Chinese Gold Farmers, producing in-game currency for Online Games

Chinese Gold Farmers Preview

The documentary investigates gaming workshops in China that hire people to play online games like lineage and World of Warcraft. The gaming workers play at least 12 hours a day to produce in-game currency, equipments and whole characters, which are sold to American players.

Gold Farmer: A person who collects in-game currency in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) for the purpose of selling it to other players for real world currency.

Synopsis:

Multiplayer online games have given rise to a virtual economy, in which all kinds of virtual assets from in-game currency, magic shield to whole characters are traded against real world currency. In China, there are tens of thousands of gaming sweatshops that hire people to play games like World of Warcraft and Lineage. The gaming workers kill monsters and loot treasures for 10-12 hours a day to produce virtual assets that are exported all over the world. They are called Chinese gold farmers by western gamers and many myths about them are circulated in the game universe.

This documentary leads you into several different Chinese gold farms. Who opened those gold farms? How did this industry emerge? What international connections do the gold farm owners have? How do they manage the virtual transactions? Who are these gaming workers? What is it like to play games for a living? Why don't they do something else? You will hear several gold farmers tell their own stories and see their everyday struggles to live at the border of the virtual and the real. Read and see more: Chinese Goldfarmers

Ni Hao (A Gold Farmers Story)

Chinese Gold Farmers Preview Two

I visited more gold farms/gaming workshops in the past several months, so here is more footage of this mysterious industry. The first workshop in this clip is operating 40-people group raids in order to obtain the most precious items and create epic characters.

Chinese Gold Farmers Preview Three