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The Good and The Bad of Gold Farming
sugar123
Member Posts: 2
It is hard to talk about Goldfarming without first understand what it is. Goldfarming is the term used to describe selling virtual goods for real life currency. It is also the term used for working in a virtual world to exclusively generate wealth with the intent of later selling it for money. The virtual goods come from games known as MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing games). These games create worlds populated by other real life people who interact with each other and virtual characters that are part of the world. How players interact with the virtual character largely depends on the game but the RPG elements require some idea of being able to upgrade and build your character through your progress in the game.
Gold farming can have its benefits depending on how you look at it. These games are fun but do require a huge time commitment. People find they do wish to take part in the fun without having to devote so much time to leveling up and find buying accounts and gear as a short cut. They get the fun without the commitment. Also people tend to play this game with their friends and since it is a game based so much on community if someone is new to the game and their friends are much higher then them there is little chance they can play together in the game. Much the same way children and adults dont generally work or play together usually different levels interact mainly within their peers. People who buy items can also justify this as reasoning that it would take them a huge amount of time for an item that they would really like. Instead of going to get it paying a reasonable price may be better suited to them.
Whether gold farming is good for online games or not is still undecided and as time goes on we will see the affects. What is interesting to see is how the games themselves view this practice. As I said earlier most people in the games look down towards it as they see someone high level without the work put in to achieve the status. Often players in the game refuse to cooperate with players that have bought accounts because they do not trust their ability. Initially when the first Everquest accounts were posted for sale on Ebay Sony entertainment the producer of Everquest tried to ban the accounts of these players citing that the property they were selling was Sonys own virtual property. Rather than stop the practice it merely went underground and people continued to sell their accounts through other avenues. World of Warcraft another widely successful MMORPG take the same stance and has recently banned several accounts for goldfarming. Now Everquest has changed their view and intends on allowing players to sell their accounts and items but through Sonys own venues.
The most recent changes in gold farming come from new virtual sweat shops where whole companies hire people to play the online games 24/7 solely for the purpose of selling the gold they collect to other players. This is becoming a booming business and is not likely to change in the future
We can see the parallels between the real world and these new virtual worlds we have created and if history has taught us anything if there is a way for people to make money they will do it and there is little we can do to stop it. We do have choices we can allow it and let these virtual markets and real world economy co-exist or track down the offenders in hopes to deter them. It is an interesting industry and opinions are vast but now that you know what gold farming is and the history behind it only you can decide where you weigh in on the gold the bad and the ugly of gold farming.
Comments
Gold farming can have its benefits depending on how you look at it.
I am agree with it
Getting on another account to agree with your statement doesn't count you know.
haha pwnd
I AM AGREE WITH IT
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Why are you reading this? This is crap compared to what's above.
I agree with goold farming its not like you can just pop off 100 gold for a mount if you got a lil bit of money and dont have the time buy it.they have it for most every mmorpg anyway.
Demoku: Anarchy Online (Rimor)