Who Gets Paid To Play?

[Cookiemonster]

This is a real article in PC GAMER No. 154 November issue.

Down on the Gold Farm

They're here to serve you, they claim--to make a little money from your entertainment. But you, like us, probably despise them. They're the gold farmers--the players who show up en masse in every MMO, not to play but to earn a living. They make their cash from in-game loot and items, selling these and the high-level characters they create to players and brokers for real money. Many people have a dim view of their activities (PC Gamer stopped accepting ads from them months ago), accusing gold farmers of ruining a game's fragile economy, and often petitioning MMO admins to remove them from servers.
But in the small city of Jinhua, in the mid-eastern part of China, the MMO secondary market has transformed the economy. Jinhua was once famed for its delicious ham. It's now the center of the MMO services trade. One gold farm, the Donghua Gaming Workshop, employs 150 players working exclusively in World of Warcraft. They're just one of several large-scale farms, and business is booming--especially in the power-leveling department, where players can purchase a ready-made high-level character to bypass the early stages of a game. The owners of Donghua say that if the demand for power-leveling remains stable, they will have 500 employees by the end of 2006. Even the local government sees the importance of this business--in a region that suffers huge from unemployment, gold farms are one of the few growth industries.
In contrast to the stereotypical "goldfarm sweatshop," the Donghua is clean, spacious and well-lit. Farmers earn 1000RMB ($113) per month (a decent wage for the region), for working 10 hours a day, free food and housing included. The dormitories are full of bunks stacked three beds high. The walls bear the Donghua corporate slogan: "Unity, Collaboration, Efficiency and Honesty."
So, who are these people, these "evil-doers" that ruin our fun? Turns out they're human beings just like the rest of us, doing their best to eke out a living. Here's their side of the story:

Sorry guys, for the sake of the magazine, (and not to get a lawsuit), you will have to buy the magazine to get the interview info....and trust me, its worth the few bucks to get!

[BratsCankill]

tease

[KuldHeartid]

In contrast to the stereotypical "goldfarm sweatshop,"

So they found one shining example? Apparently there are many evil goldfarms. Ones that aren't spic and span? I'm not wanting more negative publicity for gaming (like those Korean kids who died because they would rather play EQ than eat, or Americans who ruined their lives), but where would the stereotype come from if not from at least one example?

[Avarix]

I don't have as big a problem with shops like this. Its actually a pretty good living for people in low income areas who don't otherwise have a good way to support themselves. They make about $800 USD a month with food and living space provided for free. They don't contribute as much gold to the economy as people believe but it is all legit.

I love people who buy accounts as well. With top level characters in other games it takes a while to actually get aquatinted with the character and how to play it. If they want to be lazy and handicap themselves for a little while feel free.

The people who dupe and sell that gold are the people i have a problem with. They can ruin a server in no time with inflated prices and insane currency floating around.

[KuldHeartid]

It's not the idea that bothers me, I've sold two accounts from Asheron's Call and made about 200 bucks from it...suckers.

I'm concerned about the "stereotype" it mentions. Are there sweat-shop-like gold farms?

[Cookiemonster]

The thing is they are sweat shops, one huge building with bunkers, and if u buy the magazine u can see pictures of them in these bunkers. Sorry but you just can't make money of other peoples work, they are ruining MMOs when they become a huge factor like in SB. If someone how all the MMOs could work together and get there CoC protocols together they might be able to find ways to stop these guys. They use foreign proxies to get access to games. WoW GMs actualy ban accounts with Asian symbols in them. In the review there is one interview with the SWEAT SHOP WORKER where he discusses that he would like to one day have his own SWEAT SHOP gold farm. Also over 300 thousand SWEATSHOP GOLD FARM ACCOUNTS were banned. This my friends is the just the start.

[Aurake]

its a hell of a lot better then having to toil in the field all day long in those rice paddies things.


First, I don't mean to single you out particularly flux, but I'm using what you said to high light something I've noticed.

I'm South Korean by birth, both my parents are white, and I grew up in North and South Carolina. And through the media and just general statements, I've noticed there is this trend to assume Asia is a this vast land of huts and rice farms, except for Tokyo (maybe japan as a whole) and Hong Kong. It's not specifically that people come out and say it all the time, but they do make statements such as the one Flux said. Also if you ever see depictions of asian countries in many movies, they tend to either be shown the way Korea looked in M.A.S.H. or like the Bronx of the 70/80's. Interestingly enough South Korea generally gets called the "Most Wired Country" in the world. It's high tech enough that you can produce highly screwed up personalities that actually manage to game till they die (multiple instances of people playing MMORPG's... and yes.. starcraft, until their hearts literally gave out due to exhaustion). Yet, I constantly see recent movies where someone crashes a plane in an asian country, and they inevitably run into some presents washing their clothes in the river. Not to say it doesn't happen.

That being said, some parts of asia are still crap holes. Take North Korea (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755) for example. Not that they don't try and make it look better for more offical tours (http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/north_korea_morris/).

However, China is very diverse, and has a very some regions of poverty an some regions of wealth. It's pretty much bound to happen in any country that size of china. Here's a photo tour (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=85517) of Shanghai for you though. Assuming people's only other option is to go work in a rice patty however may be quiet a bit off. I should note, I'm no expert on China. And being Asian myself, I still care not at all about asia. I post this not to defend asia or anything, but to try and rectify some common misconceptions people seem to be holding.

Also, I've noticed in SB's NA population, there seems to be a lot of asian hate. I've seen a lot of disparaging remarks on the forums, even these. And since almost no one in my guild knows I'm asian (no accent, my name is Paul, though everyone calls me Aurake), and less ever think about it, I even hear it in our vent on occasion. I find it disheartening to find such a divide. I understand not having a large integration of the player bases, even worse then the US & EU players since our base languages aren't even the same. However, I've noticed more of an ideals separation, at least based on the boards. You see a lot of people referring to guilds calling in the asians (even if they only called in a single guild that is predominately asian players) and the asian zerg. It's strange to me, however I don't think the asian player base is very active on Mourning, so it could just be the way it's presented on the boards.

Anyway, didn't mean to go on a rant, I'm don't really care about asia or anything. I just don't like these preconceived baseless notions of what other countries are like (like how people seem to think the middle east is nothing but a bunch of sand and anger). I didn't really mean to go on such a rant there, enjoy the photo tours though =)

EDIT:

Btw, I dislike the people who buy their gear/gold/toons. But I can't justify to myself the spend of real assets on fake assets (I play games to kill time playing games personally). Also I enjoy the sense of accomplishment knowing that my awesome gear is from wasting years of my life playing MMORPG's, and not just because I had some extra cash on my credit card.

[Ramsie]

yah this conversation can go badly when racial aspects get involved. Try your best to keep it to the point of "is farming good or not?"

[Aurake]

I think gold (resource of any type) hurt city building PvP games like shadowbane the most. Okay actually, I don't know any other game where you can build your own city and tare one down. Last I heard EVE Online was working on it, but hadn't gotten there yet. But that aside, it allows players to buy resources to help keep their city up. It completely detaches the amount of players in your guild, or even how much work your guild is willing to do from how properouse your city is.

It allows players to buy advantages in shadowbane (btw, the first time I quit shadowbane was in protest to the RoC expantion. Not because I didn't like the stuff it gave, but because Ubi decided to allow players to basically buy an advantage). I think this dampens the competative spirit of shadowbane. Much like duping and even macro leveling does. At first it might not seem like a problem, but once it becomes widely adopted as an okay tactic through out the game you see a loss of competition.

Other PvE games (EQ/WoW) suffer from gold farming because it causes an inflation in the economy. That means players either need to buy gold or farm massivly to be able to buy in game resources. However, this does not lead to a loss of competativeness in the game. These games provide a non-competition content system, which shadowbane lacks. Even if everyone else has better gear then you, you do not compete directly against them, you compete against NPC's who are always geared the same.

All in all, gold farming screws SB up more so then other games, however atleast you can't gold heal walls anymore.

[Ramsie]

Agree SB was rather unique to how it hurt the game. My personal take is on a case by case. I obviously would never like to see unnatural gold entering the world. but sometimes I wonder is it really hurting anything in a game like EQ or WoW, if someone sells gold they earned through normal play...

[KenshinDC]

Ya, Aurake basically got it down. Also, in a PvE game... More specifically, WoW... As the economy inflates, all it takes is for you to get that one item that is selling for 500+ gold and you're halfway to your Level 60 Mount.

In that perspective, I was almost happy the prices have soared so much because, as long as you keep up in the AH with the prices and sell stuff 5% cheaper than most other people. You can get to where you can afford to buy Mounts, get your spells, and buy items from NPCs that are decent enough to support you until you find upgrade items off mobs. Any BoE blue/purple item is a potential get rich opprotunity.

You used to get stressed making alts thinking, oh man at 40 I get a mount but I have to spend 100 gold. Now it's like... Oh dang, 100 gold, I spent more on my Kang the Decapitor that I wont be able to use for another 4 levels.

For SB though... It's exactly like PvE exploitatoin versus PvP exploitation. PvE isn't hurting anything except players are doing it just to get higher level so that they can enjoy PvP. But then when you PvP exploit, that totally enrages me because it's showing lack of respect to fellow players wanting to engage in combat. Which, I guess if you put in the fact that you cannot target anyone properly when they PvE exploit, that it's also a PvP exploit even though I've never personally thought highly of lowbie killers.

As for Ramsie, just like Aurake said then I added to it... The economy inflates on a PvE game, but if someone gets lucky and wins a nice blue/purple item. It's a potential "instantly get rich" kinda deal. It's kinda easy in WoW... EQ it was much harder to get a decent item to drop, but at the same time EQ has a lot more items than WoW currently has and the items are not one time use then get rid of (which is one thing I hate about WoW, but it kinda does discourage people from spending money on twinks that they won't be able to use again).

Also, selling in-game gold/levels/characters was once like forbidden by SOE, then they go in EQ2 and say... "Okay, you can do it but you have to pay us." That's BS... I love it though how people got clever with Terms of Use and Codes of Conduct... When people sell items/characters/levels, they say that they are selling time invested. Which, in reality, that's what they are doing.

In the end, I believe gaming to be like any other hobby... Some people will start playing Golf and like it so they go buy a $8,000 set of clubs. While someone that has been playing for 10 years may be carrying around Wal-Mart brand golf clubs. It's their choice on how much money they want to invest in their interests and hobbies. In the case of PvE games, the economy will inflate but creating a system like WoW has done makes it less of a problem and actually eases some aspects of the game such as untraining talents, buying mounts, getting items off NPCs (tradeskills and equipment), and getting spells.

[XaeroT]

800 a month?

I read somwhere where they are getting 20 cents an hour overseas, thats nowhere NEAR 800 a month, and much less than the ipod workers get!

[Avarix]

800 a month?

I read somwhere where they are getting 20 cents an hour overseas, thats nowhere NEAR 800 a month, and much less than the ipod workers get!

From cost of living to cost of living that is a rough conversion.

[Cookiemonster]

There is one simple answer to getting rid of gold farms, have mmos sell gear that you can get anyway or gold for that matter. Instead of people just comeing on in mass numbers, ruining game play. I mean actual game play, disturbing pvp balance and going around proxies. If SB suddenly started selling gold for 50% the cost that these other gold farms are selling there gold. It could destroy gold farms and help MMOs have a second income ..... sell it to subscribers or ppl who have accounts over 6months.

[Vaus00]

There is one simple answer to getting rid of gold farms, have mmos sell gear that you can get anyway or gold for that matter. Instead of people just comeing on in mass numbers, ruining game play. I mean actual game play, disturbing pvp balance and going around proxies. If SB suddenly started selling gold for 50% the cost that these other gold farms are selling there gold. It could destroy gold farms and help MMOs have a second income ..... sell it to subscribers or ppl who have accounts over 6months.


This is something ive never understood as to why companies dont do this. Yes there are complaints from the player base but at least it is controlled. When Ive seen similar conversation in the past the argument against was saying that people without money wont be able to compete. Well with the companies that farm out gold/items/chars its the same thing.

In turn the company will be able to have a secondary cash cow with no overhead since the items/gold/char handed out is a simple key stroke for a customer service rep or script after you finish the purchase.

The revenue generated by the option to purchase game items/gold/chars allows for more maint on the servers and quicker turn around on patch scheduling.

Using Shadowbane as an example: If it had its own store it could have gone from the pay to play to free play but still maintained income from the store. Items that are sold could be "specials" meaning that peerless ringblade of vamp dagger is only available in its online store a few days a month.

But then again for SB this model is still a little flawed because if you can buy items in an online store then what is the purpose of having a city?

There is no "perfect model" for an game ran store, because it really depends on the game design.


One of the reasons I wont ever jumped into a lvl grind game anymore is because of the time synch. I will only play pvp games, and if the game has a slow leveling pace I will never be able to keep up with people I play with since I only have a few hours a night (if that) to play. So in turn the next "big great game" I will probably end up buying a char, or paying a guildy to level it for me.


(this was just a ramble and may be incoherent, but im trying to listen to a conference call at the same time)

[Avarix]

I don't think i made it clear, but these farming houses are not the people ruining the economy. Everything they gain is done thru legal in game methods. The dupers are the ones who ruin economies, they drive prices up to where you either have to buy gold or dupe yourself to compete.

[Aurake]

Farming companies can cause inflation in my oppinion. Duping is a faster way to do it. However, even if done through legitimate means, if farming companies can add more gold into the economy then players tend to be able to generate, it can cause the economical inflation. In this fact, SB almost has an advantage as there is monitary loss in the game. However, as I said, things like selling gold hurt SB's competative nature more because of the fact that it allows people to buy an advantage.

[Cookiemonster]

It is a problem, and the dupers normaly dupe gear and keep it for them selves. When u have 300 thousands players going around proxies causing lag u can't tell me that makes u happy. And it ruins the economy, when u have 300 thousand ppl farming gold JUST to sell it on ebay and have means to expand there wealth using mines or any other generic means. If u have gold farmers interfeering with game play then u have a problem. Lucky for SB you can easily kill of gold farmers. And duping being a faster way ? ranked mines work to.if people dupe its due to the lack of thorough testing b4 releasing a game. I guess each to there own ?

[LeddZeppelin]

It is a problem, and the dupers normaly dupe gear and keep it for them selves. When u have 300 thousands players going around proxies causing lag u can't tell me that makes u happy. And it ruins the economy, when u have 300 thousand ppl farming gold JUST to sell it on ebay and have means to expand there wealth using mines or any other generic means. If u have gold farmers interfeering with game play then u have a problem. Lucky for SB you can easily kill of gold farmers. And duping being a faster way ? ranked mines work to.if people dupe its due to the lack of thorough testing b4 releasing a game. I guess each to there own ?

the people who farm gold CONSTANTLY and then sell it again, are selling to who? people to lazy to farm themselves, thus the gold a gold farmer produces is roughly the same amount the buyer would be making himself had he not bought the gold. but a duper can sit there duping all day on a macro getting probably 50-100x the amount a gold farmer can. not to mention the amount of people who are gold farming represent probably only like 5-10% of the entirety of a game like WoW's pop. so the amount they make a day is lets say 4-5 times the average person. for example a normal wow player might get 20-30 gold a day while not trying that hard, a gold farmer might only get 100-120 working 12 hours a day. how much do you want to bet ATLEAST 25-30% of WoWs population would rather be PvPing in battlegrounds rather then farming, and they get to do that when they buy gold.

on the other hand a duper can make 50-100x more then the average person. if a duper sits there on a macro i can EASILY see him getting thousands of gold per day, if not tens of thousands. THAT is what really makes an economy screwy.

[Ramsie]

I don't think i made it clear, but these farming houses are not the people ruining the economy. Everything they gain is done thru legal in game methods. The dupers are the ones who ruin economies, they drive prices up to where you either have to buy gold or dupe yourself to compete.


Actually they can have adverse effects. As mentioned, the amount of inflation they add hurts the day to day grinder. They play for gold, so they are actually getting more into the world through legal or illegal ways. Do not think for a minute they do not exploit if it presents itself...

Bots and other methods can certainly affect a games economy...