Article - REAL world of Online Farming for profit.

I scanned/reduced a magazine article that pretty much made me sick to my stomach.

I'm also posting this because I'm sick of people saying that people can sell items/gold/whatever for real world cash and justify it because your buying THEIR time. Well... your not buying their time, your lining their pockets.

Quit it with the rubber stamp response. Your not buying gold your paying for their time getting it.


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This is ridiculous.

***Edited: Great article but easier to read from the URLs you've posted***

I cant read em

Click on them to enlarge the images.

Those people were busted for running sweatshops which are violations of local laws, not because they were violating the terms&agreements of the game companies.

Who's fault is this? Let's think...Oh, Anet! I'd never buy gold for money, but if it was as easy to earn 100,000 gold in the game as it is to earn $9 in real life, it would upset the whole ebay market.

I actually read an article in toronto life (worst waiting room ever) that estimated the online money industry as worth 1 billion/yr. There was a fold out on these guys marketing the stuff too. I was disgusted.

no it wouldnt, because there will always be lazy people that want to get cash easily. If you could get 100k in less than an hour, it would completely crash the economy.

but there would be no need for an economy because people would have the option of buying pvp unlocks to get to the no-grind pvp haven the game was supposed to become.

In a positive light : They are creating jobs for the poor souls.
My personal thoughts? This whole underground network sounds pretty cool.
If I ever met "Smooth Criminal" or "Sell"?
I would probably give em a swift kick to the nuts.

Only way to beat this is to remove the monetry system altogether, switch to using the new Faction system to pay for everything and have weapon and weapon upgrade traders. It still would not completely get rid of the real money traders because they could still get "beefed" up characters then sell them. To counteract that I have no idea how.

Just a reminder.
As bad as Smooth Criminal or Sell might be: They have a market and a market always requires 2 sides: seller and buyer

Obviously there are enough people stupid/lazy/whatever enough to spend offline cash (does that term exist? ) for online cash.

So who are the bad guys? Buyers? Sellers?

My guess is: both

Call me cruel or not, but being paid ANYTHING to play video games for ranges around 15 hours a day would be fine by me. Rake in the dollas, rot on my comfortable chair and wait for carpal tunnel syndrom, ah what a life.

On the other hand, the 9-5 guy just got out of the office and has an hour to play on Guild Wars maybe every couple days. After all, he has a family to care for, he can't spend a lot of time playing. He doesn't have money to buy any new weapons or armor for himself. But what's this? For less than $20 he can get more gold than he could spend for a long while. He makes far more than $20 an hour, but it would take him countless hours to get that much gold himself. Therefore, it is more efficient for him to buy gold. Small expense for some happiness, and a gaming merchant makes a sale.

Is selling convienience so foreign? If you think that it is harmful to the economy or is against the game rules, that is one thing. However, there is nothing INHERANTLY wrong with selling in game gold. Even with my summer part time job I make dollars much faster than their equivalent in gold. If I wanted gold, but didn't want to farm, it is strictly more time efficient for me to use dollars.

I personally think games will become VERY interesting once systems facilitating selling for cash become official. I don't think it's a bad thing, its just something not everyone is ready for.

If you find yourself looking for shortcuts within a game, you are removing the purpose of playing the game. It is just that simple. Trying to find or create shortcuts in any other social event is frowned upon, however video games seem to be a misnomer for some reason.

People can point fingers at Anet and the groups which profit off this currently unstoppable tactic all they want.

But instead people should be pointing to the mysterious figure in the mirror on their very own medicine cabinet in the bathroom if they want to see the real criminals.

Through our desperate struggle to become the best in computer games and earn a rather meaningless reputation, we have now resorted to buying the so-called best items in games with money which could have been put to better use through donations to your local charity to increase the funding on the currently worldwide problem of Cancer.

Do you want a reputation which will be taken seriously by your peers? Put down the mouse, step away from your computer, and write a check to a charity to show that you actually have some compassion for others rather than for yourself.

Whoa I should do this for a living! Ill make sure to be one of those guys who try to encourage people to donate their money to charity when I retire.

Im gonna go ram my head against a brick wall a few times for making this post.

A comrade of mine on TGH did some original research that proves that the "sweatshops" as they are sometimes called actually pay 4x the local minimum wage and the hours are comparable to those of people who work in most cities.

find the thread here

It's too much for me to copy and paste, but I think the facts presented there are very relevant here.

Not really. Shortcuts are meant to improve the quality of living, letting you spend more time on what you like. Computers are shortcuts. Caluclators are shortcuts. Similarly, people being "rushed" in GW is a shortcut. They cut out the boring part(if they are playing with their 2nd or 3rd character) and do the portion they like. People buying gold in ebay is also a shortcut.

Many people in 3rd world countries dont have nice avenues for employment. So they gladly work in "Farming Sweatshops" all day to earn a little money without too much work. And $1/hour isnt insignificant because the cost of living is extremely low there.

And on the other hand, there are people who have a full-time job, and cant play more than couple of hours a day. They spend a tiny fraction of their money for shortcuts, in order to enjoy the part of the game they like most.

I agree.... I think all this talk about who gets paid what and whether its legal is interesting debate but really doesn't matter in the long run for most gamers.

Bottom line if nobody bought stuff off these guys they wouldn't be in business.

Does that mean people who work in sweatshops in China will make more or less? Who knows... but there going to come a point where games like this are simply not going to be fun anymore.

Aye, True.

GW was advertised to be exactly not that. They said that spending more time isnt going to make a difference. Its all about skill, not time, they said.

Look at PvE
The whole concept of Fissure Armor encourages farming-encourages spending a lot of time-this enchances the value of things like ecto, which in turn forces PvE players who dont have much time to buy them for real cash.

Look at PvP
To Unlock all you want, you have to go through a LOT of grind. People dont like this and buy unlocked accounts in ebay.

The solution is in the game itself. Make it as you meant it to be.

Succulent wrongness. This past month, PC gamer had the same phenomenon in an article, and spoke to the CEO/Chairman of a MAJOR farming company.

Owned.