World Bank Examines Benefits of Gold Farming

[bushwhacker2k]

A World Bank report says gold farming, power-leveling and other such services generated roughly $3 billion for poor nations in 2009 and could actually prove to be very beneficial to local and developing economies.

That's hard to believe...

3 Billion $? Yeah, not sure I buy that.

 

[John Poling II]

Btw, all of you complaining about people who buy virtual gold, and gold farmers; Africa and their diamond/gold/uranium mines would like a word with your ignorance. Some people would kill for the job this guy has... as one poster said, " We live in different worlds."

 

[Arawn.Chernobog]

And yet... I still feel no simpathy towards gold farmers or those who purchase the services.

None

At

All

 

[Antari]

Really not all that shocked that the World Bank is looking into what most people consider an immoral practice. They've got alot of practice at it.

 

[zombi2989]

YOU SPOILED BASTERDS SPENT 3 !BILLION! DOLLARS PAYING OTHER PEOPLE TO PLAY YOUR GAMES FOR YOU! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

 

[veloper]

Total active subscriptions of pay-to-play MMOs are estimated at roughly 20 million players.

3 billion dollars per year going to gold sellers is just too unlikely.

The subscription players (WOW, Aion, etc) who could be considered atleast willing to pay premium for their MMO experience can never amount to even a fraction of that money.
Suppose an incredible 50% of those players paid $100 annually, that's still "only" 1 billion.

The lionshare would have to come from free-to-play MMOGs then.
Wonder why all those gold buyers play subpar MMOGs, when they could easily play better games on a subscription.

 

[manythings]

Isn't gold farming run by criminal cartels?

As is piracy...

Just no, it's just a business

Yes what was I thinking... I mean since when have criminals tried to make money in any way they can?

 

[teknoarcanist]

I would have to see the working conditions to express an opinion on this. I'm sure they're pretty horrible. I'm imagining 12+ hour shifts in a poorly-lit room, and then sleeping in a ten-foot square area with eight other people.

Seriously, playing WoW NORMALLY is like work -- I can't even imagine trying to optimize that shit into a normal routine of the greatest possible profitability, all day every day. It'd like working as a tester, but in hell. I think I'd rather be shot.

Total active subscriptions of pay-to-play MMOs are estimated at roughly 20 million players.

3 billion dollars per year going to gold sellers is just too unlikely.

The subscription players (WOW, Aion, etc) who could be considered atleast willing to pay premium for their MMO experience can never amount to even a fraction of that money.
Suppose an incredible 50% of those players paid $100 annually, that's still "only" 1 billion.

The lionshare would have to come from free-to-play MMOGs then.
Wonder why all those gold buyers play subpar MMOGs, when they could easily play better games on a subscription.

I would imagine a lot of gold-seller patrons are probably heavy users. I know the statistics on expenditures in games like farmville back that up -- by and large, people either don't spend money for in-game items, or they spend ridiculous inordinate amounts of money.

And I would imagine all the wow goldsellers' customers buy lv70 accounts because they're looking for some kind of play experience which the game itself -- and MMO's by and large -- don't offer them.

Game designers should look into that. Might be some money in it.

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

So Blizzard have potentially the chance to do what Henry Ford did. He payed his employees enough to buy Model Ts and through scale of economy lowered the price to create a much bigger market.

Wonder if they're try that. Expand their market by millions of customers, create better telecommunications, do the far sighted thing? Not to mention how much easier it would be to regulate gold trade through offical channels and use the better information to keep the in game economy healthy.

The alternative is prohibition. If that was effective there would be no gold trading. So evidently it isn't.

 

[Centrophy]

I wonder how many of these "gold farmers" are involved with a criminal organization where they live in order to have the means to be online with stable enough with decent credit for international banking, bandwidth, computational power, stable electrical power, food, and lodging. Are they indebted to their handlers? And how are they so certain the "gold farmers" are even from developing nations and not developed nations? Is this extrapolated information from polling with a margin of error or are online gaming companies being more open about their user data or are the banks and credit businesses being more open about their user data in who is making what transfers to where and why they are doing that?

All kinds of issues with this when you start to ask questions about the details, I'm not exactly sold on this kind of cooked books BS that is trying to convince us the transfer of currency is actually all above board and hunky dory. My intuition tells me their report and opinion is worth about jack and squat - so what's the rub, what are they trying to soft sell us on blindly accepting?

This smacks of Nigerian email scam spam with a sugar coating.

I feel the same way whenever I see an article about piracy numbers. Where are they getting these numbers? Do the pirated copies have unique RFID's? It all just smells fishy.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Cory Doctorow wrote a fiction piece about this back in 2007 in his "Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present". Actually, some googling later, he actually has it available for free. It's called Anda's Game.

http://craphound.com/overclocked/download/


Fun to see some actual study going into this field.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

In case nobody has heard the song yet

 

[Alar]

What's that? Something illegal is good for their economies? HOORAY! Let's all promote doing illegal things for profit! LET'S DO IT, GUYS!

A World Bank report says gold farming, power-leveling and other such services generated roughly $3 billion for poor nations in 2009 and could actually prove to be very beneficial to local and developing economies.

So's Slavery, Organ Legging and Blood Diamonds.

For very similar reasons.

oh you took the words out of my mouth

i was curious, how do the poor people who gold-farm for you suffer? its a way easier and safer job than working in a factory or in a real farm. and they get all the money you send

The fact that they work probably over twelve hours a day sitting at a computer doing nothing but staring at a screen? And they get paid practically nothing for it. We do it as a hobby (though not necessarily that long, except perhaps on weekends), but they have to do it CONSTANTLY. It would probably drive me crazy if I was farming for that long every week, reaping none of the fun benefits.

 

[Alar]

EDIT: Whoops, double post. My apologies. Moving content to previous post.

 

[irani_che]

What's that? Something illegal is good for their economies? HOORAY! Let's all promote doing illegal things for profit! LET'S DO IT, GUYS!

A World Bank report says gold farming, power-leveling and other such services generated roughly $3 billion for poor nations in 2009 and could actually prove to be very beneficial to local and developing economies.

So's Slavery, Organ Legging and Blood Diamonds.

For very similar reasons.

oh you took the words out of my mouth

i was curious, how do the poor people who gold-farm for you suffer? its a way easier and safer job than working in a factory or in a real farm. and they get all the money you send

The fact that they work probably over twelve hours a day sitting at a computer doing nothing but staring at a screen? And they get paid practically nothing for it. We do it as a hobby (though not necessarily that long, except perhaps on weekends), but they have to do it CONSTANTLY. It would probably drive me crazy if I was farming for that long every week, reaping none of the fun benefits.

the pay must be better than any other job they could get

 

[Alar]

What's that? Something illegal is good for their economies? HOORAY! Let's all promote doing illegal things for profit! LET'S DO IT, GUYS!

A World Bank report says gold farming, power-leveling and other such services generated roughly $3 billion for poor nations in 2009 and could actually prove to be very beneficial to local and developing economies.

So's Slavery, Organ Legging and Blood Diamonds.

For very similar reasons.

oh you took the words out of my mouth

i was curious, how do the poor people who gold-farm for you suffer? its a way easier and safer job than working in a factory or in a real farm. and they get all the money you send

The fact that they work probably over twelve hours a day sitting at a computer doing nothing but staring at a screen? And they get paid practically nothing for it. We do it as a hobby (though not necessarily that long, except perhaps on weekends), but they have to do it CONSTANTLY. It would probably drive me crazy if I was farming for that long every week, reaping none of the fun benefits.

the pay must be better than any other job they could get

Possibly, possibly not. It could simply be that they chose that over a dangerous factory job.

 

[fundayz]

In Soviet Russia, gold farmers look down on you!

 

[subtlefuge]

I guess I don't see any moral issue with this. Even if people are being exploited, and there isn't any indication in this article, they're making money by playing video games. It's tedious sure, and I doubt they're being payed well, but working conditions couldn't possibly be bad.

There are lots of issues to work out in third-world countries, and I don't see surrogate gaming being one of those anytime soon.