Virtual Sweatshop: The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer
Today The New York Times published an article on the life of the Chinese gold farmer. The writer talks to Li Qiwen, a 30 year-old World of Warcraft gold farmer who works 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week and makes 10 yuan (approximately $1.25) for every 100 gold coins he accumulates; that comes out to about 30 cents an hour. Meanwhile, his boss receives $3 or more when he sells that gold to an online retailer, who sells them to the final customer -- the player -- for $20 or more.
At 30, he is old for the job and feels it. He says he hopes to marry and start a family, he told me, but doesn’t see it happening on his current wages, which are not much better than what he made at his last job, fixing cars. The free company housing means his expenses aren’t high — food, cigarettes, bus fare, connection fees at the local wang ba (or Internet cafe) where he goes to relax — but even so, Li said, it is difficult to set aside savings.
While I personally don't agree with spending real-life money on virtual gold (as well as selling your body for virtual gold), I can't help feeling sorry for Li's circumstances, which is something that is happening in China across all industries. In China, gold farming companies employ about 100,000 workers which produces a $1.8 billion worldwide trade in virtual items. In turn, game publishers like Blizzard Entertainment earn close to $1 billion a year in monthly subscriptions and other revenue. Translation: MMOs are a big business, whether your company's legit or not. The article also discusses the problem MMO companies have in dealing with gold farming and the freakish revelation that many WoW gold farmers, after a 12-hour workday, will log on to their own personal accounts... for fun. I love WoW, but I don't think I'd love it that much if I had that job...
The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer [The New York Times]
Lazy Panda
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 17 June 2007
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: blizzard, china, gold farmer, gold farming, mmo, new york times, world of warcraft
Dear god... just...wow... WoW need to die...
WoW needs to die? We need to die. What do you care whether a chinaman earns next to nothing farming your gold or sewing your shoes? It's economics. Stop wearing Nike if you're worrying so much. And stop eating imported food. Using imported electronics. Put down that DS right now. Unequip your sweater and your jeans. Leave your appartment. Live on the streets.
Or stop being a hyppocrit and live with it.
Actually, if it takes 4 hours to farm 100 gold coins and they can be sold for 20 bucks, then even if a first-world person were doing it, it'd still be below minimum wage.
Given that the gold farmer mentioned above makes more at farming gold than at his previous job as a mechanic, it might actually be LESS exploitative for third world people to gold farm than it would be for someone in the first world to do it. But I can't even conceive of a standard of living where making 30 cents an hour is an improvement over my previous job, so obviously things are different over there.
Not that WoW doesn't need to die or anything, because it totally does.