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The Story of the Gold Farmer

Posted by Zonk on from the making-a-dishonest-buck dept.

The Deadalus Project has a massive update looking at Player Opinions of Gold Farmers. While farming activities are well documented, Mr. Yee opens up the dialogue about the topic by looking at player opinion in a larger context. From the piece: "Of course, the story of prejudice against the Chinese during the 1800s is far more complex and nuanced than stemming from just the laundry workers. And, of course, the parallel that I'm trying to draw isn't perfect. But the juxtaposition of this historical narrative with the much more recent narrative we typically tell about 'Chinese' gold farmers reveals its disturbing metaphors and framings. The contemporary narrative starts to feel too much like the historical one - Chinese immigrant workers being harassed and murdered by Westerners who feel they alone can arbitrate what constitutes acceptable labor."

9 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. I hate to say it.... by LordPhantom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but I really don't like them wherever they're from - throwing race in as an issue in this seems cheap to me.

    1. Re:I hate to say it.... by supersocialist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When racism happens to accompany a real problem, the people who'd rather not see it solved cry "racism!" to make the pasty white boys shrink bank into their basements for fear of looking bad. I'd mention a few examples, but I'm already courting bad karma just by opening my mouth near the word racism!

    2. Re:I hate to say it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It isn't, though. Most gold selling companies are based in the US. It's SPECULATED that the majority of the gold they get comes from Chinese players who farm it for cash, but it's never been actually proven.

      Yet, even though it's quite clear that if you want to buy gold or characters in an online game you do it through an American, people still blame "Chinese gold farmers" for "ruining" the games.

      The clearest example I can think of is Final Fantasy XI, where Square-Enix recently changed the rules for how monsters attack to try and combat "Chinese gil farmers" - effectively making gaining XP by the traditional "pull monster away from crowd of monsters" technique no longer work. (At least, that's as far as I've heard on that one, not playing FFXI, I can't say if that's still the case or if that was really true. I'm sure falcon-whatever will come here and explain how anything bad about FFXI is a lie, but those are the rumors.)

      The racism in FFXI is amazing. The Japanese blame the Americans for ruining the game. (And, having played at the US release, I can't help but think they've got a really good point.) The Americans blame the Chinese for ruining the game (despite the fact that the game was never released in China), and the Japanese for not playing with them. The Europeans just got screwed, since they had to wait almost three years after the original release to start playing. Based on the Little Gamers webcomic and nothing else, it would appear that the author of THAT, at least, blames the Chinese for "ruining the game".

      The funny thing here is that there's no question that the game has been "ruined" (yet people still play it...), it's just a question of WHICH ethnic group did it.

      The players brought race into the picture. Almost everyone talks about "Chinese gold farmers" - it's ALWAYS the Chinese. I've actually known a Chinese-American player (born in the US, mind you) give up on an MMORPG because they couldn't take the constant anti-Chinese harrasment.

      Like it or not, race is perceived to be an issue - despite the fact that almost all actual evidence points to American companies being the driving force behind the "real world gold trade".

    3. Re:I hate to say it.... by thesandtiger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What brings race into this is that people are constantly referring to "Chinese" gold farmers, as if being Chinese is somehow part of the problem when it is only the gold farming that is objectionable. It would be like putting "Black spammers" or "Jewish phishers" or "Mexican telemarketers" as being a problem, rather than simply spammers, phishers and telemarketers.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  2. You've got to be kidding me. by Southpaw018 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This has, actually, nothing at all to do with Chinese farmers except for the fact that the majority of sweatshop farmers are from China. Apologies to the writer if he doesn't want to admit it, but it's the truth. Thus, the birth of the Chinese farmer.

    Add this: the "Chinese" part has nothing to do with it, either. The problem is farmers. They disrupt the economy in many online games and are generally harmful to the play of the game.

    Conclusion: Farmers are bad. There's no getting around it, and pulling the race card on flimsy pretext isn't a defense. I could care less about their ethnicity or their race. I just want them to stop spamming my damn WoW mailbox with offers for cheap gold.

    --
    ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
    1. Re:You've got to be kidding me. by NexusTw1n · · Score: 3, Insightful
      This has, actually, nothing at all to do with Chinese farmers except for the fact that the majority of sweatshop farmers are from China. Apologies to the writer if he doesn't want to admit it, but it's the truth. Thus, the birth of the Chinese farmer.
      I'd like to make a couple of points - and I'm not singling you out for this, your post struck my eye but there are plenty of others saying the same thing.

      I'm curious, is there any proof of this "fact"?

      We know farmers exist, we know they earn cents per hour because gold prices aren't that high. We know they don't talk much other than spamming "WTS .....", so they may be non English speakers but how do you know the majority are Chinese?

      How do you know they aren't Mexicans working in an Arizona sweatshop for example? Or a bunch of school kids earning after school allowance money? Or SE Asian net cafe owners?
      How do you know the farmers aren't US coded bots?

      I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just interested where the "fact" that gold farmers are chinese comes from.

      My second point is to question what does their nationality have to do with anything? If you don't like gold farmers then say you don't like gold farmers. Saying "I don't like Chinese gold farmers" is superfluous unless you're trying to make a point about the Chinese.

      If you have a problem with gang bangers then you say "I don't like gang bangers", if you say "I don't like black gang bangers" then the sentence takes on an entirely new meaning.

      The constant use of chinese gold farmer, rather than gold farmer, is a form of racism whether players are doing it subconciously or not.
      It isn't the people crying racism that are "pulling the race card", it's the people who are unecessarily bringing race and nationality into it in the first place.
      --
      It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
  3. This article is a bit silly... by Lendrick · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The "Extermination" section was amusing:

    The pestilence trope then brings into forefront notions of eradication and extermination. Depending on the game and the game mechanics, this is typically a combination of systematic harassment and slaughter:

    The only good kind of farmer is a dead one. [WoW, M, 38]

    Yes. I enjoy killing gold farmers repeatedly. I play on PvP servers. [WoW, M, 26]

    In Lineage 2 there were constantly Korea farmers and we hated them and killed them constantly. I can honestly say the way Korean players acted in that game was enough for myself and my guild to stereotype Korean teenagers, then hunt them down and kill them all. [WoW, M, 40]

    In 2004, a fan video titled "Farm the Farmers Day" showed actual footage as players tracked down and massacred players they suspected to be adena farmers (see Constance's paper for more on this).


    "Systematic harassment and slaughter?" Get real. It's a game. Let's be honest: gold farmers are an annoyance. If you PK them, you're annoying them back, and you're doing it within the rule structure of whatever game you're playing. These people signed up for accounts on PVP servers, so they're going to have to deal with being PKed just like the rest of us. If they stopped being annoying, they wouldn't be PKed as much.

    Also note that only one of the three comments is racist. The other two are just people having fun at the expense of other people who are being an annoyance and violating game rules.
  4. Developers by PeterAllen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The developers should just make it a non-viable option.

    Somehow.

    --
    there is death in the hane
  5. Re:Priorities by ryarger · · Score: 3, Insightful
    To claim that there's a racist underpinning here is absurd. I mean, if they're Chinese, they're Chinese. Are we going to deny reality now for fear of offending someone? If it's established the majority of farmers are no longer from China, then it's time to drop the term. But while the majority of farmers are based in China the term is still justified.


    As pointed out above, the problem with this is that the adjective maybe factually correctly, but it's inconsequential to the problem. The farmers are also human, have two hands and breathe oxygen, but would it make sense to describe them as two-handed, oxygen breathing, human Chinese farmers? Of course not. Because the problem is *farming*.

    It doesn't matter *one bit* that they are from China, so why point it out unless you're hoping to play on racial feelings, one way or the other?