The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

An anonymous reader writes "This weekend's New York Times Magazine puts a human face to the 'gold farming' profession. Virtual world economist Julian Dibbell travels to Nanjing, China, for a look at the working conditions and first-hand experience of farming gold from virtual monsters as a way to make a living. From the article: 'At the end of each shift, Li reports the night's haul to his supervisor, and at the end of the week, he, like his nine co-workers, will be paid in full. For every 100 gold coins he gathers, Li makes 10 yuan, or about $1.25, earning an effective wage of 30 cents an hour, more or less. The boss, in turn, receives $3 or more when he sells those same coins to an online retailer, who will sell them to the final customer (an American or European player) for as much as $20. The small commercial space Li and his colleagues work in -- two rooms, one for the workers and another for the supervisor -- along with a rudimentary workers' dorm, a half-hour's bus ride away, are the entire physical plant of this modest $80,000-a-year business.'"

Comments

Putting things in perspective

[mrjb]

30 cents an hour amounts to about 48 dollars per month. Putting things in perspective, when I lived in Asia, that was more or less the normal wage of a janitor. Not a lot of money, and life conditions are poor with those wages- but the money goes a long way compared to the same kind of money in western 'civilization'. In those countries, 30 bucks pretty much buys you nutricious, delicious, high-quality all you can eat for 8 people. 20 cents amounts to a liter of petrol which goes a long way as well in those cranky noisy motorcycles of theirs.

Re:100 gold coins for $1.25...

[RichMan]

This is WoW related as WoW is the biggest game.

1g = 100silver = 10,000 copper

When you start. You start with copper coins.

Your mount at level 40 costs ~100g.
Your mount at level 60 costs ~600g.
Your mount at level 70 costs ~1000g.
Your fast mount at level 70 costs ~6000g.
6000g = 60,000,000 copper

The game is designed with a rudimentary economy that despite the unlimited gold from killing things is designed to eat up money for repairs and other equipment costs. It is easy to spend all your money on shiny objects.

Top end quests are worth 10-20g for completing.

Re:Military commissions

[DerekLyons]

Why does this bother you that rich folks can pay to play. Why should they not if they can? It's the way of the world and always has been.

Always has been? You might learn a little bit about the history you misquote so freely.
 
Setting aside the use of influence and nepotism (which are fraternal - not identical, twins of outright purchase)...
 
Persons of wealth buying the positions (in the Church and in the Armed Services) isn't something that happened (or happens) in tribal societies - nor (in the Western) world does it happen today. (It was largely wiped out in the late 1800's to early 1900's.) It was rare in feudal Japan and virtually nonexistent in classical China. It was extremely rare in classical Greece and semi-common only in later period Rome. In fact in the Western world - the practice was only widespread from late medieval times to early modern times.
 
Or in short, no - it's not commonly the way of the world nor has it always been.

Re:Time is Money

[miller60]

Demographics is a major factor in the demand for gold exchanges and growth of power-leveling services. As the player base has expanded beyond hard-core young adults, many new players are older and have careers and families - leaving less time available for grinding through levels. A C/Net story last fall noted that in some cases, parents wanted to play Warcraft with their kids, and paid to have their character leveled up.

Sony did a white paper on the Station Exchange economy which noted that the largest sellers were 22-year-olds (who have plenty of time but not a lot of money) and the largest buyers were age 34. These older players have more money than time, and that fact drives the demand side of the virtual economy, creating a sustainable market for both power-leveling and game accounts.