How do gold farmers make gold

An unaffiliated group manaview stirred controversy in development of a certain addon known as The Tycoon Gold Addon to facilitate the process of farming for gold. This upheld much controversy, but was resolved as the addon was tweaked to support terms of agreement. Recent attempts at cost-effective gold farming have begun in America. A number of US-based gold suppliers for World of Warcraft have formed a vast network of college and professional gamers, such as Forsaken Farmers. In their spare time, these gamers farm gold and power level customer accounts.

In turn, they receive such benefits as free time cards, accounts, gold, power leveling services and even cash. These gamers are instructed to follow all in-game rules and refrain from using gold farming techniques such as bots, macros and hacks which are frowned upon in the gaming world. American-based gold farmers are far less common than ones located in Asia, simply because of the abundance of cheap labor in Asia. According to estimates, around , people in China are employed as gold farmers, as of December Chinese gold farmers typically work twelve hour shifts, and sometimes up to eighteen hour shifts.

Wages depend heavily on location and the size of the gold farming company. One gold farming operation in Chongqing in central China with 23 gold farmers was reported to pay its employees the equivalent of about U. The rising prevalence of gold farming has led to the creation of gold farm brokerages. Because of reports indicating many gold farmers are located in China they are sometimes referred to as "Chinese farmers" or "China farmers". There are "gold farmers" sometimes known as Tyrexs or "gold farms" in other countries as well such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico.

However, they do not approach the scope and scale of the Chinese farm industry. China's abundant labor, availability of high-speed Internet connections and cheap computers have made it a powerhouse in collecting virtual assets for online games, fueling the market among the 30 million or so online gamers worldwide. An issue unrelated to the legal and social issues of the gold farmer is their effect on game economies. Blizzard Entertainment and some players suggest that by introducing new gold into the system, farmers are causing inflation.

However, a WoW server is not a closed system, gold farming is not a monopoly industry and farmers make a good deal of their gold off the sale of items.

As such, they are competing against players and each other within the economy of a given gameserver, driving prices down and thus inflation is actually staved off -- the Wal-Mart effect, if you will.

Even non-gold buying players quickly come to rely on the prices set by the commoditization of items farming helps to create. And gold farmers themselves invest heavily in a game's economy -- buying gear that helps them farm better, such as bags and potions. Recent crackdowns on gold farming accounts have resulted in a 2 to 4x increase in the prices of enchanting materials, boosted the prevalence of premium-priced epics, and stalled the market for other high level trade goods and services, leaving the profitability of tried-and-true schemes in question.

This leads some to the conclusion that while gold farming is indeed disreputable, it also has a positive effect -- a stable, competitive in-game market. The other view is that in fact, gold farming does cause inflation. It has been seen throughout history, that the decrease in value of a currency, naturally drives up the prices of the goods it is used to purchase. It can be said that gold farming is a self-sustaining industry that fuels its own corruption.

By inflating the economy and driving up the prices of items, more in-game gold is required to purchase them. Rather than farm this gold for themselves, players are as such more likely to purchase it and simply save themselves the trouble.

This is a circular problem and does nothing more than feed itself. The perceived 'lower price' of items can be viewed as nothing more than a myth, not backed up by any sound evidence, with basic economics stating that inflation is a real problem in any economy, including that of World of Warcraft. Gold farming can be viewed as particularly harmful to new players, who, unlike those who began to play on day one, have to deal with the fact that items are far more expensive, sometimes obscenely so, whereas the money received from quests and the vendoring of rewards is a lot lower.

The sale of lower level items such as linen cloth and basic ore which are often the basis of a low-level character's economic growth, have bottomed out due to the fact that most players are now Level 60 and have no use for these items, or are playing twink-alts with an artificially high sum of gold which new players do not possess.

Both of the arguments seen above can actually be merged together. Gold farming increases both the volume of gold in the game which increases demand for higher items, and is inflationary and the volume of items in the game increases supply of higher items, is deflationary. As such, the impact of gold farming could theoretically go one way or the other. One facet that has not been considered properly is that gold farmers make a significant amount if not most of the money to be sold by selling the items they find.

This will result in increased supply for some items, and therefore the deflation that has been argued above. We would build our own stables at our houses, and we had some authentic horse dung to put in it. It was all just pixels and everything, but that was one of the rare items. So yeah, there was a guy in China who played one of the multiplayer online games, and [in the game] he had a very valuable sword.

He lent it to his friend, who then sold it for a lot of money. He went to the local police, but local law enforcement historically has not taken theft of virtual property very seriously. He was laughed out of the police station, and in a fit of frustration he took a real knife and cut his friend up. Julian Dibbell on Edward Castronova :.

There were all these open, sandbox games, kind of like Second Life. But the games that really took off and attracted people were the ones where stuff was hard, where if you wanted a chair you had to go out there and chop the wood—or slay the wolves and sell their pelts for enough money to buy a chair.

Either the buyer can meet the gold farmer in the game and exchange the virtual goods, or, in some cases, the trade can be made using an in-game mail function. How many players actually use these services?

Surveys indicate between 22 and 25 percent, depending on the region of the world [source: Lehdonvirta and Ernkvist ]. That's surprising, especially because gold farming doesn't have the best reputation. Closely related to gold farming is power-leveling. As characters in MMORPGs like "World of Warcraft" achieve certain tasks and quests, they achieve higher levels and become increasingly effective in the game.

Power-leveling is when players hire someone to advance a character for them or simply purchase a new character at a higher level. If gold farming seems a little shady to you, you aren't alone. Many players have a negative view of the practice because of how it affects the game. Even human rights activists have called into question the labor practices in gaming workshops. Still, there are defenders who have some surprising arguments for keeping gold farming alive.

Players dislike gold farming because of the way it changes the gaming experience. For one, it creates a whole class of characters who aren't really playing the game. Instead of interacting with other characters to complete quests and achieve a higher level, gold farmers simply wander through the game's virtual world to collect currency and goods or advertise their services. Some characters, known as bots , aren't even controlled by actual human beings: They're virtual players that gold farmers program to do the work for them.

Additionally, some players believe that gold farming creates inflation in the virtual economy. The thinking goes like this: Gold farmers focus so much on killing monsters and taking their gold that they're flooding the market with money.

As a result, the value of the virtual currency goes down and virtual goods become more expensive and time-consuming to purchase. While some have questioned this belief — after all, gold farmers are simply collecting coins other players might have earned anyway — it remains a widely accepted theory in the gaming community [source: Heeks ].

The other main criticism of gold farming is related to the working conditions. Workers at some Chinese gaming workshops live in on-site dormitories and must endure hour shifts, seven days a week with few evenings off. Some reports also suggest that Chinese prisoners are forced to play games for similarly long hours for no pay [source: Vincent ].

Nevertheless, gold farming has its defenders, too. Some suggest that because earning gold the usual way is such a slow process, MMORPGs reward people who have a lot of time on their hands and punish those who have busier schedules.

Gold farming helps to level the playing field. Others argue that it's also a good deal for the developing countries. For many gamers, the dislike for gold farmers runs deep. Some will harass their currency-collecting counterparts, calling them names or massacring their characters. Channeling this hatred in a more constructive way is NoGold. After all this talk of gold farming, you've probably been wondering: Is it even legal?

Well, yes, in the sense that it probably won't land you in jail, but ultimately no, because it violates many MMORPGs' terms of service , which you agree to when you enter the game. For these reasons, it's a bit of a legal gray area. There's no disputing that gold farming violates the terms of service in many games. Blizzard, the parent company of "World of Warcraft," made this painfully clear in that game's terms, which state, "you may not sell in-game items or currency for 'real' money.

Players in violation of the rule are actually quite hard to detect, and even if they're caught, the worst that usually happens is their account is suspended. In that case, they can just create a new one. Still, the video game makers have enjoyed some legal victories.

In Blizzard forced a settlement with gold-farming and power-leveling company In Game Dollar that required them to stop advertising in the game and selling virtual items for real money [source: Duranske ]. Some countries have laws that place limits on gold farming. South Korea, for example, passed legislation in that was amended to ban the exchange of virtual goods for real money if those goods were obtained through a security vulnerability or the use of automated bots.

Gold farmers can, however, still collect in-game items and currency through normal means.