In a recent article on the New York Times website, writer Julian Dibbell analyzes gold farming - more specifically in World of Warcraft - and even goes as far as researching and talking about some of the many, possibly over 100,000 people that work at these "gaming workshops" in China.
It was an hour before midnight, three hours into the night shift with nine more to go. At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him. The screen showed a lightly wooded mountain terrain, studded with castle ruins and grazing deer, in which warrior monks milled about. Li, or rather his staff-wielding wizard character, had been slaying the enemy monks since 8 p.m., mouse-clicking on one corpse after another, each time gathering a few dozen virtual coins — and maybe a magic weapon or two — into an increasingly laden backpack.
You can check out the article in full here, and head over to our forums to discuss the article; we have a thread started on the topic.
