Bad Press For Gold Farmers Affects Chinese Players

Next Generation is running a piece entitled Why PC Gamer Kicked Out Gold Farmers. Editor-in-chief Greg Vederman talks about why they decided to no longer accept advertising from 'Gold Farming' services for Massively Multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. Though there are moral grounds for this decision, it contrasts with a Eurogamer piece on the negative reactions Chinese players recieve on English-speaking servers. From that article:"Apparently there is a common belief among English speaking players that most non-English speakers are gold farmers and are only playing for commercial gain. As a result, players are asking anyone who wants to join a group to type one or two sentences in English. If the sentences contain spelling or grammar mistakes, the player is rejected. Since you have to join groups to complete certain quests in WOW, this is presenting many Chinese players with a serious problem. "

Comments

Re:If they weren't farmers, they'd be on their own

[KingSkippus]

Gosh, I can think of at least a few good reasons.

• Maybe he or she wants to play with his or her friend who lives in America.
• Maybe he or she wants to play on a more/less populated server.
• Maybe Americans/Europeans are better roleplayers or otherwise generally play more in a style he or she likes.
• Maybe he or she has a nighttime job, and can only play when Americans are generally awake and playing.
• Maybe he or she hopes to move to America or Europe someday and is using the game to also help practice English. (Two birds with one stone!)
• Maybe he or she just likes Americans/Europeans. I know I always think it's pretty neat when I get in a group with a lot of foreigners, and often, I ponder the possibility of trying out a foreign server.

Like I said, those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty more.

Re:If they weren't farmers, they'd be on their own

[Jerry Rivers]

I just had an argument with someone on another MMORPG's fan board about the very point you make. Some people do in fact learn english playing on english language servers, but unfortunately some of the examples of english they learn from are filled with slang, colloquialisms, horrible grammar and inept orthography. While I suppose it is admirable that they are making the effort to learn english, it is truly unfortunate that some of what they are learning is about as useful in real life as pig latin. Even worse, they may not even realize it and make posts in other english language venues that are a mishmash of styles, which can lead to great confusion for readers who don't know whether they should take their post seriously or not.