On Gold Farming

Gold farming. Every MMO player knows of it, not all of them disapprove of it. To be honest, I'm surprised that I haven't spoken about it yet in this blog as it is a very interesting and controversial issue surrounding MMOs. If you stumbled upon this blog by accident and have no idea what gold-farming even is, check this out please. The business of gold farming touches upon questions of ethics, property rights and the general spirit of games.

As a player myself, I understand how much work must often go into obtaining gold in World of Warcraft. While there isn't a fixed rate, it certainly takes several hours a day worth of play to start making a decent amount of gold for yourself. After all that work, there is a certain sense of entitlement. You worked hard, you earned your reward. However, this sort of ideology becomes a bit fuzzy in the virtual world. Who does in fact own digital property? Is it the person who found or created an item or is it the team of designers who made the item? The jury is still out, but for clarification purposes, Blizzard clearly states in the terms of service that Blizzard owns the rights to all their players' accounts. So from a legal standpoint, Blizzard owns all the items and gold that is in game. From this point, real world transactions of virtual world products can be seen as stealing, or at least profiting off the work of another party.

The ethical arguments surrounding gold farming are varied. While it is a stereotype, typically gold farmers are players in China that work several hours a day for fairly low wages. In 2005, Ge Jin, a PhD student from UCSD made a documentary (preview here) that followed several employees of a gold farming business in China. The conditions in which they work are difficult and the hours are long. Yet these people enjoy their jobs. China's booming population requires many jobs and so its citizens are more willing to put up with working conditions that are very uncomfortable.

Another problem with gold farming is the question of source. As noted above, there is a stereotype that all gold farmers are Chinese. Some gold farmers however, are simply hackers. These players come from all over and sell gold that they have stolen from players' accounts. This is usually done by having players who want to buy gold accidentally download a trojan horse virus that siphons some gold from the player. In some of the more extreme cases, they steal everything: gold, items, even the characters, which are then resold. Recently worldofwarcraft.com released a cveaat against going to gold farming sites, explaining to users how gold is often illegitimately taken from other users.

I personally dislike gold farming. Yes, because of some of the above reasons, but also because as a game designer I find that it goes against the very nature of the game. It's turning something fun into a business. I understand that many of us do not have the time to properly gain wealth in WoW or sometimes it's just that tempting to buy that extra 1000g you need for an epic mount, but it just doesn't seem right. The game is so expansive and well crafted that if you play faithfully and truly experience the game, you will be able to get any item you want. Yes, it will require hard work, but that's part of the fun. Buying gold is a shortcut, which is borderline cheating. Sometimes cheats are valuable to the game experience. Designers cannot always plan for everything and occasionally players find ways to exploit the system within the game. This sort of exploitation comes from outside the game and ruins the magic circle.