The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

Although we had discussed in class that people sell items in Second Life for real money, I had not considered the real life implications of a virtual economy until reading Dibbell’s article, “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer.” This is not the first that I’ve heard of people buying gold in World of Warcraft, but I had no idea of the controversy surrounding it or who exactly was involved in the sale of this “gold.” I was surprised that WoW gold is yet another example of an industry that exploits the cheap wages of Chinese workers to produce products for Western consumers. I also was unaware that this was a sort of underground market that is prohibited by game makers. I had imagined that WoW had a similar system to that in Second Life where people could trade items for real money in game. I also envisioned that the people selling goods would be individual gamers who saw it as a dream come true to make money playing videogames all day.

None of my assumptions hold true in the case of WoW, and issues that I had never considered, such as the integrity of the game, complicate the lives of these Chinese gold farmers. I can certainly understand the prospective of a serious gamer that it would be cheating for a newbie to come along and buy all of the gold that she/he had spent days, weeks, or months collecting. Doing so seems to be the equivalent of someone using a cheat code in a videogame that grants them access to unearned items and gives them unusual powers. While this is no problem in a one-player game, such actions would be considered unfair if playing against someone. Yet, even with this in mind, should people lose their actual real life jobs for providing someone with an advantage in a virtual world? I think this question is even further complicated by the working conditions of the gold farmers, which make it seem that this business is unfair all around.