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Third-World Sweatshops Producing Virtual Goods
prostoalex writes "MSNBC points to the court cases spawned by virtual worlds. Recently, Tom Loftus notes, a virtual island in one of the MMORPGs sold for $30,000, enough to attract commercial attention. Apparently, some businesses create third-world sweatshops, where low-wage laborers are being paid to play and accumulate enough virtual merchandise, so that an eBay sale of it makes the operation profitable. 'One such business, Blacksnow Interactive, actually sued a virtual world's creator in 2002 for attempting to crack down on the practice. The first of its kind to center on virtual goods, the case was eventually dropped,' MSNBC says." Update: 02/06 18:59 GMT by Z : We ran a story about the sale of the virtual island, and Terra Nova has a lot of commentary on the sale of virtual goods. For comparison, the economic impact of this phenomenon is roughly equal to that of Namibia or Macedonia.
Considering relatively affluent people in the US pay money to play these games for hours on end, I don't think you could describe paying third-world citizens money to play the games as a "sweatshop" work environment.
Where's the signup sheet for this "sweatshop"? I'm sure there's plenty of Slashdot readers that would gleefully sign up.
I'm a big tall mofo.
first, paying for something like this is just strange, in my opinion.
But then the whole thing of having 3rd world sweatshops to produce virtual real estate is like something out of a science fiction novel. But I doubt any SF novel has ever dealt with that subject. SF is really not all that original or truly predictive of our real world, in my opinion.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
So let me get this right.
...
... what? Who the fuck would buy with REAL money something in a video game that they could just sign up for and get themselves?
;-)
1. Create virtual world
2. Buy virtual island with REAL money
3. Pay REAL people REAL money to play in virtual world
4. Sell accumulated virtual wealth for REAL cash money on ebay...
I mean I bought minish cap for 40$ [cdn]. I wouldn't pay someone money for a savegame so I could beat the game quicker. That kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it?
As a side note I see the REAL accumulation of things as kinda pointless as well. I mean I do have cool shit [e.g. 500W 5.1 stereo, 17" LCD, amd64, etc...] but you won't find a shirt in my room worth more than 10$ nor diamond encrusted watches, etc...e.g. I buy practical stuff I can actually use and benefit from...
I hope they sell it for a lot of cash money and I hope whoever buys it gets exposed for the dork they are.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Let's think about it. What makes these goods more "virtual" (ie not-real) than MP3 music or videos? No, really?
Here's a link (think there might be a commercial to go through, but there it is:)
s _game/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/11/15/anda
A story about what MMRPG's might be like in the future, and the repercussions of that in our lives, including the "sweat shop" idea. The first half made me go "Eh, another story about MMRPG's and the evils of playing all the time", but then when the meat of the story came in it had me thinking.
Seems the future is now.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Time is money.
It's no different then sitting around playing the stock market.
Or sitting around doing ANY activity that has value to someone else and is willing to pay for.
This, in essence, is what capitalism is all about.
I know this is going to come off as flame-bait; so I'll apologize in advance. But given the cheating, the internet fucktard factor and every other shitty factor (people who are working irl will take over your area according to one post here? wtf is that all about?) ... why bother playing online?
... there are not anywhere close to enough measures in place to be able to insure a fair and pleasent gaming experience for the casual gamer (read: someone who actually has to work for a living)... ...is online gaming just some jackass "omg we're so hardcore" avocation or am I missing something that makes the cheaters and invaders and general assholes worth paying cash money to put up with? Because from where I sit (outside, looking in) it looks really, really crappy -- and i certainly wouldn't be willing to pony up any cash to join the crapfest which is online gaming, that's for sure.
Between that, and the people who are out in the FPS games who deliberately spoil people's games
Since Salon is quite restrictive in access, I put a DRM-free txt/html version on my blog along with a review.
The story itself is here(txt) and here(html).
A review of the story is also on my blog
On Phantasy Star Online, Sega got it right - better than everyone else, actually. Money abounds and item storage is limited. What do players do then? After getting more powerful weapons, they give away their older, less powerful ones to newbies, who put them to good use. And everyone has fun together doing what is actually fun: killing monsters.
No, it is not a MMORPG; it is a multiplayer (not massive) online action RPG. It actually demands skill, not just tons of levels and clicking on the monsters. And it is actually fun to play solo. It is not a virtual fantasy world; it is just a damn good game - and it is good for not trying to be anything else.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Selling technology-laden products is not liberating, but technology training would be.
The main problem with those "sweatshops" is that over time, they eventually increase the chance for the in-game economy to go comepletely FUBAR.
By flooding the market for certain items, or controling drops on certain monsters , a small group of Farmers like these can effectively deny the rest of the online world's population of something that they need ( for they character's job) or simply monopolise the market on some items ( after all, they can organise shifts easely so they can camp for 24 hours at a time).
Add to the mix the fact that there is a good percentage of these people botting ( aka, having automated scripting tools that will autoattack/target rare monsters, or farm items without human action) and Eventually over time you get to the point that MONEY BECOMES WORTHLESS in the online game.
And the problem is that it keeps on getting worse and worse. The Final Fantasy XI Online economy was showing the signs of this about 5-6 months ago, and now, since then there has been about a 100% inflation on all costs in-game ( for player-sold items). It's getting so bad, the developpers are putting a tax on ALL ITEMS being bought ( so they could reduce the crazy amonts of money lying around).
Developpers don't realise how badly their economy might go down unless they start to actually monitor the online world's economy. Usually by the time they start doing that, they are already getting to the point that things are getting too crazy to be fixed.
Peace and happyness to you, by LullySing
I like to play games, I have a group of friends I've played online games with since the infancy of online MMORPGS (DarkSun Online nearly 10 years ago now) and unlike the olden days, I can no longer play as many hours as I used to. I have a kid, wife, a company to run, etc, so my play time isn't that "much".
So I'm left with staying a "newbie" forever, for example in WoW it takes "roughly" 300+ hours of real play time to get a character "maxxed" out, playing 3 maybe 4 hours a day, I'm looking at 3-4 months to get maxxed out so I can join in the "high level" fun stuff. By then most of my friends will be on their 3rd or 4th maxxed char and hell by then most of them will be quitting for the next game and I'm sitting there going "damnit".
So what do I do? $300 for a maxxed char off Ebay, $300 for enough gold from one of those gold selling services that I can afford to buy enough "good stuff" to be able to join in those high level shenanigans, and I'm set. Obviously if I were working for $8 an hour this would be stupid, but $600 is maybe 2 days income for me, call it 15 hours of work to make that cash, 15 hours of "real world labor" to save myslef 300+ hours of "game time grinding"? I'll pay it. Now I'm able to join in all the reindeer games.
As for the "sweatshops" are these people supposedly being forced to work for these companies? What is these peoples' alternatives? Where would they be working if they weren't doing this? As I understand it there isn't just a glut of "good jobs" in many of these locales so is playing an online game all day for a boss 'that' bad of a job or is it a pretty decent setup for these folks? I think fast food restaurants are HORRIBLE sweat shops and any time I see some teenager being browbeaten by a 20 something manager I just thank the gods I no longer work in fast food (I did during high school and some of my college times).
--- www.f-theocean.com
Normal IP, as it's defined under the law (at least as it is supposed to be defined, these days it seems anything goes) has to do with a creative process. Wether it's music or a book, or a brilliant new manufacturing process, someone expends effort to create something new. Doesn't mean it's 100%, from nowhere with no insparation from prior works, but it's still creative.
That's not the case with money in MMORPGs. All you are doing is incrimenting a value in a database. If the company that ran it wanted, they could change that value arbitrarly. There's no creative process, and there's no new creation as a result. The number just goes up.
I'll pay for a video game or for music or for a book because of the creative value. Someone has a talent and used that talent to create something I like. Even though it's non-tangible, they still deserve compensation, so they'll hopefully keep doing it.
Money in a game lacks that, a person sat there going through the process the game has to incriment a number in the database. No creativity. The other thing is the whole reason I play these games is to have fun. It's an enjoyable way to spend my free time. Paying someone else to play, therefore, seems really stupid. If the game isn't fun, I shouldn't be playing it in the first place.
That's all aside from how this can screw up a game's economy. Final Fantasy 11 apparantly really suffers form this. You cannot get some of the best items in the game by playing it. They are continously camped by these "sweatshops". The only way to get them is to pay real money for them, a lot of it. Well talk about a way to screw up the game for those that play it for fun. What if you happen to LIKE the really hard quests and battles that take a long time? Maybe that is fun to you, I know a lot of people for who it is. However oh, no, can't do that, because there are people locking you out to attempt to get money out of you.
Basically, I don't mind paying the company who made and runs the game a fee to play. As far as I'm concerned, it's a service fee for entertianment, just like my cable bill. I give them money, they give me entertainment. It's also necessary, because there's real costs associated with running these games (bandwidth, support, hardware, etc). I am not willing to pay to have someone else play the game for me, or for their permission to do something I want to, and should be able to, do in the game.
For a more thorough discussion of virtual property "ownership" than the links given in TFA try:
"Pitfalls of Virtual Property" by Dr Richard Bartle
Links:
Original PDF
HTML version from google's cache
Pick up the bread knife and carve your way into forensic history
" ... For comparison, the economic impact of this phenomenon is roughly equal to that of Namibia or Macedonia. ..."
Okay, I'll bite (didn't see anyone else post it yet).
These are virtual goods that, in about two years, have transformed themselves into a real economy (the things sell for hard currency) already as big as whole countries?
Sure, they're small countries. But, they have lots of real people eating, working, making stuff. Probably a few rich ones, fattening the offshore bank account in the usual ways. Trust me, my own personal economy isn't that big, by a long shot.
Put another way, are we seeing a phenomena that would have doubled these economies, while making "goods" that didn't even exist a couple of years ago?
If I were the "Benign Dictator" of Nambia, I'd be getting right on it. Pronto.
There is a huge cultural imperative to be "modern" - own a TV, wear a suit, etc. So many people have been made consumers, and therefore dependent on foreign trade, therefore requiring jobs. But there is little choice for people whose society used to feed people through a division of labor based on their own local conditions. And assign status, including political decisions, mating preferences, hereditary knowledge, by one's fitness in the "grand scheme", which used to be limited to one's 10 mile radius at birth. The industrial consumption machine has created insatiable desires and unsustainable disparities. And a job, however cruel, looks like the only way out. Even enlightenment beyond desire has been crushed by the Christian hunger for eternal reward, and its apparent fulfillment on Earth. Wage slaves worldwide have very real chains, though their slavery is mental.
--
make install -not war
effects.
I played Final Fantasy XI for a total of 79 RL days. I recently quit the game because it was taking up too much mindshare and RL time. The Chinese "sweat shops" were also a factor in my quitting.
The selling of accounts in and of itself causes certain issues in-game. While other posts have noted that it's a time-saving measure for some, that is a problem. Those of us who managed to build up a character to a high level through the tedious level grind and crafting learned the nuances of our jobs. Someone that buys a level 50 character, on the other hand, has saved all that time but doesn't know those finer points of playing the job. Thus, you get parties with schmucks that don't know what the hell they're doing. No one gains from this. The new player gets embarassed, the seasoned players get killed and lose experience, causing them to spend even MORE time in game.
There's also the problem of the sellers that rush through levels trying to build up a saleable character. They also don't know their jobs and really don't care that they don't know how to play. So, yet again, you get seasoned players that get killed due to the ineptness of the sellers.
Even more of a problem were the Chinese gil sellers. These people would lock down an area and "steal" as many mobs as they could that dropped certain, high gil items. They would corner the market on these items and raise the prices to astronomical levels. One example for a piece of equipment that was highly prized for my main class (Monk) was the Ochiudo's Kote. They went for nearly a million gil on the auction house. Try selling them to an NPC and the going rate was three thousand gil. Sure, they would be more than the NPC price naturally, but they wouldn't have been nearly as much if it weren't for the gil sellers. The gil sellers, and most players eventually came to know who they were, they used similar names and were on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, became a serious problem and contributed to my quitting the game.
Another side effect of the gil sellers were the steps taken by Squenix to try to thwart them. They instituted game changes like the likelihood of catching certain fish going down considerably after being in a particular zone for a certain length of time. Sure, this had an effect on the fish botting players and gil sellers, but it also became a pain in the ass for the honest players. And after the fishing nerf, they did the same thing to logging, mining, and excavating. I can't blame Squenix for trying to slow down the gil sellers, but the steps they took ended up screwing everyone, not just the people they were going after.
Of course, there are soultions to a lot of these problems. But Squenix was never all that receptive to the obvious solutions.
Near the end of my play time I tried to organize some things to cause the gil sellers some grief. I could never get enough people together to make an impact. Partly because a lot of the people that I recruited considered what I proposed griefing, which would have put their accounts in jeopardy. I didn't think it was, but that was the perception. In essence, the people that I was playing with were FAR more moral and decent than the gil sellers and that was a stumbling block in getting the players involved in an effort to take a stand against the gil sellers.
At any rate, this IS a problem and it's one that won't go away until people quit supplying the gil selling companies with cash by buying accounts or in-game money. And just for shits and grins, I decided to see what my account would bring in when I decided to quit the game. Based on other accounts with similar or lower stats/equipment, one could expect to spend a couple of hundred dollars for my account. The amount I was offered was a whopping $47.00. So, when you're thinking of how much these guys must be paying the "sweat shop" workers, take that huge profit margin into account.