10/23   I was reading a Chinese newspaper, and according to an article in
        it, they now have 8000 people in rural villages in China working
        to make virtual gold for World of Warcraft.  The job for these
        villagers in China is to play the game and do simple repetitive
        tasks to earn gold.  The virtual gold is then sold to US players.
        The money they make doing this is better than what they get from
        farming.  The article also says that these people are causing
        severe inflation in the WofW world, since what they do is like
        printing money.  Because of the inflation, they are making less
        than before but it is still very profitable.  It also quoted an
        estimate that says China will make 100 million US dollars from this.
        One guy doing this business says he makes US$10000 per month.
        \_ Could you please post the url, or was this a physical paper?
           \_ this is from the "weekly magazine" that comes with today's
              (Sunday) copy of World Daily, a US newspaper owned by one
              of 2 major newspapers of Taiwan.
              (Sunday) copy of World Daily (US subsidiary of one of
              2 major newspapers of Taiwan) which I get for free when
              I buy $20 worth of groceries.
              2 major newspapers of Taiwan).
        \_ The Economist had some mention of this, but nothing on this scale.
        \_ OMG WTF when did the world turn into a Neil Stephenson novel?!?!1!!
           D0000D!!!!11!!
        \_ Either PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World had an article about this
           it's big business in asia, boiler rooms full of people running
           scripts over and over again and selling the stuff.  My question
           always is: who are all these clowns spending real $$$ for this
           stuff?
           \_ You can spend 6 hours of time on tedious gold gathering
           \_ You can spend 12 hours of time on tedious gold gathering
              activities, or you can spend 2 bucks for the gold, and
              head on off to exciting adventures with your buddies.
        \_ what I dont understand is most of the stuff truly worth getting
           in world of warcraft you can't buy from other players and have
           to go and get yourself.  There's not a lot of worthwhile stuff
           that is buyable with gold alone.  So who are these farmers'
           customers and what the heck are they buying? -Avid WoW player
           \_ I only played for a month and got bored and cancelled.  If the
              good stuff can't be bought with gold, then why is the person
              above talking about spending 6 hours gathering it?  What use
              does it have?  I never got above level 20 so I have no idea
              about the high level game but I never found myself starving for
              cash.  I used the junk that dropped, sometimes nabbed something
              cheap at the auction house, bought some trivial supplies a few
              times, but never felt that "in only I had another 100,000 gold
              I'd be set, I should farm it for 6 hours or spend real money
              buying it".  I just played the game, such as it was.
              \_ I don't play, but don't you have to buy your "mount" with
                 gold? And maybe skills and stuff?
                 \_ the 'mount' and 'epic mount' are really the only major
                    thing you can get with gold alone.  The basic mount is
                    100g, and usually you have enough gold for that accumulated
                    by the time you are high enough level to use it.  The 'epic'
                    mount, at 1000g, certainly would take extensive farming. but
                    it is a one-time purchase, and not that great anyway.
                    I still dont see a $100M market out of gold just for mounts.
                    And skills aren't that significant an expense either, and
                    also, one-time purchase per character.
        \_ I read a short story where rival "farming" gangs hired players
           to knock off the others' farmers plus the added twist where some
           person was trying to unionize them. Cute bit of fluff.
           \_ I ran across an article that describes how these "sweatshop"
              workers manage to smuggle some of the gold from their bosses
              to make profit on the side.