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Mass Media on Gold Farming
The International Herald Tribune, of all places, has an in-depth look at gold farming in China. From the article: "The people working in this clandestine locale are called 'gold farmers,' for every day, in 12-hour shifts, they are killing monsters and harvesting 'gold coins' and other virtual goods they can then sell to other online gamers. From Seoul to San Francisco, gamers who lack the hours or patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are hiring young Chinese to play the early rounds for them."
Imagine for a moment that Blizzard ran an amusement park instead of an online game. While waiting in line for a ride, you notice when one guy gets to the front, he does not go on the ride. He sells his spot to someone else and that person goes on the ride instead.
From a legal standpoint, you know Blizzard made everyone sign agreements that they would not transfer their spot in line to anyone else. What's more, you know Blizzard does not allow customers to run any business of any kind within their park. When confronted, the "line-farmer" says that he isn't selling the ride, he's selling his time spent waiting in line. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't tell you who is legally right.
From a moral standpoint, you might be thinking, only one person went before me, what do I care who it was? You see the line for one awesome ride is over eight hours long, and you think, I can certainly understand why someone would pay a line-farmer to go on that right away instead of waiting. Eight hours is a long time, a lot of people wouldn't even be able to go on that ride without paying.
What you don't see is that there are hundreds of line-farmers waiting in every line in the park. Wait times for all rides have quadrupled because they are all bloated by line-farmers. Remember that awesome ride with the eight hour line? You could have gone on that after just an hour wait if not for the line-farmers. They aren't providing a nice service, they are screwing you out of a part of the experience you already paid for, and then charging you money to get that part back.
Farmers in online games don't just "give people a chance to experience stuff they normally wouldn't be able to." They wreck the in-game economy and then charge you real money to be able to play the game like you should. Do you want to know why that sword hasn't dropped after 100 kills? It's because some jerk item farmer kills 10,000 every single week, and the developers have had to drastically reduce the droprate to prevent the item from being common. You know why you can't afford to buy that pair of boots? Because gold farmers have driven the price of all items way up past what a normal player can afford.
People complain about $15 a month being too much, but they don't care that others out there are ruining that game experience to make a quick buck. That's just crazy.
Let them farm gold, let those who want to buy gold do so. Farmers don't ruin games. Games are ruined by poor design and implementation.
Face it, the one commodity these developers refuse to code around is time. Those who can invest a large amount of time come out of ahead. The problem in these environments is the way things are implemented in most MMORPGs money is a driving force in the game. It only stands to reason that if you have more time to invest in the game the more money you can have. As such the ability of some people to play the game for long hours tips the balance of the game. Since the developers love to create money sinks and tweak them to keep the supply and demand where they want them they will invariably harm those with the least means. The in game economy is wrecked far before any farmer sets foot in the game. The farmer exists because people are trying to exist in this artificial economy and they don't have the one resource needed for it, time.
Gold Farmers merely point out the flaw of the game. If it so damn important that someone can make real world cash off of it the developers should instead find methods to reduce the importance instead of wasting time trying stop the actual sale. My analogy, stopping gold sales by going after the farmers is like closing plants to reduce the number of cars you build so you don't get stuck with too many unsold. The gold farmers exist because you failed to create a system where people with inordinate amounts of game time cannot dictate the economy. The cars remain unsold on the lot not because you make to many but because your goal wasn't to make them more popular and thereby sell more. Both ignore the hard issues. The gold farmer can be defeated by finding ways to remove the exaggerated affect "lifers" have on game economies and you can sell cars once you realize that that is the real goal.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.