Kotaku
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china
Hold On! China's Gold Farming "Ban" Clarified
Earlier this week, we brought word that the Chinese Government has tried to ban gold farming the reported $500 million gold farming industry. More »
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Comment by bableebooblah-new and improved.: i thought the chinese specialized in led more than gold. 9 Responses | Other threads
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world of warcraft
Chinese Gov't Tries To Officially Ban Gold Farming
Friday, the Chinese government attempted to address the reported $500 million gold farming industry, said to employ some 400,000 workers, in the form of a ruling on the exchange of "virtual currency" for real world cash. More »
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Comment by Microshock: They are taking this too fart, what about all the money from taxes? Hmmm? 21 Responses | Other threads
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virtual currency
Gold Farming Website Sells For $10 Million
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 $10 million. More »
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By Mike FaheyComment by Badmofo: The farmers themselves will probably see nothing of that money, sadly. 14 Responses | Other threads
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Crime
Launder That Money: RMTs in Asian MMOs
A gold farming/money laundering ring in South Korea has been accused of moving somewhere in the neighborhood of $38 million USD 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: More »
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Comment by HueyFreeman: What happened to the guitar hero article? Only in China can games be surrounded by such illegal styles of life. 4 Responses | Other threads
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warhammer online
Warhammer Online Goes Gold, Gold Seller Gives Out Beta Keys
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. More »
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By Mike FaheyComment by Ephemera: @Arminies: how is this guy still able to post, have you seen his posting history? 1 Responses | Other threads
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gold farming
Study: Gold Farming Employs 400,000
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. More » -
gold farming
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About RMT, and Then Some
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: More »
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Comment by kern2000: I don't understand why some people think this is overkill or think this meant to alter someone's perspective on RMT. First... more » | Other threads
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only in china
Chengdu Police Arrest Two Gold Farmers
Steve at PlayNoEvil noted this little news story, which involves two Chinese gold farmers who have pulled in over $200K USD being arrested in China. Why? How, exactly? Well, it would appear that one of the pair felt they were being swindled out of profits and reported his partner to the police: More »
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Comment by Storshun: @ibleedgreen: 1) Anything you resale requires you pay tax in the US, it's simply a matter of enforcement - not... more » | Other threads
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gold farming
Who's Winning the Gold Farming War?
Steve at PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up on the current state of gold farming in MMORPGs (though he does admit that since hard stats are difficult to come by, "any analysis is more akin to reading tea leaves"); using data provided by mmobux, he looks at the pricing trends to try and divine what might be going on in the wild world of selling gold: More »
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Comment by ParkerCepheus: If you make minimum wage (something like $7/hr in california I think?) and gold in wow costs ~$20 per 1000g (just... more » | Other threads
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crime
Goodbye Gold Farmers, Hello Gold Frauders
And you thought gold farming was bad. Steve at PlayNoEvil has an interesting analysis up of the next wave of things MMO operators and players will have to worry about: gold frauders. The number of stolen credit cards being used to pay for WoW accounts has led to the UK bank Halifax to block payments to Blizzard, among a few other industry moves to try and deal with the ever-increasing problem of stolen credit cards, illicit RMT transactions, and other money-related issues. What is the problem - and why? More »
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Comment by RawSteelUT: @TheResolver: Unfortunately there is no real system against an employee selling off credit card numbers. Only thing I could... more » | Other threads
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only in china
Zhengtu: Where RMT, Gold Farming and Gambling Reign Supreme
I was thrilled to come across a most glorious article on Chinese MMORPGs (specifically, the wildly popular Zhengtu Online), translated to English from the original that appeared in the Southern Weekly. As Steve at PlayNoEvil sums it up, "While wimpy Americans can whine about "cheating" in online games, quibble about Real Money Transactions (RMT), complain about gold farming, gripe about power-leveling, and otherwise aspire to a mythical "purity" of game play, the most popular game in China, ZT Online, from Giant Interactive has embraced all of these things.. and online gambling to boot." More »
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Comment by playgames: The pictures look like an online casino? Could you give an example? The reason why I ask is because casino... more » | Other threads
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crime and punishment
'Spectacular and Arbitrary' Punishment the Answer To Gold Farming?
There are some interesting thoughts at PlayNoEvil regarding gold farmers and buyers, and how best to deal with them. One potential solution? Visibly, spectacularly, and seemingly randomly punish people buying gold - to hopefully discourage people from buying, disrupt the flow of gold from farmers to consumers, and make repercussions for buying gold random, retroactive, public, and aimed at damaging the whole system (not just an account (or thousands)): More »
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Comment by Vexorg: @izarate: There have been some changes to the backend of the site, and I find that if you still have the... more » | Other threads
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only in china
Chinese Editorial Calls for RMT Ban
A "rather sensationalized editorial" (as Worlds In Motion describes it) by Ma Jun in the Shanghai Daily suggests that the government should step in an add another level of control to the Chinese MMO industry: banning the sale of virtual goods for real money. While the author takes a dim view of the conditions gold farmers and their ilk work in, they take a really dim view of the people who make their living stealing account passwords and equipment from virtual avatars: More »
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Comment by Soldrak: @hehahohee: But you're assuming a totally free market is desirable or is best for society. Did you even play Bioshock?... more » | Other threads
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big money
Joel Johnson's Guide To WoW Wealth
Don't hand your credit card over to some shady, overseas gold farming fly-by-night company. If you need gold and need it now, invest in Joel Johnson. His handy gold making tips can turn any World of Warcraft noob into an Auction House expert. In just four simple steps (give or take) and ten minutes a day, you'll go from a 5 gold piece pittance to a 100 gold per week fortune. More »
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Comment by just-loopy: or instead wanna make some real money,simply farm an instance disenchant blue rewards and sell enchanting materials,in stacks of 10... more » | Other threads
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rain o'er me
Gnomes Rain Down Upon Azeroth, Die For Advertising
World of Warcraft players were treated to an uncommon occurrence recently when hundreds of gnomes fell from the sky, perishing upon impact. Their corpses were arranged in sequence to advertise the web site of WowMine.com, a third-party service dealing in in-game gold sales. The corpse storm was triggered by a client-side hack, according to a post on blogger Raph Koster's site, and were arranged in text form just outside the server's bank and auction house. More »
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Comment by milkfilk: @HAGGLEGAGGLE: Yeah! That's what I was looking for! Good phrasing. *takes note* Btw,... more » | Other threads
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gold farming
'To Catch A Farmer'
A gold farmer, that is - it's another Sunday, and that means yet another issue of The Escapist, and this week's is all about MMOGs. And what is a discussion about MMOGs without at least a little bit about that topic that just won't go away, gold farming? Darius Kazemi explains what goes into catching gold farmers, namely a lot of analyzing data and looking for anomalies in patterns (you mean 'Abcdef' isn't a popular name choice for 'normal' players? Who knew?). More »
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Comment by Dark_Cheetah: @aestheticity: Though I'm not into MMO's I don't see the difference in someone paying for virtual gold and someone paying... more » | Other threads
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china
The New York Times Tackles Gold Farming
In an article I somehow managed to miss out of last week's NYT Magazine, Julian Dibbell takes a not entirely new look at "The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer," though it does focus a bit more on the life (or lack thereof) and less on the gold farming. More »
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Comment by kftgr: You mean gold farmers are people too??? If gold farming is such a big problem, then where do the farmers themselves... more » | Other threads
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gold farming
Another Look at 'Gold Farmers'
Via CNET Asia, another look at the documentary Gold Farmers (we covered it last year), directed/produced by Ge Jin, and still a work in progress. More »
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Comment by Max Freak: @excaliburps: The basic pay rate is less than a dollar per hour (30-50 cents), so 200 hours net you $100... more » | Other threads
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world events
NPR Covers Gold Farming
NPR covered Gold Farming as a story on today's Morning Edition. Anyone who has read articles on this topic and are still confused about the working conditions or even how the work gets paid to these gamers, can listen to Louisa Lim interview which compares gold farmers to low-paid workers making Nike shoes. It also covers the social issues that Gold Farming has impacted in the real world such as anti-Chinese sentiment from American players. Instead of just focusing in on the gaming culture, the broadcast focuses on the money aspect, which is probably why this has actually become a story in other media outlets. Although it's another negative story on gaming, it's at least articulate and doesn't have a certain you-know-who from a certain southern state. More » -
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Comment by Max Freak: @hahnchen: I'm not sure what you mean ... Making something illegal doesn't make it exactly tax-able. It makes it illegal. more » | Other threads
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microsoft
Microsft Cracks Down on Achievement Cheats
Is Achievement cheating the new gold farming? There are quite a few websites out there offering ways to up your Xbox Live Achievement scores through cheating (I could tell you what they are but that would be unethical), mostly dealing with the uploading and sharing of saved games. More » -
ige
Gold Farmers Buy Allakhazam
Allakhazam — that perennial haunt of MMORPG enthusiasts, the forums of which are often flaming with bitter theses on the loose morals of Chinese gold-farming zombie players — has been bought out by gold-selling scumbag company IGE. More » -
mmog
The Secret Lives of Gold Farmers
Game Guides Online has a piece looking at the lives of farmers in and out of game. There's a lengthy segment on farmers making money and trying to hide the gold from their bosses, storing it on the characters of in-game friends and then asking them to sell it and paypal the farmer the proceeds. The Black Black Market. More »
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