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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.
maybe the work itself doesn't seem hard (to you), but the conditions they have to suffer are really sweatshop-like
BBC had a report about it recently, a dozen workers stuffed into a small, dark room with computers and only a sleeping bag may sound LAN party style to us - but we can leave the party anytime, they can't
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/11/15/andas _game/index_np.html
not a novel, but a short story from cory doctorow.
I think it would depend on the labor conditions.
If it's "Work 8-10 hours a day with a couple of breaks and an hour off for lunch, and a wage that a person can afford to live on (assuming third world country costs, this might be $5/day or so)", then yes, your sarcasm is met.
If it's "work eighteen hours with no breaks, no air conditioning and if you get carpel tunnel that's your own damned fault, and if you miss a quote you miss pay for the day (which might be just enough to buy food at $0.25/day) , and we employ the twelve year olds who's other choice is prostitution so the constant threat of 'perform or die' is hanging over their head 24/7" - then your sarcasm might not be met.
It's all in the scale.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Well, in a MMORPG, a good item (like say, the Sword of Pwning) might be really useful for your character, when your clan is fighting someone else. However, it might take a 10 hr quest to get the Sword of Pwning, and this busy first-worlder has a high paying job, so that can't skip that. So you buy the sword for real cash, because you get enjoyment out of the sword, just like you benefit from your 500Watt sterio that was probably built by some other third-worlder.
Yeah so all the comments here are "oh wow being paid to play games is considered bad"?
Slashdot or the submitter shouldn't have used the word "sweatshop" because it focuses attention on the working conditions away from the fact that there are companies who really game the system in MMO's for profit. It gets to the point that their actions ruin the in-game economy and playability.
Consider Everquest2. There supposedly exists a group of people who work for one "Boss" (that's actually his in-game name). These people run teams of bot-driven characters who farm items, drive up prices, intrude in other's playing space etc. Supposedly a lot of their items end up being sold on online auctions.
I actually live in Asia, a lot of these 'sweatshops' are bloody nice work environments! Just as nice as anything you'd find in Australia - the difference is the workers are paid a little higher than average wages most times. If the company is foreign owned or 'bankrolled' - then conditions have to be compliant with all health and safety regs. The exact same pair of jeans sold in america for $100 will cost around $5-$10 here, on the street (shopping centers)
Workers get breaks, medical, dental, nobody under 18, the law is enforced pretty well since failure to do so means big government fines.
It all works out in the end.
These offshore 'call centers' are staffed by college graduates mostly, just looking for a good income - problem is a few 'Americans' think they are 'stupid' in many instances, and hate talking to them. (I have a neice working in one, I hear the stories every day) Can really screw up ones day. These people are smart, they just don't speak english fluently.
Just my 2 cents. (Excluding China, I don't know anything about that place - so previous poster might be right)
Is your roomie's entertainment score increasing, or is he still sitting at the computer even when he's maxed out? Do you see "bored" icons over his head? You may want to invest the simoleans to get some other entertainment options, such as a pinball machine or a hot tub, just so he has some variety to choose from.
Also, make sure the problem isn't something simpler. Have you ever seen your roomie leave his computer room? If not, double-check the placement of doors, furniture, etc and make sure there's a clear path between his computer room and the kitchen/bathroom. (I nearly lost a guy to starvation before I discovered that I'd placed the new refrigerator in front of the only door to the kitchen.) Oh, and make sure you've trained him up at least one point for cooking so he doesn't keep setting the stove on fire.
Remember that you might have to intervene multiple times to break your roomie of the computer habit. Just keep clicking on him and assigning another task, and watch closely to make sure he doesn't wander straight back to the computer. You might have to put up with some stormcloud icons for a bit, but with any luck he'll learn a new routine and end up happier in the long run.
If he's just impossible to retrain, you might have no choice but to stick him in the swimming pool and remove the ladder. It's a bit harsh, but in extreme cases it's sometimes better to just accept the loss and create a fresh roomie.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
I work in Hangzhou on behalf of a small manufacturing outsourcing company. Conditions for workers here in China are much better now than in the past, but there are still problems. Perhaps one of the biggest hardships for them is that most buildings in Hangzhou are not heated in winter, and it gets fairly cold here, dropping below freezing outside several times per month. Often even areas where the white collar workers are located have no heat, and sometimes I think they have it the worst, because at least the unskilled laborers are constantly moving instead of sitting motionless at a computer.
The point is, in a developing country some hardships can not be avoided. Unfortunately China's thirst for electricity is much more than can be supplied, thus it is not feasible to heat most buildings here in the south during winter. As it is, there are frequent scheduled blackouts in many areas to solve the problem that there is not enough electricity to go around. But they can't just all stop work and wait for spring. Sometimes I think people don't realize this when they get mad about working conditions in developing countries. Yes conditions are less than ideal in China, but they are improving, and it isn't possible for everyone to just quit working and wait for conditions to become like they are in the West. Change has to happen gradually and economic growth is the only way that it is going to happen at all.
Manufacture in China