Funny how you compete against people who will be tortured if they don't get the quota...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam?cat=world&type=article

Quote :

"China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work Labour camp detainees endure hard labour by day, online 'gold farming' by night World of Warcraft As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off." Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society. But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real. "If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said. It is known as "gold farming", the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. The trade in virtual assets is very real, and outside the control of the games' makers. Millions of gamers around the world are prepared to pay real money for such online credits, which they can use to progress in the online games. The trading of virtual currencies in multiplayer games has become so rampant in China that it is increasingly difficult to regulate. In April, the Sichuan provincial government in central China launched a court case against a gamer who stole credits online worth about 3000rmb. The lack of regulations has meant that even prisoners can be exploited in this virtual world for profit. According to figures from the China Internet Centre, nearly £1.2bn of make- believe currencies were traded in China in 2008 and the number of gamers who play to earn and trade credits are on the rise. It is estimated that 80% of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country. In 2009 the central government issued a directive defining how fictional currencies could be traded, making it illegal for businesses without licences to trade. But Liu, who was released from prison before 2009 believes that the practice of prisoners being forced to earn online currency in multiplayer games is still widespread. "Many prisons across the north-east of China also forced inmates to play games. It must still be happening," he said. "China is the factory of virtual goods," said Jin Ge, a researcher from the University of California San Diego who has been documenting the gold farming phenomenon in China. "You would see some exploitation where employers would make workers play 12 hours a day. They would have no rest through the year. These are not just problems for this industry but they are general social problems. The pay is better than what they would get for working in a factory. It's very different," said Jin. "The buyers of virtual goods have mixed feelings … it saves them time buying online credits from China," said Jin. The emergence of gold farming as a business in China – whether in prisons or sweatshops could raise new questions over the exporting of goods real or virtual from the country. "Prison labour is still very widespread – it's just that goods travel a much more complex route to come to the US these days. And it is not illegal to export prison goods to Europe, said Nicole Kempton from the Laogai foundation, a Washington-based group which opposes the forced labour camp system in China. Liu Dali's name has been changed"

[Edited on May 26, 2011 at 8:21 AM. Reason : lkj]

5/26/2011 8:06:59 AM

This is really interesting. I guess I'd rather play wow than do real hard labor for 12 hrs a day. Although I have no idea what mining in wow entails.

5/26/2011 8:11:59 AM

you should see the north korean starcraft death camps

5/26/2011 8:13:56 AM

It is incredibly tedious. Most gold farming involves killing creatures that have valuable drops that spawn within a small area. You have to compete with other players who are there for the same creatures.

5/26/2011 8:15:22 AM

^^He is working all day in the mine and then having to play WOW, not just play WOW

5/26/2011 8:17:15 AM

^ I did not get that from the article.

5/26/2011 8:18:58 AM

seriously? its the first line of the actual article

[Edited on May 26, 2011 at 8:22 AM. Reason : i went ahead and bolded it]

5/26/2011 8:21:22 AM

^^ it's the first damn sentence of the article.

[Edited on May 26, 2011 at 8:22 AM. Reason : Slow phone is slow ]

5/26/2011 8:21:30 AM

It's okay, AlaskanGrown. I missed it, too.

Who reads the first sentence of the an article anyway?!?!

5/26/2011 8:25:48 AM

A guildie used to keep a list of mandarin insults; they stop a minute when they think you're Chinese too, while they figure out if you can only cuss or are retarded. He was probably the second but it usually worked. Maybe those people got beat later.

5/26/2011 8:26:23 AM

Just think, all those farm accounts that were reported and banned probably resulted in someone dying

5/26/2011 8:30:35 AM

Got blood on my hands

5/26/2011 8:36:05 AM

All those times I used to camp gold farmers and steal all their mobs while they were walking back only to kill them again... whoops

5/26/2011 8:53:18 AM

hahahaha back in the day the gold farmer on PvP realms were easy HK's. As soon as you attack them they just stand still because I don't think they knew what to do.

BTW for the laypeople, farming gold gets VERY VERY monotonous after around 5-6 hours.

5/26/2011 9:08:36 AM

this makes the holocaust look like summer camp

5/26/2011 10:05:44 AM

So.... fake money is worth real money now??

5/26/2011 10:20:30 AM

^ absolutely

http://www.susanexpress.com/

They sell WoW gold, runescape gold, Rift gold and their rates change pretty regularly.

Currently WoW is trading around 0.0017 USD/gold

5/26/2011 10:32:48 AM

people who buy gold are incredibly lazy.

5/26/2011 12:23:37 PM

there's probably another wow nerd sitting around saying "people who don't buy gold are incredibly poor"

both of you are losers

5/26/2011 12:27:33 PM

I feel like if I played I would buy gold.

I mean really, if it's an activity you really don't get enjoyment out of, then the farmers are clearly selling it for less than what your own time is worth.

But then again, you could just not play WoW, that would appear to be the best option of all.

5/26/2011 12:33:06 PM

WoW conflict farming

5/26/2011 12:37:13 PM

Quote :

"there's probably another wow nerd sitting around saying "people who don't buy gold are incredibly poor" both of you are losers"

exactly!


and the smartest man in this chain is the chinese prison guard! how fucked up is that?

5/26/2011 12:44:05 PM

Quote :

"there's probably another wow nerd sitting around saying "people who don't buy gold are incredibly poor" both of you are losers"

yeah! games are for nerds!

*masturbates to monday night football*

5/26/2011 12:46:36 PM

Yeah when I played I bought gold because it saved time. It wasn't like you could really get much better simply by being rich. All it did was save time in the game. And, considering how dirt-cheap gold was it just made sense. It allowed me to only play when I was actually doing stuff I enjoyed in the game and not waste hours of time just farming for gold for pots and repairs in a raid.

Hmmm, farm gold or go work out or hang out with friends? Was an easy decision for me.

5/26/2011 1:03:46 PM

I hope they know I reported them all to Blizzard for violating the EULA.

5/26/2011 1:41:19 PM

^
i hope you're not playing as a warlock

5/26/2011 1:50:11 PM

Quote :

"It wasn't like you could really get much better simply by being rich."

As a warrior that was my main complaint. It felt like how good I was, was totally dependent on the gear I had.

5/26/2011 2:08:43 PM

Guys... just play Ragnarok Online then buying good gear and actual gameplay will be replaced by ceaseless grinding. YAY!

5/26/2011 2:40:19 PM

^^ but good gear still didn't really rely on you being rich. 95% of the good gear later in the game came from arenas or bgs or raiding. I mainly only used money for repairs or pots for raiding or random trinkets like mounts and such.

5/26/2011 2:47:24 PM

Quote :

"WoW conflict farming"

made me lol

5/26/2011 3:20:56 PM

Quote :

"people who buy gold are incredibly lazy. "

clicking the mouse is incredibly strenuous.


(PS i have never played this faggoty ass game. i played warcraft 2 in like middle school though.)

5/26/2011 3:21:35 PM