China Bans Gold Farming

InformationWeek is reporting that the Chinese government has declared a ban on the sale of virtual goods for real currency. This move is poised to shut down a several billion yuan a year business that has been growing by leaps and bounds every year. "The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester. He estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China. [...] Game companies typically forbid gold farming but committed virtual currency traders find ways around such rules. Some game companies have recognized the futility of trying to ban the practice and have built virtual commerce into their game infrastructure."

Comments

Re:China seems to want to enhance its image...

[Red Flayer]

Your bosses will constantly be pushing you to maximize your per hourly gold yield.

My understanding is that most of the gold farmer "workers" work on a quota system. Of course the quota will get moved up depending on possible performance. It's not about maximizing yields, it's about hitting the quota dependably.

When labor is that cheap, it's probably more effective to hire additional workers than it is to squeeze every last drop out of the ones you have.

Anecdotally, back when I played MMOs, I was once asked to hold onto some surplus in-game cash for a farmer. He wanted to set it aside so if he had a bad day, he could use it to get over quota and avoid punishment.

I recall reading an article about this somewhere (Gamasutra?)... the gold farmers didn't want to make too much gold for their bosses, or their coworkers would get mad. Excess earnings in a session were hidden to (1) save for a bad day (2) sell independently for income or (3) play the game themselves. It was a really interesting look inside gold farming at the basest level.