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In-Game Gold Farming a $500M Industry
SpuriousLogic brings us this excerpt from a BBC report:
"Prof. Heeks said very accurate figures for the size of the gold farming sector were hard to come by, but his work suggested that in 2008 it employs 400,000 people who earn an average of $145 (£77) per month creating a global market worth about $500m. ... Already, he said, gold farming was comparable in size to India's outsourcing industry. 'The Indian software employment figure probably crossed the 400,000 mark in 2004 and is now closer to 900,000,' said Prof Heeks. 'Nonetheless, the two are still comparable in employment size, yet not at all in terms of profile.' Prof Heeks suspects gold-farming might be an early example of the 'virtual offshoring' likely to become more prevalent as people spend more time working and playing in cyberspace. "
We discussed the life of a gold farmer last year.
Might as well get it out of the way.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/02/16/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/14/
I think they have stopped now, or got kicked out, I havent seen any more similar activity from the bunch....
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Just another example that I don't deserve my nice house and cushy job. Some people are pretty desperate for the spare change that falls from American (and euro, there does that make you happy...) tables.
They worked all day for the same money I made reading this article at work.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
gold farmers have wrecked mmo's for me. why bother when farmers can sell high level gear to 12 year olds?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Haven't the Calcutta brothers created something called Scrabulous thats of a similar business model?
And how about the gazillion Indian outsourcing garage-sized companies you find in sites like rentacoder.com and scriptlance.com?
slashdot rocks
When I was unemployed, I saw the gold farmers as a scourge, letting people pay to get stuff for nothing.
Now that I have a job, and next to no time to play the games I like, it pisses me off that I never have the in-game cash to get the stuff I'd need to play alongside my friends without letting them down.
It's a real shame on both ends of the spectrum. Them, for giving people the easy way out, and the game makers, for requiring so damn much of a time investment.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
What is this? A reverse-psychology 419 scam in action?
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the existence of WoW is, overtly, to have fun
but if you are employing someone to heighten your fun, all you are really doing is distancing yourself from the true pleasure of the game. you are talking about people who do not know how to enjoy the gaming experience
why do people cheat in any game? its the triumph of ego over id. its people mistaking the pursuit of pleasure with the pursuit of heightening your self-regard. when you conflate the two, you actually destroy your own happiness (though you don't realize this) because you are no longer solely concerned with pleasure, but winning. of course winning is pleasurable, but winning at all costs deadens pleasure, it doesn't heighten it. this is especially true of your actions and their effects on the happiness of others, by warping how the game experience exists for them
gold farming indicates a philosophical and psychological disconnect between the point of something like WoW and what people actually do with it. they turn fun, into work
that's just wrong in some extremely fundamental way, and shows you why true happiness is so fleeting in this world: we destroy our own happiness by actively placing the pursuit of happiness secondary to the pursuit of some other, lesser goal, out of your own blindness and forgetting what is important, especially in the context of something like WoW
i'm not saying trying to use the game in ways not as originally intended is wrong no matter what. you can use WoW to do lots of interesting things that isn't what the game was intended for. what i am saying is that this particular unintended game experience, gold farming, is odious and toxic to the expeirence of everyone, including those employing the gold farmers, they just don't know it, as they are blind to their own philosophical and psycholigcal failures that lead them away from the pursuit of happiness and instead towards the pursuit of ego tweaking
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Them, for giving people the easy way out, and the game makers, for requiring so damn much of a time investment."
They have to otherwise you all would be complaining about how the games was a rip off because it was too short.
THAT'S NOTHING... I farm Karma on Slashdot for $0.12/hour
While gold-farming does go against the game's policies, there is not much that Blizzard can legally do about it. Gold-farmers are stationed mostly in China and Japan, and players are willing to buy buy their products such as gold / armor and items. it is disappointing but I don't see how that should affect gameplay, as some people do not have the time to farming gold and armor. Players use their virtual money to enhance their character, yet Blizzard feels that this is against the game's policies, which in many ways it is, but people do what they want, no MMORPG has ever been perfect, and i seriously doubt that blizzard can do much about stopping the spread of gold farming and gold selling. Players do what makes them happy, even if it may violate the GUI's and so forth.
If that money or the items bought with that money could be destroyed or lost in game.
You mad
Why don't anyone hire them as NPC. You could pay for dynamic quests.
The principles of economics could not be contained by the iron curtain, nor will they be by the digital or legal curtain.
The agricultural economy had it's currency, as did the industrial economy. The digital economy is no different.
The foundation of micro econ is marginal utility, so as long as there is one sniveling 13 year old (or 31 year old for that matter) that says "I want", there is real economic value in the virtual gold in them there iron hills.
That's right folks that nice shiny new digital dagger contributes to the real GDP.
Hope is the currency of fools
either
A: force all transactions through a NPC vendor and charge a incremental tax on all transfers between non linked accounts transfers.
after the first few transfers your tax rate gets up past 30% - 40% and its no longer profitable. this will also work as an excellent gold sink, keeping the economy in check.
B: the company sells gold for less than the farmers, making it no longer profitable.
this of course would kill the games economy.
This just in! People get paid to do work others don't want to do! Details at 11.
To Blizzard and friends. Seriously, the party that owns the world can make anything they want, in any quantity, for essentially zero dollars, and they see that half a billion worth gets sold every year?
Sure, they currently make money on the gold farmer's accounts; but they just have to be salivating at the prospect of cutting them out of the action. They'd take flack for it, though, so a means of laundering would need to be developed.
It's just a silly game.
If "gold farming" twists your panties up too tight, maybe you're playing too much.
Fashion designers, Dry cleaners, Professional Athletes, Nail salons, and now, virtual gold miners.
Bless you all - as long as you are earning money and keeping off the welfare roles, I applaud you.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Cory Doctorow wrote a cool short story incorporating gold farming in his collection Overclocked.
Free downloads of the html version and
PDF version.
Where can I find the company that will let me out-source by posts at slashdot? I don't have time to make clever witty comments, and the quality of my postings were low anyways. By out-sourcing my posting my productivity will jump 100%!
Out of the 50 million total MMO players worldwide, is this suggesting that every player drops $10 a year to gold farmers?
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
If they want to quell gold farming they need to introduce Postal worker as a profession. All mail from that point on is handled by an in-game post office. As an added perk, all Postal workers are always in PVP while making deliveries, and if they're killed while doing their route their mail can be stolen by whoever killed them. That'd add a new fun element to the game at least.
Then when it comes to other players physically transferring farmed gold to one another in game, Blizzard could just make some sort of verification key system. For example if a player wanted to accept a 10 0000g transfer the verification would be they'd have to throw a Kara run and say 'We wiped because I'm a noob'.
Problem solved.
I have nothing compelling to say
Excerpt from Brandon Sheffield article on Gamasutra :
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18510
It was Blueside who first introduced the idea to me, cynically stating that consoles won't succeed in Korea until players start just playing games for fun, instead of treating them as work. I laughed then, but subsequent meetings only served to confirm the theory.
Companies from Gravity to Ntreev to Nexon agreed that a very large number - varying from 30 to 50 percent, depending on who you ask - of players in South Korea are playing games as a job. Generally, people didn't feel too good about it either, which at least indicates that people aren't designing them with that as a goal. But it's still disconcerting.
And as any player of Lineage2 can attest, some Korean MMOs really ARE designed to be grindfests and farming prone.
From L2 official boards :
PushyCat on official boards:
So, Koreans play and sell in their own servers and it covers the cost of their PC Room and meals. This is a normal aspect of Korean games. Listen to me while I say this. Ebaying is NOT CONSIDERED CHEATING in KORea. It is an important element of mmporgs. With game money, not only can you sell it to make cash, you can also order pizza, buy computers and accessories (like auto mouses, keyboards, macroprograms), and pay for your monthly fee (for those who play at home). In Korea, game money is an accepted tender for Real Life. Noone posts on message boards about cheaters, ebayers, and bots because EVERYONE does it. In Korea, the game is played much differently than in North America, and asians have different cultural backgrounds that make gameplay different as well.
Unreal. Anybody know Google works like a calculator?
http://www.google.com/search?q=400000+*+145
$58,000,000. I guess that's worth 'about' $500mln.
145 * 400,000 = 58 million, not 500 million.
I'm sure all the rest of the story is 100% accurate though.
The game is a mess and one of the messes is items you "have" to buy ingame.
If you want extra inventory space you need to buy bags but most important are horses since the game has very little instant travel.
250 gold for the highest level mounts in total (might be 300 forgot exactly) and 3 gold for your first set of horse and riding skill. Problem? When you reach the level for your first mount you got maybe, if you sold EVERYTHING and saved up constantly and grinding some gold 50 silver.
So paying a gold farmer makes sense. Early prices made your first horse cost 10-15 dollars. Not to bad.
But when the game had launched I did the math from the constant gold spams and a level 80 mount would have set you back 1300 euros.
Prices dropped of course BUT when I left you still looked at several hundred euro's, for a horsy.
I think gold farmers don't so much get 10 bucks from every MMORPG player but a 1000 from people with more money then brains.
Sure, you can say that for some people money == time but seriously, who is willing to pay so much money just for a game that you obviously don't actually want to play?
Now Age of Conan is a bad example as it is an incredibly badly designed MMORPG, want horse mounted combat, try Mount&Blade and give this game a wide birth but I think it is an accurate way of seeing how gold farmers work, they don't even pretend to offer a reasonable product, they basically offer the same service dog-walkers offer. All the fun of having a dog without doing anything with said dog. It is for people that want an epic mount but never play with it.
But I am not entirely suprised by these figures, after all the korean "pay for ingame items" approach makes gold farming a natural extension, if you are paying for items already why not buy gold as well.
For some games, like WoW and AoC it seems logical because if you make a decent wage why not pay someone to grind for you.
But I think most gamers would rather game themselves since gold is hardly cheap if you are still making minimum wage.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
China's good at farming Olympic gold too!
Who said we're dumbing down as a country?
I mean, it's not like they were off by almost 20% there, is it?
$145 * 400,000 * 12 = $696million (which I'd call $700 million in an article, sure, but $500million?)
So, Beeb, need to buy a few more calculators?
No pussy for YOU!
There's a difference between what the industry pays its workers and what the industry is worth. In an industry where costs and wages are so low, it's probably a difference significantly larger than that of more traditional businesses. Who knows though, the article is far too light on details to make even marginal guesses.
N/T.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Your sig contradicts itself. Not everyone wants a simple (which is partially the same as "easy to use") OS. Fuck simplicity! I want POWER. :D :P)
(And IF this makes you think that I want the complete (and maybe even extreme) opposite of simplicity... then I will stop arguing, because then you're not even ready for a grown-up discussion.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
...who make a justification to violate the rules(and ruining the game). It happens about every time goldfarming comes up.
This is the developed world, and it has no obligation to assist developing nations in any way. That includes those who aid and abet them. It also includes those who wish to obstruct the US/(pre-expansion)EU, within and without.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Lineage II in NCNA isn't being enforced with a large enough hammer. There's your problem.
Keep the banhammer running and start doing some serious blocking(read: the few that get through get banned) of botting countries. It has worked in the Philippines, it can and will work in farmer-infested parts of NCNA.
1.4 billion(and more) people are a problem solved by permanent exclusion from the game.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If, on the other hand, one is in more of an ... mind set, Blizzard could license gold farmers and let ....... forces take their course.
However, force is quite swift at removing them, and solves the problem.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Some people LIKE to grind. Don't ask me why, I'll never get it but I know a number of WoW players that enjoy grinding. So WoW provides grinding for them to do, and rewards for it. Blizzard's theory seems to be that whatever you like to do, they are going to give you plenty of it to do and rewards for doing it. You want to do 5-mans? Go to it. Want to PvP? Sure. Whatever you like, you can do it.
The problem comes from people who aren't playing the game for fun, but playing because they want to be better than other people. The want to have the best gear, most stuff, etc. Thus they run in to things that are grind rewards. They don't want to do those, so they buy gold instead.
The grind isn't the problem, the people who don't play to have fun are.
However, it fails when force is required(read: banning/blocking them to manageable, and bannable numbers).
It's a shame that economists are the fifth column of our nation.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Block them, and have enough proxy detection to reduce them low numbers. Then hand the accounts to verified US citizens by a contest.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...and both shall be banned, the former blocked.
There is no obligation to assist or permit assistance towards the developing world. It is more an obligation to hold them to the same standard - their population does not make it any more correct.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The only thing goldfarming does is ruin a game - full stop. The only proper response is to make the bans easier to effect on known and unknown goldfarmers. We do not have any obligation to assist them, nor anyone who does so.
Blizzard would prefer not to lose customers as any other company would.
Time for regulation to put some teeth into those bans, ala Korea.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I don't trust the numbers. There are about 10 million people playing WoW, and WoW has ~80% market share. That works out to about 1 farmer for every 30 players.
But most of those 30 only play a few hours a day, and they only need to level up once or twice, many choose not to use a gold farmer at all. Farmers work more than 40 hours a week. That does not compute.
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
While goldfarming is a problem and in my opinion hurts the game in the long run, there's something that bothers me more. Account hacking. Account hacking is a professional business these day and it hurts players directly. Their accounts are robbed from every penny their gear which they obtained over hours of doing dungeons or farming, playing the game gets sold for a bit of cash and they're left with one ore more naked Characters. While people may say: gold buying is harmless, it's from Chinese farmers anyway, that's not true. If you are buying gold, you are paying someone else to hack into your fellow players accounts. Think about that.
What nobody here is talking about is the bigger picture. These "gold farmers" have now resorted to hacking accounts to obtain the gold from the very people they are trying to sell it to.
I have bought small amounts of in game currency in the past; however, after having 2 separate accounts hacked in less than a year, I have vowed to never buy currency with real cash anymore
It's not because of in-game economy or any such thing. It's simply because I don't want anyone else to have to go through what I did, logging onto your character and finding him naked and with any valuable items gone. It's just like a robbery in real life to me. Someone came and took what I had worked for, and I can't support these people anymore!
Still strange that so many people work for something virtual, that could just be generated without any labor.
My spirit takes a journey through my mind...
If I want to pay extra to have more fun, more power to me. Maybe you find grinding in the Outlands for seven hours just to get the gold you need for an epic mount to be fun, but I don't.
put the words "free tibet" somewhere in the game.
How exactly do you grind from level 1-60 without getting your very own level 38 world drop ... which you can then sell for enough gold to buy one.
It's not that you should be living in poverty. It's that that poor Chinese bastard -- and my heart truly bleeds for him -- deserves more.
If you studied in school, if you hold down a "real" job that does more than just shuffle paper, if you do an honest day's work, then you deserve your nice house.
Why, because you're an entitled spoiled brat? No. Because that nice house is just a fair share of the wealth a modern worker produces. That house is the beginning of the return on your educational investment you made for the rest of us.
When you were a child, we made you an explicit promise. Don't give us trouble, follow our rules, work with us, learn what we teach you and when you are grown and capable, you'll get a job that pays you enough to be a full member of this society. Maybe not opulence, but certainly housing, transportation, food, medicine and time enough to have a life.
If you're posting on Slashdot, chances are good you held up your end of the deal.
For the past thirty years, I've followed the growth of a cancerous meme that has become a monster. Whether it's Carl Icahn or Robert Kiyosaki or the rest of that ilk, they argue "Nobody owes you anything. The world doesn't owe you a living. Your credentials are meaningless. You only 'deserve' what you can get."
We're supposed to be coders here. We should be able to understand the consequences of rule sets. Idealism breeds happiness. Cynicism breeds destruction.
If we all agree to work together, if we keep our compacts with our young, if our cops believe they are servants of justice, if our doctors believe they have a sacred calling, if our teachers believe they are keepers of the flame of knowledge, if we fairly share the wealth we all produce, then we will have a society that will be the envy of the world -- like it used to be.
If we all decide to be cynics, if we all decide it's every man for himself, if we believe that school is for suckers, if we idolize men who make billions by clever paper shuffling or outright theft, if our cops are in it for the power, our doctors for the money and our teachers believe themselves fools for their career choice, then we're going to wake up in a failed society like every other third-world shithole I've visited.
Idealistic societies that work together and hold to their ideals produce the stability that makes the building of wealth across generations possible.
Cynical, corrupt societies that don't honor their commitments to each other fall apart after a generation or two. The decay becomes amazing. Witness the Banana Republics of South America, the bottomless pits of Southeast Asia, Russia, and lately -- us.
A few months ago, Jagex solved this problem in Runescape and now bots and gold farming is basically non-existent. I've found the game to be more enjoyable with real players to chat with rather than competing with bots using free accounts for limited resources. The key to what they did was stop unbalanced trading. You can still give away items, but it's been limited, yet scaled to your experience level. They also added a cool feature where you can loan (or rent) items to other players. The gold farming was apparently creating a huge underground economy and funding organized crime. With real world trading, they'd also have to be concerned with international banking laws and money laundering. If you want to play a game and have fun, do that. If you want to grind for money, get a real job.
people who don't play as much as others.. a way to keep them in synch. What you need is a device that allows more casual gamers to stay somewhat on par with other players, as to character level. It's also a clever device to encourage less-active players to keep their accounts, making players want to come back and play some more after some time away from the game. Rest also adds more value to the subscription fee. In light of the controversy of game addiction, rest also gives players reason to cease play. Blizzard has also indirectly stated that World of Warcraft play should be taken in moderation according to loading screen tips.
First-- it would need a name..... rested bonus?
http://www.wowwiki.com/Rest
nah-- that's lame-- that could never work..... and it would certainly never be the same MMOPRG I know.. Could it?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
WOW uses an SQL database. They could just make a buy using a plant, then find the user that sent the gold, find all the other users that that person sent gold, then find out who those users have purchased gold from in the past. Do that a few hundred times and you get your pattern for all the mules that transfer gold to buyers. Now do a search and find out who is sending, or dropping the gold to the mules, because the mules are worthless level 1 newbies usually.
Once you have the suppliers just cross reference credit card names and numbers to find all the accounts those users own, what IP addresses they are coming from, and for the heck of it cross reference those to accounts as well.
Granted you would have to have some algorithms to weed out false positives, but that wouldn't be difficult.
It wouldn't get rid of the gold farming, but it would drive the cost of gold sky high, and make it very difficult to do business.
I write reports to find suspicious behavior for debit and credit cards. It seems to me the problems are very much similar to one another.
Last time this topic arose, I saw Anda's Game . Quite an enjoyable read.
I think what's often overlooked in these discussions around gold farming is the extent to which it's basically a fundamental flaw of game design. See also Is Gold Farming a Game Design problem?