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Why Robin Makes Batman Better Yes, of course, there are gold farmers in China. But why?
Earlier this week, we brought word that the Chinese Government has tried to ban gold farming the reported $US500 million gold farming industry.
Friday, the Chinese government’s attempted to address the $US500 million industry of gold farming, reported to employ some 400,000 workers, in the form of a ruling on the exchange of “virtual currency” for real world cash.
The number three MMORPG gold-seller on the internet, MyMMOShop.com, has just made the ultimate transaction, with the website purchased by a private equity company for US$10 million.
A gold farming/money laundering ring in South Korea has been accused of moving somewhere in the neighbourhood of $61 million from Korea to China (with the help of real money transactions). According to PlayNoEvil, they made false purchases to a Hong Kong paper company to move the money, which is what eventually led to their arrest. In addition to the ring leaders, an additional 11 people were arrested:
It’s a press release twofer! Mythic Entertainment has announced that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has gone gold, with the game shipping to stores in time for servers to go live on September 18th, and the gold farmers are ready for it! “Internet gaming service” SwagVault has announced that they’ll be giving away 50 beta keys for the game via randomly selected email entries received between now and September 5th, giving players a chance to experience the game for themselves before deciding to buy. They’ll also be giving out beta access to folks whose order numbers contain the number sequence 8907, which coincides with the open beta date of September 7th, 2008.
So how exactly does a gold seller wind up with 50 beta keys for an MMO from Mythic Entertainment, a company that has gone after such enterprises legally in the past and won? I’m going to go ahead an assume they used bots.
Our friends at Manchester University have published another study looking at developing nations where the poor earn money by gold farming or powerlevelling in MMOs. The estimate is half a million people do the work for pay, a supermajority of them in China. Of the online toilers, 400,000 are involved in gold farming, the rest powerlevelling and other services.
The study’s author admits that precise estimates are not possible because of the underground nature of the activity. But it’s at least a $US 500 million global industry as of now, with organised crime snaking its tendrils into the business.
The growth is entirely predictable and not really a new phenomenon, when you think about it. “When you get people with more money than time and time than money the two will find a way to meet”, said Stephen Davis, of game security firm Secure Play. Quoted for truth.
Via Terra Nova comes a fascinating paper by Richard Heeks that covers the historical, social, and economic aspects playing into real money transactions. I’ve just had time to take a quick gander at the paper, but unlike a lot of information out there, this appears quite comprehensive and with a more unbiased position than we usually see:
This paper reviews what we know so far about gold farming, seeking to provide the first systematic analysis of the sub-sector. It assembles available data at the sectoral, enterprise and worker level. Five main analytical lenses are then applied. Economic analysis shows how exchange rate variations and scale economies do and do not impact gold farming; and the strong influence of information failure in the purchase of virtual items: known as “real-money trading”. Analysis from the perspective of industrial sociology charts the commoditisation and globalisation of the sub-sector, while value chain models identify resource dependencies and power inequities. Enterprise analysis investigates enterprise entry, existence and progression, and outlines the competitive forces shaping the sub-sector’s development; particularly threats. Developmental analysis investigates the impact of this sub-sector in macro and micro terms. Finally, there is a sociological analysis of the role played by perceptions and other social forces.
I’ve got it saved for future reading, and from what I’ve seen, it’s definitely worth a look if you’re interested in issues of RMT and gold farming. It is long (and academic!), but think about wading through if you’re feeling inspired.
Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on “Gold Farming” [IDPM Working papers via Terra Nova]
