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In contrast, player-groups in the MMORPG community who are opposed to what they call the 'secondary market' hold the view that "players with large bank accounts simply buy their way to the top, it ruins that element of the game for everyone else."<ref>http://www.nogold.org/why/</ref> Further player-groups are now taking legal action against purveyors of this secondary market outside the game.<ref>http://www.igeclassaction.com/?page_id=2</ref> This has taken the form of a class action lawsuit against IGE initiated by longtime World of Warcraft player Antonio Hernandez. The game-maker, Blizzard commented recently upon this suit saying "Blizzard Entertainment strongly supports the goals of this lawsuit. We agree that real-money transfer is harmful to the game as a whole and to the experience of all legitimate players" <ref>http://au.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25682501</ref> showing such player-groups do have support within the MMO Industry against ''secondary market'' distributors.
In contrast, player-groups in the MMORPG community who are opposed to what they call the 'secondary market' hold the view that "players with large bank accounts simply buy their way to the top, it ruins that element of the game for everyone else."<ref>http://www.nogold.org/why/</ref> Further player-groups are now taking legal action against purveyors of this secondary market outside the game.<ref>http://www.igeclassaction.com/?page_id=2</ref> This has taken the form of a class action lawsuit against IGE initiated by longtime World of Warcraft player Antonio Hernandez. The game-maker, Blizzard commented recently upon this suit saying "Blizzard Entertainment strongly supports the goals of this lawsuit. We agree that real-money transfer is harmful to the game as a whole and to the experience of all legitimate players" <ref>http://au.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25682501</ref> showing such player-groups do have support within the MMO Industry against ''secondary market'' distributors.


On May 1, 2007, the MMORPG RuneScape released information regarding Chinese and Korean sweatshops making money by playing the game repetitively (or by the use of cheating macros) and selling the virtual currency for real world money. Today there are still many game sweatshops that sell Runescape money (Prices average $4-$5 for 1M).<ref>http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=785</ref>
On May 1, 2007, the MMORPG RuneScape released information regarding Chinese and Korean sweatshops making money by playing the game repetitively (or by the use of cheating macros) and selling the virtual currency for real world money. Today there are still many game sweatshops that sell Runescape money (Prices average $4-$5 for 1 million coins).<ref>http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=785</ref>


== References ==
== References ==

Revision as of 21:07, 24 November 2007

A game sweatshop is a business concerned with making and selling accounts and in-game currency on MMORPGs[1]. The term can also refer to a building containing computers installed with MMORPGs (e.g. RuneScape, World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc), which generate money for the business. Laborers work on the computers to either collect in-game currency or to generate high-level characters. Organizations run like this are referred to as sweatshops because the gold farmers usually make very little money[2][3].


How it is a problem

While the MMORPG community is growing rapidly, another sector of the gaming industry is the online game merchandise industry. The practice of paying real money for accounts or money in-game is largely discouraged by many games, such as RuneScape, which explicitly prohibits this sort of activity. This is because of two main reasons. One reason is that buying accounts/money is considered by many to be against the spirit of the game; one can work for thousands and thousands of hours to achieve high levels and obtain gold. Another reason is because of the risk. When a person buys in-game currency online, there is no guarantee that they will receive their purchase; unlike in real life, online games have no way of making somebody come through with their trade. This, of course, applies to any on-line purchase, and many off-line purchases as well. A more philosophical objection is that the practice uses up human labour without producing anything, so it is a full net loss for the world economy. Whilst discouraged in these games it is almost impossible to stop.

Effects on MMORPGs

Game sweatshops greatly affect the economies of MMORPGs. An example of this is RuneScape. Around late 2006 to early 2007, there was a great increase of sweatshops that sold RuneScape currency. The laborers in these sweatshops work repetitively, which brings in a massive inflow of products into the economy. Following the laws of supply and demand, prices of specific items greatly decreased, while others increased. So while it is true that gold farmers affect the economy, there is no conclusive evidence to show they negatively affect the economy. 100 hours of "sweatshop" gold farming has the exact same impact that 100 hours of normal player gold farming has.[citation needed]

In contrast, player-groups in the MMORPG community who are opposed to what they call the 'secondary market' hold the view that "players with large bank accounts simply buy their way to the top, it ruins that element of the game for everyone else."[4] Further player-groups are now taking legal action against purveyors of this secondary market outside the game.[5] This has taken the form of a class action lawsuit against IGE initiated by longtime World of Warcraft player Antonio Hernandez. The game-maker, Blizzard commented recently upon this suit saying "Blizzard Entertainment strongly supports the goals of this lawsuit. We agree that real-money transfer is harmful to the game as a whole and to the experience of all legitimate players" [6] showing such player-groups do have support within the MMO Industry against secondary market distributors.

On May 1, 2007, the MMORPG RuneScape released information regarding Chinese and Korean sweatshops making money by playing the game repetitively (or by the use of cheating macros) and selling the virtual currency for real world money. Today there are still many game sweatshops that sell Runescape money (Prices average $4-$5 for 1 million coins).[7]

References

  1. ^ Thompson, Tony (2005-03-13). "They play games for 10 hours - and earn £2.80 in a 'virtual sweatshop'". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-06-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/dtcook/www/CCCnewsletter/7-2/jin.htm
  3. ^ http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815
  4. ^ http://www.nogold.org/why/
  5. ^ http://www.igeclassaction.com/?page_id=2
  6. ^ http://au.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25682501
  7. ^ http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=785

See also

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