Chinese Feds crack down on gold farmers
It looks like Chinese World of Warcraft carpetbaggers will have to find something else to do with their time; the Chinese government has moved to shut down so called ‘gold farmers’, MMORPG players who are paid to hoard in-game resources and dump them onto sites like wowgoldforsale.com (I’m not sure that’s a real site – I just made that up…). But waitaminit – doesn’t virtual gold account for half of China’s export revenue? At least it seems that way…
“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services,” the Ministries said.
The Chinese government estimates that trade in virtual currency exceeded several billion yuan last year, a figure that it claims has been growing at a rate of 20% annually. One billion yuan is currently equal to about $146 million.The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.
The most popular form of virtual currency in China is called “QQ coins,” a form of virtual credit issued by Tencent.com.
Tencent.com, which has about 220 million registered users — about as many as Facebook — is quoted in the Chinese government news release as “resolutely” supporting the new rule. The government justifies its ban on virtual currency trading as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.
One wonders how this will affect the in-game economies of games like World of Warcraft. Boing Boing speculates that this will lead to the practice of gold farming migrating to other areas of the globe, like Vietnam or Eastern Europe – and that the current model is dominated by Chinese WoW-tongs who control the exchange of goods across servers. Probably true. In fact, I’d argue this is a good reason all MMO’s should move towards EVE Online’s more mercenary, hands-off approach to resource management.
(via Kotaku)
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Comments
And I note with some amusement that the Google ad at the top of this page is for Gold Farming services. Thanks contextual ads!
Probably because they don't control it like a conventional currency…that's probably part of the reason.
Notice the lack of shirts on the boys on the other screens; it’s damn hot in those non-AC computer game sweatshops.