The ethics of gold farming

[Hyoscine]

I don't mean whether or not you consider it cheating. The Guardian ran an article and a few interviews on the gold farming, that really made me think about the industry in a new light.

Anyway, here's the article [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/virtual-world-china].

Here's the interviews with a farmer [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/virtual-world-china3], a customer services rep [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/virtual-world-china1], and a gamer [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/virtual-world-china2]. And here's a few photos [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2009/mar/05/china-virtual-worlds?picture=344151494].

I'll still be buying gold from time to time (just as I might buy Converse trainers or cheap coffee), but I'm starting to wish there was a Fairtrade option. I find the customer service rep's interview really affecting. Anyway, what do you guys think?

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

My opinion regarding gold farming.

You spend irl money on a game, then the internet connection and maybe monthly gaming server usage.
Then you go and buy ingame money with irl money,
which makes your char more powerful,
which ends in "completing" the game much quicker.

One is practically buying oneself out of the game in essence.
The only things one has gained is spending real money, to quickly finish the game.
Seems...Rather pointless to me.

But if that is ones desire, I have no problem with it.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

The spams while im playing are a bit annoying. But if you want to then by all menas go ahead. The only thing that bugs me is ppl that buy full accounts with maxed out chararacters and they log on for the first itm eacting all uber . But meanwhile have no idea how to play or where any zone is.

 

[Space Spoons]

I don't have a problem with the farming of gold, or the purchasing of farmed gold. When I used to play World of Warcraft, I had very little time to devote to common methods of developing money quickly when I needed it, such as when the time came to finally purchase my first mount. I bought a small amount of gold from a third party not out of some desire to prematurely "complete" the game, but merely to improve my experience by skipping over a section I wouldn't normally have the time to complete.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

I was one of those lifeless dudes that had a few characters that had their profs maxxed out, so I never really needed to worry about buying gold, because in the end of my playing time, in BC, I could make a few hundred gold in about 20 minutes if I put any effort to it.

Then again, BC made getting gold so darn easy anyway.

 

[BonsaiK]

I don't play WoW specifically, but I don't 'buy gold' in the MMORPGs that I do play. I like the sense of achievement and satisfaction that comes from earning in-game wealth strictly by the book. Plus I'm quite poor, it's hard enough just finding money to play the game at all! I'm not quite as poor as those Chinese gold farmers though...

Ethically it's hard to be against it and not feel like a hypocrite because China probably makes almost everything I own. I'm a westerner, but not rich by western standards, so buying cheap Chinese stuff is really my only option if I want stuff. It would be nice if things were different, of course. I think gold farming is a symptom of a much larger problem of trade regulation and income disparity between countries, but this has allowed China and India to become powerful economies. Meanwhile though, workers suffer. I'm not sure what the solution is. But this is all getting way beyond the scope of the question. In the meantime I won't be buying gold... but I do wonder if starting my own home-based gold-farming business would be viable...

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I know someone who bought gold for RuneScape once. I "lol'd" a bit. Anyways, I think its, maybe not unethical but certaintly unfair. I mean effectively you're just saying rich-kids with money to spend on crap are allowed advantages over everyone else. Without gold-farming/selling its the same experience.

To be honest, what I think makes WoW an even MORE unfair experience, is triple experience. Seriously what the fuck were they thinking? How can they condemn gold-farming but not this? Triple XP. Ridiculous.

 

[Kukakkau]

I always fely having too much money at low levels in WoW kinda ruined it. But as long as you make a vast worthless irl fortune thats fine. I just don't see the point in spending real money to buy something you can make with time. I mean would you buy experience in CoD at like £10 per thousand exp? probably not

But I never considered the ethics behind farming since I maninly had bots on my server who couldn't fight back well.... ah good times and easy kills

 

[Credge]

The problem with Gold Farming has nothing to do with ethics. I could honestly care less if someone slaves away at the game in order to make a life for himself and if somebody buys it.

I do care, however, when this can be done and have a dramatic impact on the in game economy. When prices become inflated and it no longer becomes realistically feasible to ACTUALLY get enough money for an item without an outside source, then there are huge problems.

Of course, the downside to gold farming is that this is always the case.

 

[Nutcase]

The problem with Gold Farming has nothing to do with ethics. I could honestly care less if someone slaves away at the game in order to make a life for himself and if somebody buys it.

I do care, however, when this can be done and have a dramatic impact on the in game economy. When prices become inflated and it no longer becomes realistically feasible to ACTUALLY get enough money for an item without an outside source, then there are huge problems.

Of course, the downside to gold farming is that this is always the case.

This is all thanks to the game design. When you design your game to be like a second job, the only possible outcome is that some people will actually *make* it their job.

There's nothing wrong with skipping over bad and boring parts of the game by paying money, but frankly I wish people would instead go play a better game and support better developers.

 

[Flap Jack452]

That is absolutely insane... who woulda thought that video game gold farming would be an actual profitable industry

 

[gigastrike]

Well, since every link is broken for me, I'm just gonna say that I love how Runescape handled real world trading and that other games should follow suit.

 

[LewsTherin]

Hey, if you want to spend real money to buy fake money be my guest.

 

[new_age_reject]

I thought this was the farming of actual real gold.

 

[LewsTherin]

I thought this was the farming of actual real gold.

Next up: Mining for Fish: simple industry, or world-wide conspiracy?

 

[Hyoscine]

Yeah, I was thinking about this more from the perspective of the working conditions of gold farmers. Not so much how such an industry effects in-game economies, which I feel is kind of a played out conversation. For example...

"I earn 800 to 1,200 yuan [£80 to £120] per month according to ability. I work 10 hours a day and I do day and night shifts. The working conditions are hard. We don't get weekends off, and I only have one day free a month. However, if we have something important we can ask the boss for a day off."

Would you buy trainers made under such conditions? Or do you feel that by investing in such an industry, you're keeping workers from worse work?

 

[CyberAkuma]

Q:But what do you get out of it?

A:The reason people buy gold is the same reason people pay people to wash their car ? they're lazy, and would rather spend money than doing it themselves.
You could spend time farming gold to use in the game, let's say, 20 real-life hours. Or, you could go to work for two hours and earn the money to buy the gold. You save yourself a hell of a lot of time. If I'm playing I want to play, not do monotonous, boring tasks. It just makes sense.

Is it just me that notices something immensly wrong with this argument?
If a game requires you to dedicate a lot of time to gain resonable money/level/equipement and if a play finds the work tedious, then obviously you are playing the wrong game or perhaps the wrong type of genre entirely.

Even if you purchase a lot of in-game-currency you are still one-third away from what is neccesary for a good character, leveling up and good gear. You will have to encounter tedious monotous tasks in the game sooner or later.
While you could debate that those things can be purchased with in-game/IRL currency the price to power-level your character or buying good gear are at such immense levels that not even insane people who buy game-money would even dare spending on. (We're talking +$500 USD here)

And if you think buying yourself a good character is unfair, they are countless YouTube videos [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/301870.html] of people leveling their Level 1 Character to Level 40 in less than half an hour.

To me, the level of unfairness(?) is so immense in this game that it's just simply not worth spending money on.

 

[Nutcase]

Yeah, I was thinking about this more from the perspective of the working conditions of gold farmers. Not so much how such an industry effects in-game economies, which I feel is kind of a played out conversation. For example...

"I earn 800 to 1,200 yuan [£80 to £120] per month according to ability. I work 10 hours a day and I do day and night shifts. The working conditions are hard. We don't get weekends off, and I only have one day free a month. However, if we have something important we can ask the boss for a day off."

Would you buy trainers made under such conditions? Or do you feel that by investing in such an industry, you're keeping workers from worse work?

I'd certainly buy trainers made under such conditions, since the workers are there voluntarily. It stands to reason that for every gold farmer, there are many others in the area who have considerably worse jobs.

Even if there was a Fairtrade alternative that ensured the individual gold farmer gets double the pay, I would not pay extra for it.

If you want to give a hand to the Chinese in the long term (and remember there are people elsewhere in the world in much worse conditions), then take the extra money you would have spent in the additional price of Fairtrade, and *invest* it in Chinese industry. Any profit you get, you invest back into the industry. As they get more capital, they can produce more effectively. This increases the value of the individual worker's labor, which translates to higher wages. It also gives the worker access to cheaper and better locally produced goods. Both have the effect of raising the standard of living. The growing sophistication of production processes will necessitate more education.