than I paid for the game and the subscription to date.

I can't WAIT for World Of Warcraft to come out in China. I'm no racist, but I'm absolutely sick of the Chinese players farming for money to sell on the web that are plaguing Final Fantasy XI right now. I hope they decide to move on to bigger and better things and leave our servers alone.

Hi, I'm a poor game designer. To cover up the fact that I can't properly adjust game balance, figure out how to fairly set up housing, fix multiple problems since the games birth and a myriad of other problems I'm going to attack the end result of my incompetance instead of the root of the problem.

Watch me ban eBay sales, because everyone knows when I do that, none of it will ever go on again, just look at Everquest, they stomped out eBay sales and look where it's got them (IGE, Playerauctions, etc)! 500K players must be the end result of crushing a single output of a mini-game that some players prefer to play over the normal game (*cough* me).

Me thinks the marketting execs, need a checkup from the neckup, this age old practice is archaic and outdated in comparision with the quite commonplace sub-market that exists now. Work with it or get out.

P.S. I haven't played AC in years, just many other MMOGs.

This marvel leads to a big problem:

• People start living on virtual income.
• They optimize their behaviour towards income, not fun.
• They disrupt the experience of the "normal" user.

I started playing Lineage II lately. There are complete areas inhabited only by Bots and Farmers. Bots are Programs which gather gold (scripted characters with hacked clients). Farmers are users which make a living from the virtual income. Both sell their gold/items through auctions and other eCommerce to (some) users. All three clases are not highly regarded by other players.

Regards, Martin

P.S. Please do not missunderstand me: If i had no income and could earn some living by playing a MMORPG, i would probably do it too. The problem is a direct consequence of the social gradient. I have no real solution for this... Banning the sales in the real world is only a measure of limited use.

Since I can't reach the page, I don't know why he only used 616 auctions (or however many he used). But you can use a tool obtained HERE for about $100 or so that will analyze Ebay listings for the past 2 weeks or so. Using this data you can get a MUCH more accurate reading that a measly 616 listings, which aren't even close to being correct since something around at least 80% of the business goes through IGE/Yantis these days. And don't forget Playerauctions which I can't access here at work due to the proxy but they don't get mentioned hardly at all nowadays despite the large amount of traffic going through them. If you want to read through more reliable reports you should instead roll around HERE (terra nova blogs) where doctors, lawyers and all sorts of other people that have been analyzing this stuff before you created your first level 1 female elven monk, lurk around.