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General: Buying Virtual Goods Supports the Poor
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
According to a new article at BBC News, players who purchase virtual goods from 'farmers' working in China and Vietnam are helping to support those who would otherwise have no income at all. The report further suggests that the income made by gold farming companies encourages economic development in these countries.
The high proportion of money from such sales that reaches those in the country where the work was done might mean that it could aid development in many nations, said the report which was co-commissioned by the World Bank and development organisation InfoDev.
It contrasted this situation with that of coffee which was worth $70bn annually in 2009 but only $5.5bn of that reached nations that farm coffee beans.
"This suggests that the virtual economy can have a significant impact on local economies despite its modest size," it said.
Read more here or check out the report directly here.
Comments
It also supports people who take part in illegal behavior. Those who create viruses, trojans, and commit what is akin to identity theft by breaking into emails and accounts of gamers so that they can steal virtual goods to then turn around and sell them.
Through the same logic, if you really want to help support the poor over in China, shop at Walmart. At least this way you wouldn't be promoting criminal behavior.
Buying illegal drugs also helps support the poor. Should we do that as well?
Giving your money to the poor for free also helps the poor, so why should be buy illegally made (fake money) to support these ill deeds?
Nothing justifies buying (fake money) from (fake money farmers).
Just ruins the games economy and helps fund their future (as pointed out trojans/keyloggers) illegal endevers.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Buying heroin helps poor farmers in Aghanistan. So lets all shoot up.
This may be one of the worst articles I've seen on this website, and there has been some grade-A crap posted up here in the past.
Donating to UNICEF helps poor people too, so why can't my in-game fluff that I buy give me a tax-deductable receipt?
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
I'm glad you raised the drug analogy because they are in many ways the same, prohibition on both has failed spectacularly and the demand for them remains but the prohibition drives these industries underground and puts money into the hands of nasty and dangerous people while the "innocent" people who are involved in the creation of the initial product get a pittance.
If drugs and gold farming where carefully managed and monitored the money would go into the hands of legitimate business and fair trade deals would be setup ensuring the poorest people involved would get a better deal and there would be less crime and the product would be cheaper for the people who use them.
Another factor is that instead of a continuing expense for governments and developers they could actually profit from it and set it up so that the negative effects would be minimised, an example would be the US government could use tax and duty income to fund rehab and education projects and relieve customs and police of a huge economic burden while a smaller indie MMO could take a cut from a 3rd party gold selling outfit and put the cash back into the game or company wallet.
Gold farming is no different in many respects, devs could profit, the hackers would find it less profitable and a whole genuine industry could spring up benefiting everyone.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
All they have to do is what LOTRO did .. Ban China.
I fully agree.
One of the reaons I go elsewhere for my MMO news / features and stuff these days. This place has gone way down hill.
I believe every western developer would be wise to IP ban China, the Phillipines, Vietnam, Thailand, and probably S.Korea, just on general priciples and to protect the integrity of various IG economies. Not like there are many legitimate players from those places (except maybe S.Korea and they are known to host vitual cash/item selling companies, because it is legal there, so screw them). They want to set up Asia only severs to contain the problem? Fine.
Screw the gold/item farmers. Leeches.
proxy, ever heard of it?
also inb4 5h17570rm
hacked accs etc is a funny argument, its like organ transplation is bad cause the black market fucks up people for it since its good money.
Pi*1337/100 = 42
How is it that these people are so poor, yet they have access to computers? Hell, even I can't always keep my internet connection on. What a bunch of bullshit.
If you've seen a how and where gold farming takes place you'd be discusted i assure you. up to 12 people live in a small 1 bedroom flat where they take in turns doing 12 hours shifts, 6 do 12, the other 6 do 12, they earn next to nothing and eat the same junk food over and over.
i like how gold farms are portrayed as bad thing - usually by the developers - yet devveloper owned cash shops are becoming more and more prominent which basically amount to the exact same thing
I dont use either, but if buying from a gold farm is helping those in a worse off country/situation than most of us in the western world, thats not in itself a bad thing imo
im sure those working 12 hour shifts to make a few $ are happier than living on the streets and begging
The definition of an illegal activity is one that is specified as illegal in statute. Gold farming is illegal in no country in the world. None. InSouth Korea, the Supreme Court ruled that it was a legitimate business practice, subject to the same laws as any other form of business, as well as taxable.
So everyone here who is stating that it is an illegal activity is wrong. That's the black and white of it. It isn't illegal at all. On any level.
http://www.themmoquest.com - MMO commentary from an overly angry brit. OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
Patently incorrect.
It is for a fact "illegal" in China, I was there a bit ago when they made the annoucement. And ironically, this is where most of it takes place.
Not inforced much, but it is illegal there.
Blows a country sized whole in your argument.
Just to prove I am not speaking in ignorance....
China Bans Gold Selling
Jun 29th 2009 at 7:40PM
Gold farmers! They're everywhere, right? We get spammed by them, we run into them farming Dire Maul, we put them on ignore. Lazy people with too much disposable income buy gold from them in a show of crass consumerism. Blizzard has done their best to stamp out gold-farming services, but litigation is difficult due to the fact that most of the major gold-farming companies are based in China or other parts of Asia. They've instead opted to try to control and stop gold farmers from being able to complete transactions via other methods.
This time, though, it looks like Blizzard may have an unlikely ally in, of all things, the Chinese government. They announced today that the trading of virtual goods for real money is now illegal in China. This ruling reaches farther than just gold farming, though. It also bans the sale of prepaid time cards for MMOs or other online games, as well as numerous technicalities we're sure to hear about in the weeks to come.
To give you an idea of how much an economic impact this will have on China, gold farming alone generates nearly one billion dollars a year worldwide, with China's specific numbers growing at a reported rate of 20% per year. It's estimated that 80 to 85 percent of gold farmers reside in China, so this ruling is massive and, to be frank, pretty troubling.
From a gamer's perspective, yes, it'll be nice to worry about this kind of service a little less, but from a human perspective this places hundreds of thousands of Chinese people in one of two kinds of serious trouble: the first is financial hardship from the "honest" gold-farming companies that will close down after this ban, and the second is legal issues from the companies who don't close down because they can't afford not to do what they've been doing.
It's not my intention to defend gold farming as an industry, because I used to have to deal with its more nefarious effects every day -- compromised accounts stripped of gold and gear, keyloggers, disruptive spam, all of that. But life isn't easy for many Chinese people working jobs like this. Many gold farming centers are much cleaner and safer, in relative terms, than other places in China where one on the bottom rung of the financial ladder might seek work, so while I appreciate the change as only a white first-world male can, I worry about what will happen to the underprivileged working-class Chinese people behind the spam ads and dead gnomes when this law starts getting enforced.
[Mod Edit]
Sounds like BBC got some sweet money for making this article, though they are really just promoting an activity that is illegal on that country like pointed out by the poster above. It's no different than purchasing smuggled goods, illegal drugs, or anything like that, after all you're helping poor people that would have otherwise no income.
An obvious bait .... ok I will bite.
Who cares if it is illegal or not, the point is simply it ruins the game experience for players.
If you think about buying virtual goods, maybe you should save the money and stop playing - Because then it is not the game you like.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
What an utterly rediculous article by the BBC. Like people already said, buying illegel drugs or maybe stolen merchandise helps poor people/countries, but should we go out and buy that stuff too? Of course not, as it's just giving the law breakers more incentive to keep on acting like the rules do not apply to them. Many of thse RMT websites you may go to are filled with trojans and scripts that will easily steal your credit card numbers from you. How else do you think they constantly open up new accounts on many games (as many games have severe trial limitations).
It's funny to see F2P games with trash cash shops threatening to ban players for gold buying.
Just make gold a purchasable cash shop item and/or allow people to sell cash shop items-currency to other players for gold. The game makes more money and there's no way for scams to make a profit. Gold sellers would dry up in a few weeks.
Articles written about gaming issues by non-gamers, funny.
Crafters would end gold farmers if there were no artificial controls on price quality and time. But ya, just selling gold works too.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
So all gold farmers are coming from china then?
Mostly yes.
This whole article was a bunch of BS.
And the drug analogy is right on point: why doesn't everyone go out and buy some nice cocaine, because it will make the life of some impoverished Uruguayan coca farmer better. Why not some heroin, for that poor farmer in Afghanistan.
Stupid logic.
These people have no idea about gaming and the gaming industry, do they even know who is making money out of this? Many of you have seen pictures of the sweat shops that do the gold farming. Did the reserchers of this paper think this was being done by those in poverty from a laptop at home?
Goldselling is appaling both for players who want a fair playing field and the people in the third world.