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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. "
Like it or not, such games reflect a real-world social situtation. And when we have such situations, economies often develop. That's just the nature of human survival, be it in real life, or while playing as an elf in some online game.
What interests me the most is the attitude that is being taken towards those who are able to produce goods with a comparative advantage. Those questions are much like a tariff, for instance. They inhibit the free trade between those who harvest gold in these games, and those who wish to buy.
With the move towards free trade worldwide, it will be interesting to see how the games adopt. Indeed, it could be quite a scene to see riots of sorts taking place in these game worlds, much as happens in the real world, when tough economic issues are involved.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
... I simply refuse to group with anyone I can't properly communicate with. Communication between party members is key in WoW.
(tichondrius 60 troll priest)
----- sXe
Can someone who plays these games tell me _honestly_ if a large percentage (say over 40%) of Chinese language speakers are gold farmers? If there truly is a large percentage of Chinese speakers, or even non-english speakers who are gold farmers, that certainly seems like an entirely fair bias to me.
The difference is comparing this to an unfair bias. Like saying black people are criminals, Arab people are terrorists, etc. In these cases the vast vast majority of blacks or Arabs are NOT criminals or terrorists.
Bias is something people believe in and use every day. This idea that bias is always a bad thing is ridiculous. If you see a group of guys walking down the street swinging baseball bats in the middle of the night looking like they're drunk, It's a wise move to avoid them. Now that's bias, as you don't know them and maybe they're coming home from a costume party. But you'd be a fool to not start walking on the other side of the street.
AccountKiller