China bans gold farming

[Angrist]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/chinese-government-bans-gold-farming_5

This is huge news. Imagine the impact it will have on the Chinese and virtual economies.

[Dylflon]

I wish more people banned stupid bullshit.


Score one for China.

[Professor S]

I don't see how this is a good thing. These people offer a product and people buy the product because they want it. After the thousands of dollars WoW players dump into the service, I don't see why some of them can't make some of that back, espacially because no one forces anyone to buy or sell anything. Why stomp on free enterprise for no legitimate reason?

*remember it's China*

Oh yeah, thats right...

[Angrist]

Well, it's always been illegal. You can't blame a country for respecting the wishes of a company.

I did see it as a (controversial) aid from the west to the east. Rich people here paid poor people there. They're going to lose a lot of revenue.

[thatmariolover]

I know several farmers and none of them seem the least bit perturbed about the ban. They don't think it will be enforced to any degree worthy of notice.

[Bond]

Could someone fill me in as to what this is about? Virtual gold farming?

[Angrist]

It's not so much finding the virtual gold as selling it for real money. If you'd play WoW and you needed gold, you could go to a website and pay a Chinese (or anyone) real dollars to give you gold in the game.

In most MMO's it's illegal. It hurts the virtual economy, usually boosting prices. A lot of gamers hate it because they have to 'work hard' for their gold/items/etc. while others just dish out $10 to get the item they want.

Gold farmers play the game for like 20 hours a day, only to make gold. Usually by killing monsters. (That's another reason it's illegal: it hurts the virtual environment, for example when there aren't enough monsters for normal players.) Their bosses pay by the hour, but not very much. Just enough to get some food. The gold farmers often sleep behind their PC. They're often teenagers.

I think that's about it. It's not 100% accurate, because I don't have a full picture. I've just seen this stuff in a documentary, and read about it in the news.

[Ric]

I think basically what it is saying it that they are banning people from selling the gold or currency that they make on online games to other people for 'real' money.

This makes the currency of the game have an actual real life exchange rate and so it becomes open to exploitation and fraud. Essentially people are exchanging their real money for nothing though, it's more of a financial risk than investing in a start up on a stock market.

Online games have been open to exploitation by bots which could be designed to play the game and continually do the simplest thing it can to make money. Imagine then how much you could 'farm' in a day if you had your own little network of say, 20 pc's. And how much you could make by selling this false money. It's like selling money from the board game monopoly, to someone.

It seems weird though that they will still allow the trading of virtual items like swords, armour, etcetera it's essentially the same thing. The problem with all this though is the fact that the computer game developers are not necessecerily benefiting from this. They want in on it and they do own the copyrights but they are not getting the moola from it so essencially trading real cash for items from their games is also a form of piracy.

Personally I do not see what all the fuss is about, it's an individual persons choice to spend their money on whatever they want to, who am I or anyone else to tell you what you should do with your money. I also in some way can respect the entrepreneurial spirit of people that can actually make real money out of this.

Why stomp on free enterprise for no legitimate reason?

Damn greedy corporations :mad2:

[Vampyr]

I don't see how this is a good thing. These people offer a product and people buy the product because they want it. After the thousands of dollars WoW players dump into the service, I don't see why some of them can't make some of that back, espacially because no one forces anyone to buy or sell anything. Why stomp on free enterprise for no legitimate reason?

*remember it's China*

Oh yeah, thats right...

Technically it is against the TOS of just about every MMO ever made.

[Professor S]

I find it hilariously ironic that a supposed communist nation has adopted a corporation's terms of service as law.

[TheGame]

I find it hilariously ironic that a supposed communist nation has adopted a corporation's terms of service as law.

Just because they're communist doesn't mean that they can't have some morals. :P I think many times every country including NA is guilty of the "We're not in their/our country, so we don't have to follow their/our rules"

But yeah it is funny that they banned it.. I think gold farmers completly killed FFXI and its concept of a player run extremely conpetitive economy. WoW is different since the game has a better design, and you can make tons of money without having to stand in the way of other players.

[Professor S]

Just because they're communist doesn't mean that they can't have some morals.

So changing the laws of a sovereign nation to fit in with a massive corporation's business practices is moral/ethical. We must have a different definition of morality and ethics.

[TheGame]

So changing the laws of a sovereign nation to fit in with a massive corporation's business practices is moral/ethical. We must have a different definition of morality and ethics.

Allowing your people to make a huge industry out of something that would be considered illegal if you were in another country is moral/ethical?

[Professor S]

Allowing your people to make a huge industry out of something that would be considered illegal if you were in another country is moral/ethical?

1) I'm not sure that gold farming is illegal anywhere BUT China. I certainly can easily buy gold on-line in the US. As long as you pay taxes I'm pretty sure the US government doesn't give a crap. If it's against Blizzard policies then let Blizzard police it. But to involve the government in enforcing a corporate policy is a shade away from corporatism/fascism. But once again, we're talking about China so why should any of this be a surprise?

2) Legality and morality are not necessarily mutual. Hence my point about the IMMORALITY of the Chinese law. To me, having a government involved in enforcing corporate policies is immoral and blurs if not eliminates the line between government and industry. If that is moral to you, so be it, but it's best we're clear.

3) God forbid people who play a game for hours on end make a living from it, whether it was intended as a part of the game or not. It's called a "cottage industry" and shows a spirit of enterprise that is healthy in a free society.

As a statement of protest, please buy your Gold on-line

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS332&q=buy+wow+gold&aq=0s&oq=by+wow

There are some lovely volume packages available!

[TheGame]

As for legality, you're right it isn't illegal. Though I think that it should be because of its affect on some of these games and companies. I guess coming from a game where RMT (aka gold farmers) completly destroyed the game and cost them countless users and countless amounts of money..

Granted, as I said before that's in big part SE's fault for poor game design for handling such things vs WoW. You could also blame it on the buyers for killing the game, because if nobody had the desire to buy it, nobody would be able to sell it.

Honestly this is a complex subject, and its hard to say who's guilty. But the bottom line is that I don't like gold sellers, or buyers. So I have no problem with that type of thing being made illegal here or anywhere else. Virtual money shouldn't have a real value.

[Typhoid]

I find it hilariously ironic that a supposed communist nation has adopted a corporation's terms of service as law.

If anything I find it more a showing of being a strict dictatorship-style communism than anything corporate.

[Bond]

This thread is on a collision course.


One interesting thing to note about China's economy is that it is not strictly communist, it is more of a hybrid-communism style. The rural areas of the country are strictly communist, while the major cities (Hong Kong, Beijing) are strictly capitalist. This has proved to be very effective for China, but I think it is also very dangerous.

[TheGame]

This thread is on a collision course.


One interesting thing to note about China's economy is that it is not strictly communist, it is more of a hybrid-communism style. The rural areas of the country are strictly communist, while the major cities (Hong Kong, Beijing) are strictly capitalist. This has proved to be very effective for China, but I think it is also very dangerous.

I don't think its on a collision course, strangler is right when you look at it objectively. I'm the selfish bastard who doesn't wan't RMT in any of my games. :P

[Professor S]

I don't think its on a collision course, strangler is right when you look at it objectively. I'm the selfish bastard who doesn't wan't RMT in any of my games. :P

From a gaming perspective I see where you're coming from, but from a legal perspective I think this has all kinds of bad things going on.

Theoretically I'm all for virtual economies. It shows innovation. There was a need, and ambitious young minds filled that need. Why shouldn't they be rewarded for their labors? In the words of Andrew Ryan: "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" :D

As for fairness in the game, well, that's for Blizzrd to figure out.

And Bond, your comments reflect exactly why I think China's actions are funny. They aren't really communist, just as any practicing communist nation isn't communist. At best they're socialist and more likely fascist with better public relations.

There never has been a true communist nation to my knowledge.

[TheGame]

FFXI had a completly player run economy. Anything of value in the game could only be obtained by competing iwth players for 3 to 24 hour spawns. (Some of which have HQ spawns and coudl come once every 5+ days) Anything you could obtain completly solo with no competition for it, was completly worthless.

RMT stood in the way of players in that game extremely bad. Caused the game to be extremely fustrating, lead to more people buying, and a lot of people quitting. And eventually killing what otherwise could have been a decent game.

The prices kept getting jacked up by players and RMT a lot, had very little taxes... and everything was competition... Too much capitilism for a video game. So the poor game design was easy to exploit.