Gold farming
is a practice that has been going on forever. If you play any MMO you know what I’m talking about. Whether it’s in World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online or any other online game you happen to frequent that requires virtual currency to obtain in-game privileges, there’s always going to be someone shilling virtual currency for real world dollars. To most players that means one of two things: (1) buying gold with little afterthought or regard to end-user license agreements or (2) someone spamming trade chat with gold offers that are easily blocked with a couple of clicks – no more than a slight annoyance to deal with and a minor inconvenience to report. That’s where it ends for most. Not many players really consider the other side of the coin (no pun intended) and see the dark side of what otherwise seems like a harmless practice providing an innocent service. A little while ago I wrote an article about how international gold farming shops could potentially be tied to criminal enterprise to try and shed a little light on the topic. What that article didn’t address was the gross human rights issues that go with it.
Recently, stories about abuse and physical torture for the sake of gold farming were reported in The Guardian. The report revolves around a former prison guard, Liu Dali (whose name has been changed for security), who spent some time in 2004 imprisoned at the Jixi labor camp in northeast China. His crime was “illegally petitioning” the government about corruption that had run rampant in his home town. After spending entire days digging trenches and breaking rocks in coal mines, he would put down the shovel and pickaxe and pick up a keyboard and mouse for his next labor shift: gold farming for hours on end. While to some that may seem like something light compared to manual labor in the mines, it’s actually worse. For this task, already being physically exhausted was accompanied by living in fear of abuse and beatings. "If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically," Liu explained. "They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.” This was after manufacturing seat covers for cars. And after carving chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and torn. And barely being afforded the time to sleep before the next shift started.
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