It seems that there are few things more fun than playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. I don’t play these games, but an incredible number of people do, investing significant amounts of time and money in them.
Last week, the New York Times Magazine published an article on what it seems to consider the dark side of these games: Chinese gold farmers. These are Chinese workers who are paid to “play” these games all day, capturing as much loot as possible so their employers can sell it to Americans who don’t want to spend the time earning it the old-fashioned way. (Not long ago, we blogged about an upcoming documentary film on the subject; the Times has also written about gold farming before.)
While Times writer Julian Dibbell seemed troubled by gold farming, I could not agree less with that assessment. From the perspective of demonstrating how free markets work, how reassuring it is that the exact same forces that lead us to import clothes and Thomas the Tank Engine toys from China also work when the good is virtual doubloons?
In addition, is playing these games all day such a bad job? My assistant Amber would love it if I paid her to do that instead of her current duties. My sister-in-law “Saint” Theresa Ewing willingly breaks virtual rocks for hours at a time online, just so that her son Scott can acquire the latest weaponry. She says she finds it relaxing. All of this made me think of the recent New York Times column that Dubner and I wrote, in which we pondered what turned something from a hobby into a chore. Our answer, more or less, was that it is a job if someone else makes you to do it.
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Warcraft isn’t an economy in any real sense. And I’d posit that one needs to play the game for a few _months_ to understand it. Additionally, the EULA forbids external transactions like this. Second Life is of course a very different situation.
Warcraft isn’t an economy in any real sense. And I’d posit that one needs to play the game for a few _months_ to understand it. Additionally, the EULA forbids external transactions like this. Second Life is of course a very different situation.
Long ago I actually did play these games quite a bit, so I think that I have a decent perspective on the matter.
I agree with Levitt very much on this issue that Chinese gold farmers are not a negative. Some people who play these games in the US do nothing but play them which gives them plenty of time to both amass wealth in the game and enjoy the other more fun aspects of it. For the many who have other jobs, family responsibilities, etc. they simply do not have enough time to do the menial tasks which may seem like barriers to the more “endgame” activities.
There may be no “real economy” in Warcraft, but the players are simply exchanging one “real life” commodity for another in our “real world” economy. Of course you have to consider time to be a commodity for this to work.
I do not see how paying Chinese golf farmers for gold in a video game any different than paying someone to mow your lawn for you. In both situations you are paying someone money to save you time.
Long ago I actually did play these games quite a bit, so I think that I have a decent perspective on the matter.
I agree with Levitt very much on this issue that Chinese gold farmers are not a negative. Some people who play these games in the US do nothing but play them which gives them plenty of time to both amass wealth in the game and enjoy the other more fun aspects of it. For the many who have other jobs, family responsibilities, etc. they simply do not have enough time to do the menial tasks which may seem like barriers to the more “endgame” activities.
There may be no “real economy” in Warcraft, but the players are simply exchanging one “real life” commodity for another in our “real world” economy. Of course you have to consider time to be a commodity for this to work.
I do not see how paying Chinese golf farmers for gold in a video game any different than paying someone to mow your lawn for you. In both situations you are paying someone money to save you time.
The more I think about this the more I realize that Ron Paul may be in trouble. If virtual gold is worth something, then why have a real gold standard?
Oh no….my whole campaign to get Ron Paul elected is crumbling before my ego.
The more I think about this the more I realize that Ron Paul may be in trouble. If virtual gold is worth something, then why have a real gold standard?
Oh no….my whole campaign to get Ron Paul elected is crumbling before my ego.
Long time reader, somewhat disbeliever that I registered expressly for this story but here goes.
The Warcraft economy, like all of these games, is subject to inflation that is one of the chief enemies of enjoying the interaction with other players. “New money” is created all the time by monsters that reappear after having been killed but having left their loot for a previous player. The gold farmers are responsible for a lot of inflation. This makes people have to work harder to keep up their enjoyment in a competitive environment. It’s work and not play if someone else is making you do it right? Inflation, and by extension the farming phenomenon, makes you do it.
Rather than look at the farmers as just an example of economics at work, please remember that it is a game where in these guys are helping people cheat. The rules of a game stress equity, not efficiency. These are the rules for everyone in the game, and a controlled economy directed by the company making the game is preferred by the vast majority of players, in contrast to the real world.
Long time reader, somewhat disbeliever that I registered expressly for this story but here goes.
The Warcraft economy, like all of these games, is subject to inflation that is one of the chief enemies of enjoying the interaction with other players. “New money” is created all the time by monsters that reappear after having been killed but having left their loot for a previous player. The gold farmers are responsible for a lot of inflation. This makes people have to work harder to keep up their enjoyment in a competitive environment. It’s work and not play if someone else is making you do it right? Inflation, and by extension the farming phenomenon, makes you do it.
Rather than look at the farmers as just an example of economics at work, please remember that it is a game where in these guys are helping people cheat. The rules of a game stress equity, not efficiency. These are the rules for everyone in the game, and a controlled economy directed by the company making the game is preferred by the vast majority of players, in contrast to the real world.